If you’re curious about quantum entanglement (and a type of synesthesia) at all, check out this week’s Invisibilia show on NPR called Entanglement.
Category Archives: Asides
You can’t go wrong with Amazon’s 100 Books To Read In A Lifetime. I’ve only read a bit over a dozen of them, and some of those in school when I probably didn’t appreciate them. I’ve never had a time in my life when I thought, “You know, I’m reading too much.” It’s a weekend — read!
The Atlantic has a set of 45 pictures that are both beautiful and shocking to commemorate Earth Day.
Two big releases today: WordPress 4.2 with lots of interface improvements and emoji support, and the 3.5 release of Jetpack with a new menu editor.
I travel back and forth between Japan and the United States, mostly Tokyo and New York and a few other American cities, several times a year. The contrast is jarring. Arriving in the US can feel like rolling back a decade or more, returning to a time when information was scarce, infrastructure was creaky and basic services such as ground transportation were chaotic and unreliable.
Roland Kelts on What the west can learn from Japan’s “lost decades.” This echoes a lot of my experience there recently, and I had the good fortune of meeting Roland as well.
I’m going to try out intermittent fasting for a few weeks, after hearing about it for several years from fit-minded friends. It’s tough to find a link on it that doesn’t have some sort of newsletter popup or sell an ebook, but Tim had a good guest post on it in 2008 which ends on a skeptical note, and this beginner’s guide to intermittent fasting by James Clear is awesome for its graphics and straightforward way of introducing the concept and ways to approach it. I’m going to aim for a late lunch and a normal-timed dinner, since like James dinner is often my most social meal.
Update: I also forgot that I wrote about this with a few more links and some good comments in January.
Hit the Road by MAJOR
A cool new track from an up-and-coming artist MAJOR with a fun, soulful vibe. Major and I went to school together in Houston.
Amazing Cover of Radiohead’s Creep
Jiro Ono and René Redzepi
An interesting and thoughtful conversation over a cup of tea between two food masters of our time, Jiro Ono and René Redzepi, from the MAD site. (WordPress-powered!)
What is music? There’s no end to the parade of philosophers who have wondered about this, but most of us feel confident saying: ‘I know it when I hear it.’ Still, judgments of musicality are notoriously malleable. That new club tune, obnoxious at first, might become toe-tappingly likeable after a few hearings. Put the most music-apathetic individual in a household where someone is rehearsing for a contemporary music recital and they will leave whistling Ligeti. The simple act of repetition can serve as a quasi-magical agent of musicalisation. Instead of asking: ‘What is music?’ we might have an easier time asking: ‘What do we hear as music?’ And a remarkably large part of the answer appears to be: ‘I know it when I hear it again.’
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis writes on why we love repetition in music and the neurological effects repeated songs have on us. Hat tip: Brian Groat.
Starting with the results helps refocus the day, clear away busy work, and make sure your actions and time are being spent with an eye on the results you want to achieve. Results, not just work.
Sara Rosso writes Start With The Result.
John Oliver meets Snowden
John Oliver is pretty much always fun to watch, but you should especially send this episode to everyone you know, it’s important for people to see and understand it.
Read through this amazing horror story constructed of actual sentences (with links) from reviews of the Apple Watch. (Hat tip: Laughing Squid.) As for me? I tried on the Watch yesterday and was very impressed, I’ll be getting one as soon as I can once they’re available. I would have picked up one of the new Macbooks as well if it was available, but the stores had them on display but none in stock.
Ambiguity. It’s the defining characteristic of this age. Yesterday offered many certainties. A secure job, stable income, lasting community…a predictable economy, culture, society. But that’s not the case anymore. Something surrounds us, permeating our worlds, defining our lives; though we call it by different names. Economic uncertainty; social instability; political unpredictability. All simply different kinds of ambiguity.
Umair Haque writes on Ambiguity and the Art of Meaning.
Jane Doze & CURTAINS
One of my favorite DJ groups the Jane Doze, they have a new original song called Lights Go Down:
https://soundcloud.com/thejanedoze/the-jane-doze-ft-curtains-lights-go-down
It’s cool to hear and also on iTunes and Spotify. I great test song for the headphones I talked about yesterday.
Getting out of our ocean to explore the islands of open source is one of the best ways that we can expand our horizons, strengthen our skill sets, and build better relationships.
Pippin on why giving back to open source has made his company better.
But one day, the company could “open source” the code that underpins the OS—giving it away for free. So says Mark Russinovich, one of the company’s top engineers.
“It’s definitely possible,” Russinovich says. “It’s a new Microsoft.”
From Wired’s An Open Source Windows Is ‘Definitely Possible’. In 2007 I predicted Windows will be Open Source by 2017, we’ll see if I end up being right on that one.
Have you heard of being meat drunk?
It would be nice to imagine your children won’t abuse any substances, but also unrealistic. The question is what to warn them against most strongly.
Aaron Carroll asks Alcohol or Marijuana? A Pediatrician Faces the Question.