Shadows 

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s five things…

1. If you're a fan of Serial or true-crime stories, check out the In The Dark podcast. I started listening last week, it's very good. 
    
2. After recently finishing series three of Black Mirror, the news of Adobe's Project Voco (the photoshop of speech) freaking me out just a little.
    
3. Given today's (rather shocking) US election news and general chaos of 2016, we could all probably do with a little calm. I found reading this helped. It's a bit of a long read so just pick a section, take what you need from it and then stop... Or get comfy and read the whole thing like I did!
    
4. On the theme of calm, I just discovered the ambient/ drone/ postminimalist music of Rafael Anton Irisarri. Spotify summarises it well "His recordings heavily utilise field recordings, bowed guitars, strings, and electronics, creating dense clouds of blurry, hypnotic sound that often have a mournful, elegiac quality." His album A Fragile Geography is a good place to start.
    
5. This video might be the best thing on the internet. Watch and smile.

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts in your inbox.

A Walk In The Park

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s five things…

1. Note To Self is one of my new favourite podcasts. It's a technology podcast focused on "being human" in the digital age. Their two most recent podcasts Mindfulness on Demand and Come and Sit with Marina Abramović were great.
    
2. Talking of being human, watch this... Can We Auto-Correct Humanity? (3m 27s). It might make your day a little better.
    
3. Everyone likes being comfortable, but it's not always what's best for us — The Healthy Uncomfortable.
    
4. You might not have heard of the term McMansion, but you've probably seen one. A recent episode of 99 Percent Invisible did a great job explaining what makes them so terrible. I don't think I'll be able to look at certain buildings in the same way again. For a more in depth (and hilariously snarky) look at these monstrosities check out the blog McMansion Hell.
    
5. On reading a couple of Wait But Why posts earlier this week, I was reminded of a great Anne Dillard quote... "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives". The posts in question, Your Life in Weeks and 100 Blocks a Day, reimagine life and time as a series of blocks, and ask the simple question: How do you use your blocks?

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts in your inbox.

Live well

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s five things…

1. The new series of Black Mirror on Netflix is excellent and quite sinister at times. It might just make you rethink how you use the internet and technology!
    
2. I really enjoyed Jon Ronson's new short book The Elephant In The Room. It's a quick read on the Trump campaign, conspiracy-theorist-extraordinaire Alex Jones and the alt-right. I'm a big fan of Jon Ronson's writing. If you haven't read The Psychopath Test already, I'd recommend that too.
    
3. Words of wisdom from Steve Jobs via (one of my favourite places on the internet) Brain Pickings. His thoughts on creativity and the cross-pollination of ideas are worth reflecting on.
    
4. "For as long as we've been keeping records, human beings have been on alert for the differences that divide us. Then we fixate on those differences, amplifying them, ascribing all sorts of irrelevant behaviors to them. Until, the next thing you know, we start referring to, 'those people.'" Differences by Seth Godin.
    
5. A fun perspective on AI and robotics. I particularly like the Robert Heinlein quote towards the end — What can people do better than machines? The view from 1951.

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts in your inbox.

Ipswich by night

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s five things…

1. You'll never hear sport in the same way again — The Sound of Sports.
    
2. A really cool interview with Barack Obama on AI, self-driving cars and the future of the world.
    
3. These two episodes of the podcast 'Criminal' are incredible. An insane (but true) story of fraud, family and pyschopathy. Episode 51: Money Tree | Episode 52: The Checklist
    
4. "It Only Takes Six Seconds To Hear The World's Most Sampled Song" — The fascinating story of The Amen Break.
    
5. Everyone wants to be more productive... right? Read this article by Cal Newport (author of this great book) and thank me later.

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts in your inbox.

A little bird told me

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s five things…

1. Two great pieces on having ideas. A 5-Step Technique for Producing Ideas and How to have an idea (this one's my favourite!)
    
2. More wisdom from Seth Godin (he's a regular feature here!). The chance of a lifetime.
    
3. I often like to try to imagine what the future will be like. Where technologies like artificial intelligence, driverless cars and virtual reality will take us, and how they'll change our lives. Last week, I came across the article 'Speak, Memory'. It's a fascinating read about something I'd not given much thought to at all. How the technologies that help shape our lives, change our relationship with death. It might sound morbid, but it's a brilliant piece that's well worth reading. — "When her best friend died, she rebuilt him using artificial intelligence"
    
4. Anohni on art, corporations and the music industry. Her thoughts on the state of the music industry particularly resonated with me. (Don't be put off by the weird text formatting or colour scheme of the website!)
    
5. "Yes!" to all of these. 33 thoughts on reading by Austin Kleon.

That's all for this week. If you liked this, check out my previous Five Things posts or sign up to receive future posts in your inbox.