Adrian’s Microblog

Grant Thompson - “The King of Random”

I’ve been told that this is a pretty accurate depiction of what ordering coffee in San Francisco is like – not for the uninitiated.(Video by the awesome makers of life coaching, Everything But the News)

The AeroPress – allegedly the bees-knees when it comes to coffee presses, and carrying only a $30 price tag.From the maker of the Superdisc, you know it’s gotta be good. :)Might have to give this a try!(Bonus: Instructions and brewing tips.)

Scapple, “an easy-to-use tool for getting ideas down as quickly as possible and making connections between them.”Although I haven’t used it as much lately, I’m a big fan of Scrivener, “a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents.” From the same makers, comes Scapple, which looks like a great digital whiteboarding tool, with an endless canvas, ability to embed images, export to PDF/image, and shortcuts for formatting/zooming/etc. Check out this video for a 7-minute overview.Visual brainstorming is such a powerful tool, and I’d been looking for something with this feature set without much luck. Happen to run back across the folks at Literature & Latte, and shazaam – they had thought of it. (no big surprise there I guess) :)Thanks developers, and if you have a use for either of these, I highly recommend you check it out!(Bonus: If you’re looking for iOS integration, aside from a DropBox sync, Scrivener also has a sync to Index Cards app. Their blog also suggests an iOS version of Scrivener may be coming later this year – sweet!)

How To Set SMARTER Goals

Paper, by the folks over at FiftyThree, was a step forward in blending digital and analog worlds.Looks like they’ve taken another step forward with their new Think tools, which makes ideation visuals easy to work with. (See video above.)They’ve even put together a Think toolkit to help users get familiar with how. Neat.

What3Words.This is a fascinating idea that solves a global problem and has lots of hidden applications. Creative, simple, and practical. Three words can describe any location on the planet.I’ve downloaded the phone app.(via C)

How is technology habituating our moral horizons? Is it helping or hurting the formation of character?

I’m not a technophobe. I think it helps augments our friendships and keep in touch with people. I don’t think there’s evidence that Facebook makes us lonely. If you have friends, you use Facebook to build friendships. If you’re lonely, you use Facebook to mask friendship. It’s not the technology, it’s the self. There are two ways social media challenges us. The first is, the idea of broadcasting yourself all the time where we create an avatar of ourselves that is the fake person of ourselves. It’s the highlight reel we put on Instagram. That’s an act of propaganda. The fatal line of propaganda is, the only person it persuades is the author of propaganda. As we put fake images on Facebook and Instagram, we come to believe that’s who we are. The second is the distraction factor. I find it very hard to sit down and read books and read important things because I waste so much time answering e-mail and on Twitter. It’s like candy that’s always there, mental candy, and makes you shallower because you don’t carve out the time to read something that would make you spiritually enriched.

by Octavio Alburto, taken in Mexico’s Cabo Pulmo.For a great video on how Cabo Pulmo has become the most successful marine reservation in the world, check out this BBC story. It’s beauuutiful. To visit there one day …(via C)

C: Buenos nachos! B: Hasty bananas! : )

For some reason I’ve been curious about bitcoin lately. I watched two documentaries (I thought The Bitcoin Story was pretty good, though short), read news stories, checked out some apps and websites, etc. I feel like I’d like to dip my toe in.After checking out some alternatives, I think I really like the approach by Circle Internet Financial. Right now they’re in the process of rolling out dollar bank accounts that can sit alongside your bitcoin account, and seamlessly go back and forth. That idea appeals to me, and as they point out, it means you don’t have to play the currency exchange game in order to use bitcoin. In the meantime, you can still link it to your credit/debit card and/or existing bank account for transaction free bitcoins too.Possibly more on this later, but thought I’d share for now. Enjoy!

Felt App

I played this game on Saturday for the first time, and it was a blast! (no pun intended) ;)

BANG! was created by Italian game-maker Emiliano Sciarra, but has a Wild West theme, where sheriff, outlaws, and renegades duke it out to accomplish their goal: sheriff (defeat outlaws and renegades), outlaws (defeat the sheriff), and renegades (defeat the outlaws and successfully face-off against the sheriff).

Along the way there’s fun cards to draw, like different weapons, horses, barrel defenses, dynamite, and more. And there’s even expansion paks, should you want to take it to the next level.

I’m placing my order, and give it two thumbs up!

You can do anything, but not everything. —

by David Allen; shared by Shawn Blanc in his blog post entitled, “No. Times A Thousand”.

Reminds of a book I’d like to read at some point: “The Power of Full Engagement”. But I feel better about having not read it, based on this post about anti-libraries which states that “read books are far less valuable than unread ones.”

A great 3m vid about what our e-mail would look like in real life – fun watch. :)

And if you’re serious about making e-mail better, check out EmailCharter.org.

austinkleon:

While the popular legend has been that Charles Darrow invented the board game Monopoly during the depression, its roots go back decades before, starting with a woman named Elizabeth Magpie: Magie lived a highly unusual life. Unlike most women of her era, she supported herself and didn’t marry until the advanced age of 44. In addition to working as a stenographer and a secretary, she wrote poetry and short stories and did comedic routines onstage. She also spent her leisure time creating a board game that was an expression of her strongly held political beliefs.Magie filed a legal claim for her Landlord’s Game in 1903, more than three decades before Parker Brothers began manufacturing Monopoly. She actually designed the game as a protest against the big monopolists of her time — people like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.She created two sets of rules for her game: an anti-monopolist set in which all were rewarded when wealth was created, and a monopolist set in which the goal was to create monopolies and crush opponents. Her dualistic approach was a teaching tool meant to demonstrate that the first set of rules was morally superior.From The NYTimes Book Review:Magie helped form a company to market it, but it never really took off. The game appealed mostly to socialists and Quakers, many of whom made their own sets; other players renamed properties and added things like Chance and Community Chest cards. Even less auspiciously for Magie, many people began referring to it as “monopoly” and giving it as gifts. Then in 1932, Charles Darrow received one with spaces named for streets in Atlantic City…In November 1935, eight months after Darrow and Parker Brothers made their deal, the company persuaded Magie to sell them the Landlord’s Game patent for $500. The contract provided no residuals, but she hoped the famous game company would turn her “beautiful brainchild” into a popular way of disparaging greedy ­monopolists. The company had other ideas.You can read more about the story in Mary Pilon’s new book, The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World’s Favorite Board Game.

My favorite character from Sesame Street has apparently turned life coach – he says some pretty profound things in here. :)

(Btw, if you haven’t seen “Everything but the News”, it’s pretty cool too.)

by yours truly

austinkleon:

In this week’s newsletter: 10 things I learned while writing my last book.

Great tips.

hey jen renee: folded notes + love notes, junior-high style