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On the Hot Seat ..

The YouTube algorithm just **gets me**.

I’ve got no idea how this video came to be put in front of me but I’m happy it was. It’s about toilets on 1950s naval warships. And the history of toilets on warships throughout history.

It also adds colour to the term ‘.. on the hot seat’. I might be a bit more careful in my use of that expression from here on in.

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Never work with children or animals ..

I can always find time to binge on OK Go music videos. So I enjoyed this article on how the White Knuckles music video came to be.

It’s an incredible music video and I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to put it together.

"Some people just didn't really get it," Kulash recalls. "They were like, 'Here are the things you can train a dog to do, as long as it's 15 seconds long.' And we were like, 'No, we want them to do something for three and a half minutes.'"

and

"There were some things that they could never learn, but some things were even better than we had imagined," Kulash says. "It was incredible — the dogs screwed up less than humans do. Dogs are very predictable. What they want is food. And occasionally affection. And once in a while they want to check out each other's asses."

The Untold Story of OK Go White Knuckles

May as well embed the video here also -

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Shutting up on LinkedIn ..

Another well made case in the endless quest against the grossness of LinkedIn.

I tried to find a way to embed the video but it beat me. Please forgive the extra click.

Yes Fuck LinkedIn

(via r/auslaw)

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That’s how the light gets in..

I loved this longer read by Avni Patel Thompson on how embracing the Japanese art of Kintsugi (i.e. celebrating the imperfections of things) has helped her build resilience in her start-up. It’s lovely writing and some hard-hitting snippets that could help people in all fields.

We are a society that lives to idolize our heroes but we can’t stand to examine what forges the steel that lies beneath. We love to marvel at how she’s the highest paid athlete but we have no stomach for her possible fallibility; a people primed for consumption without caring about the price. 

Our heroes’ stories must be wholesome and whole. Cracks are always seen as weakness never as a history to more.

and

You can just leave us be. Leave the judgment, the commentary, the consideration. Just completely ignore our imperfect existence. But then you don't get to marvel at our wins, our achievements, our extraordinary. 

Or you can accept us for our messy selves -  witness and celebrate the brilliance alongside the wreckage. 

10,000 ways

There is no beauty without the broken.

I’ve been thinking a lot about “kintsugi” over the past couple of days. It's the Japanese art of putting together broken shards of pottery - only instead of using a clear glue, you use a lacquer dusted with gold. More than a form of art though, it's a philosophy - a way of viewing the world. It asks - what happ…

Read more

2 years ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Avni Patel Thompson

(via Foster)

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Surrendering to infinity ..

I spoke a few issues ago about my struggle with social media; and my cycle of purging everything and then reluctantly returning to each app one-by-one.

So far I’ve been able to keep off TikTok and Instagram - both apps where I would occasionally find myself deep in the infinite scroll .. coming back to reality after literally hours of consuming mindless crap. But Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook are all back on my devices. And they don’t add a lot of value to my life. Perhaps it’s time for another purge.

I loved this article by Alex Ellis on his struggle with these sophisticated apps designed to rob you of your attention. Well worth a read if you connect with similar issues.

There is an endless supply of interesting things to consume online, and there are teams and teams of very smart people working very hard to get me to keep watching. One more video means one more metric counter incrementing, one more engagement click, one more step towards growth, ad revenue, product success…

The danger for me is that I fall in.

and

I didn’t know I wanted to see how these hand-made skis are made and finished, but then again, I also didn’t know I’d be down here on the couch for 45 minutes.

When I take a minute to think about the things I enjoy doing with my devices, it helps me realize that they’re the ones where I’m deliberately using it.

and

That’s where admitting defeat helps; I know how my brain works, and I can work with it. Let’s not install that app with the infinite scroll, since we can probably get by with just the mobile web version. Let’s not log in, unless there’s a reason you need to, since they’re after you with recommendations for your account. Let’s try to be conscious of how much time you end up spending on certain sites.

My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll

(via Mental Pivot)

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- Bennett

bennettgreen.com

Cover Photo by Olga Thelavart on Unsplash