God bless The Books, and the first glimpse into their new album, The Way Out, due in July with this harmonic, orchestral, rhythmic vocal track about math and science, “Beautiful People.”
“For a long time, only one area of human activity appeared to be immune. In the cozy confines of personal life, we rarely used the power of numbers. The techniques of analysis that had proved so effective were left behind at the office at the end of the day and picked up again the next morning. The imposition, on oneself or one’s family, of a regime of objective record keeping seemed ridiculous. A journal was respectable. A spreadsheet was creepy.”
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic?
Nothing beats pen and paper - especially if Moleskine keeps putting out interesting products like its new line, Moleskine Passions: Wine Journal. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing for an app (or system of apps) that would allow me to quickly sketch out an idea, wire-frame it, work out…
Can big screens with ads create calm rather than stimulation? Maybe…
Americans send mixed messages in the survey about how they feel in a world where news is updated constantly and they can access news all the time. We asked respondents about how the volume of news might play into this: …Compared with five years ago, do you think it is easier or harder to keep up with news and information today?“ Some 55% say it is easier, only 18% say it is harder. One quarter of adults (25%) say there is no difference between now and five years ago.
Yet even as they say it is easier to keep up with the news, Americans still feel overwhelmed. Fully 70% agreed with that statement: …The amount of news and information available from different sources today is overwhelming.“ Some 25% …completely agreed“ with that statement and 45% …mostly agreed.“
It turns out that cultivating an active idle mind, or teaching yourself how to daydream effectively, might actually encourage the sort of long-range neural connections that make us smart. At the very least, it’s time we stop discouraging kids from staring out the classroom window, because mind wandering isn’t a waste of time
This is an amazing application for the Mac that creates a meditative writing space. No toolbars, no chrome, full screen (no app window). It’s incredible what a difference it makes!
“slowLab is an emerging organization based in New York, NY (US) and with activities worldwide. The mission of the organization is to promote slowness or what we call ‘Slow design’ as a positive catalyst of individual, socio-cultural and environmental well-being.”
We asked some of the world’s most prominent futurists to explain why slowness might be as important to the future as speed.
