Adrian’s Microblog

Commuter Bike Gear: How to Choose

For all you Amazon Prime subscribers out there, I’d recommend checking out “Everything and Nothing” - it’s an excellent layman’s exploration of the history and science of the ‘everything’ of the universe, and the ‘nothing’ of the smallest vacuums (or ‘general relativity’ and ‘quantum mechanics’ as it’s more technically known). I really enjoyed it, and plan to watch again to pickup even more of the history and theory. 🙂

by yours truly

That entertainer of entertainers, the inimitable Topo Gigio, defines a jazz classic, Strangers in the Night.Enjoy …

As much as it claims to be social, it’s really more of a publishing platform. The conventions of “likes”, “re-tweets”, and even replies give all the indications of being interactions, but for the most part, they’re really just another form of publishing. The designers of social media have appropriated the markers of human connection, but without creating true connections between people for the most part. Real and true engagement requires attention past a thumb flick; a commitment to speak and listen through a back and forth to go past the surface. Because real life isn’t happening on the surface; it never has, and nor should it. If you want to engage with someone, you have to give them your time and attention - there’s no way around it.

And so while we’ve been led to believe we’re better equipped to communicate today than ever before, our tools have fooled us. In the end, there’s no app to do the hard work of conversation for us.

Got a record this Christmas from Mrs. Claus, and it’s been really neat.

Herewith, The Monkees sing Daydream Believer.

Beauty has want of being desired, and strength has want of being used. — yours truly

Always had major respect for this guy.

A scrumptious Nutella latte to close out the year with friends - many thanks.

Was reminded of Sara Bareilles cover of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which then led me down the path of finding one of her newer tunes: She Used to be Mine.She is a powerful talent.

The phone gives us a lot but it takes away three key elements of discovery: loneliness, uncertainty and boredom. Those have always been where creative ideas come from. —

Lynda Barry (via austinkleon)

I’ve been trying to actively cultivate more boredom in my life recently as a result of this phenomenon.

I need to circle back to annotate this more, but suffice it to say, really enjoyed this video by Kirby Ferguson entitled, Everything is a Remix Remastered. It’s the compilation of four video installments he did in 2010/12, but which is still equally relevant today, containing some great insights into the creative process, as well as implications for the digital age.Hope you enjoy!(Bonus material: He also recently released a Everything is a Remix: The Force Awakens edition – also great viewing.) :)

This is a pretty neat design for a versatile garment bag from the folks at Hook & Albert.They also have an interesting 3-way carry-all, and a reversible portfolio.

austinkleon:

Kirby Ferguson returns to his series on creativity, originality, and copyright, Everything Is A Remix, with an episode on Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  If you haven’t watched the original series, do that first: I was working on the early beginnings of Steal Like An Artist before the first episode of Everything Is A Remix dropped, but it immediately became an influence. When I was writing Steal, I sort of used EIAR as a jumping off point—if we know that everything is a remix, how should we sort of set up our lives and our practices? Steal was my attempt to answer that. (Kirby and I had an hour-long conversation at SXSW 2012 you can listen to here.) My favorite part of the original series was this illustration, which laid out what Kirby thinks are the 3 basic elements of creativity: Kirby sees them as individual tools that you can use in remixing — his critique of TFA is that it was a little too heavy on copying, not enough transforming and combining.  (It’s been most helpful to me personally when I think of copy/transform/combine as a more linear process in creating: copying is how you learn and assemble your artistic alphabet or vocabulary, combining is when you start to stick your influences together, and transforming is when you stick the right influences together and the seams of your Frankenstein monster disappear and you wind up with a whole new monster entirely.) An appendix to Kirby’s latest installment has some fun examples from the book The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Of copying: And combining: But the most interesting part of the new episode to me is this new chart, which suggests that there is a kind of commercial/artistic sweet spot between the familiar and the novel: Filed under: steal like an artist

(via Tim Ferriss shares how to master any skill by deconstructing it | The Next Web - YouTube)

When you thwart what’s real about you in order to keep creating content for financial need, you’re just not gonna make it. You’re not gonna keep going. You have your number. It’s very dangerous to be liked by more people than should like you. It’s bad for them, and it’s bad for you. There’s gonna be a shock down the road for them, or you’re gonna dilute yourself and take yourself to a place where you can’t live with who you are. I think that you make an honest account of who you are and you live with the results. The results will be appropriate to who you are… If you’re saying things just to piss people off, then I don’t know why do it. If you’re saying things just to please people, that’s a short-lived victory. But if you just say the things you believe, and the things you like to say, and that mean something to you — if you stay close to the gut — then everything will work itself out. — Louis C.K. (via austinkleon)

Apparently I’m on a Tim Ferris quote run.(via alyssa)

Tim Ferris demonstrates how he uses an Aeropress to make a cup of coffee.

Take risks and you’ll get the payoffs. Learn from your mistakes until you succeed. It’s that simple. —

On Tim Ferris’ desk

Also there: “Do one thing everyday that scares you.”

I think I could totally get behind this product – The Slow Watch. It does seem that presentation of time would also shift perception, and trickle over into state of mind, and thus action.Oh, and if I had my choice, the Slow Mo 08.