Adrian’s Microblog

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

nonconcept:

San Francisco Bay View Residence by McCracken Architects. (Photography: Rien Van Rijthoven)

This is pretty funny.

katykelley:

actionjacksonlovesbbq:bookoisseur:apsies:allisonunsupervised:gladtoseayou:Jeff Jackson, a young Democratic NC State senator is the only senator in the general assembly today due to the snow.He’s got my vote.Jeff Jackson for President.

a++++++

Hilarous 

Ash Wednesday starts Lent today. If you’re Catholic, I highly encourage you to avail yourself of the great gift that is the Sacrament of Confession, wonderfully described in this video. If you’re not Catholic, and are curious what it’s about, check out this video.

‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’

Swipes - Task List made for High Achievers

sufficientlyantique:

The dark and dangerous Mantis Shrimp

Officially amazing.

staff:

Don’t let this happen to your internetThe internet belongs to all of us. It’s an open, fair, democratic place that we’ve all helped to create, together. On February 26, the FCC is going to decide whether to leave the internet in our hands…or whether to turn it over to the cable companies.You don’t want them to pick the cable companies. Join everybody on the internet and help the FCC do the right thing.This is it, guys. We’ve been been fighting this fight together for a long time now. You did a sensationally good job back in September, making 135,343 calls in a single day and shifting the political momentum back toward real internet freedom. You been pulling more and more policymakers—including the president himself—over to the side of internet freedom. We’re almost there. Let’s bring this one home.

How to play Cuban dominoes? by 3 Guys from Miami.

Great summary of an awesome game. :)

Marissa Mayer (an ex-Googler and now Yahoo! CEO) interviews Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg of Google about their book: “How Google Works”.

Fun talk, and heavy emphasis on the importance of hiring the right people and managing them well.

Wooowww…

(via katykelley)

katykelley:

Creativity Resilience Motivation Curiosity Question Asking Humor Endurance Relatability Enthusiasm Civic-Mindedness Self-Awareness Self-Discipline Empathy Leadership Compassion Courage Sense of Beauty Sense of Wonder Resourcefulness Spontaneity Humility

Happiness Hacks: The 10 Most Unexpected Ways to Be Happy

Being prevented from being born, makes the debates about other rights hypotheticals. — yours truly

There are houses, and then there’s Ricardo Bofill’s house: a brutalist former cement factory of epic proportions on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. A grandiose monument to industrial architecture in the Catalonian town of Sant Just Desvern, La Fabrica is a poetic and personal space that redefines the notion of the conventional home. […] Rising above lush gardens that mask the grounds’ unglamorous roots, the eight remaining silos that once hosted an endless stream of workmen and heavy machinery now house both Bofill’s private life, and his award-winning architecture and urban design practice.

This aesthetic strikes me as insightful. Two points that stuck out to me from the video: (a) that the space isn’t organized functionally, but by mental and psychological activities, and (b) that luxury is in a space and lifestyle, rather than displayed in the things which adorn your house. I wasn’t as thrilled by the part of the design of keeping people disconnected and only letting them cross paths when they wanted to. Great closing line: “Beauty is what moves me, and after that intelligence.”

(via haydenhunter, via In Residence: Ricardo Bofill, Albert Moya for Nowness)

That you exist…is comfort enough…