Night Lights

Every Wednesday I share five things I’ve liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s five things…

1. An interactive timeline of popular songs from 1958-2016. Pretty cool!
    
2. I love ambient music (Brian Eno, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Stars Of The Lid) and what do you get when you slow down Windows start-up sounds 4000%? Something that sounds remarkably like ambient music!
    
3. It’s so easy to be critical or mean.. I’m sure Wendy MacNaughton’s list will come in handy!
    
4. A great post by Chris Dixon on the future of technology. Start now — “There has never been a better day in the whole history of the world to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/ risk ratios, better returns, greater upside than now. Right now, this minute. This is the moment that folks in the future will look back at and say, ‘Oh, to have been alive and well back then!’”
    
5. A deeply moving episode of Radiolab. Well worth listening to and reflecting on — “When people are dying and you can only save some, how do you choose? Maybe you save the youngest. Or the sickest. Maybe you even just put all the names in a hat and pick at random. Would your answer change if a sick person was standing right in front of you?”

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!

It's blue

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s five things…

1. Alex Honnold is a free solo climber (no ropes) and a completely fascinating guy. This is a great article on him and how he processes (or doesn’t? process) fear.
    
2. I haven’t done as much reading as I would have liked in the last few weeks. Austin Kleon recently shared this on the rights of the reader. Point three is a big one for me.
    
3. I love Malika Favre’s art and I enjoyed reading this interview on her work and process. She’s one of my favourite people to follow on Instagram.
    
4.  If you read one thing today, make it this. — 232 sand dollars by Derek Sivers
    
5. I haven’t been really paying much attention to the Olympics. However, the feats of the gymnasts have caught my eye — They appear to defy gravity! Check out this video on Simone Biles - very cool.

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!

A man about town taking photos of things he says #2

Here are the five things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. Interesting thoughts on the benefits of sharing what you do or know for free. In a hyper-competitive environment like the internet, standing out from the crowd is difficult. Sharing your expertise for free can be a great way to build a reputation or following. — “Giving My Images Away For Free” by Samuel Zeller.
    
2. One of my favourite podcasts This American Life has just finished an excellent miniseries on the 57,000 refugees living in Greece. It’s far too easy to forget there are people with hopes and dreams just like you and I behind the statistics we hear on the news. This American Life has done a great job illuminating some of these people’s lives. I highly recommend both episodes as well as the online tour of the refugee camps that accompanies the series. Really eye-opening and moving.
    
3. Another podcast recommendation, this time from Radiolab. Totally fascinating and one of my new favourite episodes. — “In this story, a dog introduces us to a strange creature that burrows beneath forests, building an underground network where deals are made and lives are saved (and lost) in a complex web of friendships, rivalries, and business relations. It’s a network that scientists are only just beginning to untangle and map, and it’s not only turning our understanding of forests upside down, it’s leading some researchers to rethink what it means to be intelligent.”
    
4. Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of music by Tim Hecker. Here are some favourites on Spotify. 
    
5. I’m really enjoying Instagram’s new Stories feature. I follow a lot of artists, musicians and photographers and many of them having been sharing behind the scenes footage and insights in to their creative process. The author and illustrator Dallas Clayton’s stories have been some of my favourites. Go follow him and while you’re at it… why not follow me?

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!

Reflect

Here are the five things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. A few weeks ago I started reading Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman about eccentric Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. I'm just over halfway through and can already tell I'll be recommending it to anyone who will listen!
    
2. Attention musicians and concert goers, if you don't wear earplugs you might want to listen to/ read this and reconsider — "an unprotected human ear can spend 8 hours a day exposed to 85 decibels (freeway noise, crowded restaurant) without incurring damage. But if you go up to 115 decibels (chainsaw, loud rock concert) your safe exposure time is only half a minute before your hearing could be affected."
    
3. I'm trying to build more time for reflection, creativity and free-thinking into my day. Detaching from social media and the distractions calling out from our smartphones is hard, but the cost of not doing so is probably higher than you realise. It might be time Hit the Reset Button in Your Brain.
    
4. So far I've resisted the temptation to play Pokemon Go. The concept is great and I'd probably love it... but for now it's an unwelcome distraction. This video on how free mobile games are designed to make money is really worth watching.
    
5. This last week I've made a conscious effort to listen to more unfamiliar/ new music. I love Spotify's Related Artists feature for this. Recent discoveries include Ludovico Einaudi, Chihei Hatakeyama, GoGo Penguin and Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra.

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!

Three Crows

Here are the five things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. Nonkeen (featuring the incredible and prolific Nils Frahm) have just released their second (!!!) album of 2016. It's a bit of an oddball, but saying that, the title is Oddments Of The Gamble (the first album was The Gamble) so it probably shouldn't be much of a surprise. Here it is on Spotify and here's a review by Clash.
    
2. I recently came across the "Poet Laureate of Twitter" Brian Bilston. His poem Refugees is clever and wonderful. You'll find him on Twitter here.
    
3. How technology disrupted the truth — A long-read on how social media and technology is changing/ threatening journalism and the world beyond. An article made all the more important and relevant given the apparent rise of "post-fact politics". Here it is in audio form.
    
4. I've mentioned Seth Godin before on this blog. He's one of my favourite thinkers and someone who inspires me a great deal. I recommend reading EVERYTHING he writes, he's that good. His daily blog is a good place to start. These two posts from the last week are great.
    
5. Christoph Niemann (@abstractsunday) is one of my favourite people to follow on Instagram. I particularly like his New Yorker covers.

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!

Kiev, Ukraine

Here are the five things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. Last week I visited Kiev (Ukraine) for the first time. It's a beautiful city, the people are wonderful and it's a place that you can explore and walk around for hours — my favourite type of city! It beat my expectations in every way. I can't wait to go back.
    
2. "Existence, he says, is fundamentally playful. It's less like a journey, and more like a piece of music or a dance. And the point of dancing isn't to arrive at a particular spot on the floor; the point of dancing is simply to dance." — A Nihilist's Guide to Meaning by Kevin Simler.
    
3. I've been learning German with the help of Duolingo for several years now and they've just released a new app called Tinycards which is designed to help you "memorise anything quickly". Using flashcards to aid memorisation is a learning hack that I've come across a lot and I'm sure this app will be useful to my fellow Learners out there!
    
4. If you want to be a better writer, read this. Fast and to the point — The Day You Became A Better Writer by Scott Adams.
    
5. I recently finished reading Maximum Willpower by Jane McGonigal. It's an enlightening book on self-control and limitations of willpower. I wish I'd got round to reading it sooner!

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts straight to your inbox. Enjoy!