Posts in five things
Five Things #131

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

  1. According to Spotify's end of year stats, in 2018 I listened to 33,152 minutes of music, 75% of which was "non-mainstream" (compared to the average listener) and my most played artists were: Nils Frahm, Poppy Ackroyd, Radiohead, Metric and Ólafur Arnalds. Here are my most played 100 songs from the last year, be warned it's not the most musically cohesive playlist! If you're a Spotify user you can check out your end of year stats at spotifywrapped.com.

  2. A fascinating piece with a great title: A Yacht, a Monet, a See-Through Piano: The U.S. Collects on a Fugitive’s Shopping Spree

  3. How the hyperlink changed everything — I really like TED's Small Thing Big Idea series that this video is a part of.

  4. Advice everyone should follow: If you have work to do, hide your phone!

  5. 🎧 Jean-Michel Blais' album II (Deluxe) has been getting a lot of play at Farley HQ in the last week. It's a beautiful album. If you only have time to listen to one track, I'd recommend Nostos.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Five Things #130

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

  1. This charming little video might change how you think about small talk.

  2. A great insight into Malika Favre's creative process and how show approaches her illustration projects. If you enjoy the video definitely check out her Instagram.

  3. A really interesting piece on how social media (primarily Instagram) is influencing architecture. It's a little sad to think of everything as just another backdrop to a selfie but if it gets people more interested in the world around them maybe it's a good thing? — "Could our obsession with capturing and sharing also represent an opportunity for innovation? Shouldn’t architects be welcoming a platform that encourages people to look more closely at their surroundings?"

  4. “Few exercises help clarify your thoughts better than writing” — I totally agree with this quote, and everything else in this piece on the benefits of Selfish Writing.

  5. I'm 100% in favour of phone free concerts.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Five Things #129
Bramford paper mill by Ross Farley.JPG

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

  1. I'm only 30 minutes into this but Tim Ferriss' podcast with the drummer Dave Elitch is really good. If you're learning any instrument you'll get a lot out of the first 30 minutes at the very least. I'm sure the remaining 1 hour and 40 minutes will be just as good.

  2. If you like board games check out Ravine. I played it for the first time yesterday and it's a lot of fun. It'll be a fun game to get in time for Christmas. Here's the trailer.

  3. Prepare to have your mind blown: The Shepard's table illusion.

  4. Two videos exploring writing and mixing music on an iPad Pro. I'm really hoping Logic Pro will come to iPad in some form soon. Please Apple, please!

  5. Do you need to work long hours to get a lot done? Charles Darwin didn't think so!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Five Things #128

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

  1. A interesting video exploring how much music is worth.

  2. If you use Instagram you're probably familiar with the term Influencer. Influencers are people with large followings that make a living touting various products to their fans for very large sums of money. Often without revealing their endorsements have been paid for. What a sleazy business.

  3. A great headline: Scientists unravel secret of cube-shaped wombat faeces and an even better opening paragraph: “Of all the many mysteries that surround the common wombat, it is hard to find one as baffling as its ability – broadly acknowledged as unique in the natural world – to produce faeces shaped like cubes.”

  4. I don't think I really appreciated the genius of the London Tube Map. Fascinating video.

  5. An amazing collection of images: Earth’s Wonders Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Five Things #127

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

  1. A band from L.A. booked a European tour by deceiving music venues into thinking they had a large fan base, when in fact they had no fan base at all. Unsurprisingly, when no one turned up to the shows people got a little bit suspicious. It turns out "the band" was just one guy and that he'd set up a fake booking agent and record label to arrange the tour. The whole story is nuts. Bands often big themselves up to impress their fans and to book better gigs, but this is something else. How on earth did he think he'd get away with it?!

  2. A great episode of the Reply All podcast, The Snapchat Thief. If you aren't using a password manager and an app for two factor authentication on your accounts, this should convince you to reconsider that!

  3. Part 1 of a fascinating four-part investigation by Der Spiegel into how Manchester City and its owners broke UEFA's financial fair play rules.

  4. I really like Vox's Earworm series on Youtube. This is my favourite episode to date: Jazz Deconstructed: John Coltrane's "Giant Steps"

  5. The Beatles have released a 50th anniversary edition of the White Album and it's HUGE (107 songs on Spotify). Enjoy!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.