Cromer

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

1. A great comic by The Oatmeal on changing your mind and the "backfire effect". 
    
2. Today is a great day to learn something new, so why not check out Khan Academy. There are short, well explained video lessons on pretty much everything.... and it's completely free!
    
3. Prepare to be amazed... The Mysterious Glass. 
    
4. An interesting series of videos on how Japanese Samurai swords are made. The craftsmanship and time that goes into making each sword is mind-blowing. 
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Ólafur Arnalds' Living Room Songs. The link goes to the film that accompanied the album, which includes behind the scenes footage about the project (as well as the music). The album was recorded over one week, with each song being recorded, filmed and edited in one day, and then released online the following morning. An amazing project and great music.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next Five Things delivered straight to your inbox. You can check out previous Five Things posts here. 

It's a Baileygram

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

1. You can now explore the world from the comfort of your home. The new Google Earth is really amazing. Check out the "I'm Feeling Lucky" feature if you don't know where to explore first.
    
2. An interesting long read on What Makes a Genius?
    
3. Emoji as gargoyles... "In classical architecture they used heads of the king or whatever, and they put that on the façade . . . So we were thinking, what can we use as an ornament so when you look at this building in 10 or 20 years you can say ‘hey this is from that year!’"
    
4. An animated primer on How to Meditate. If you haven't tried meditating, I'd encourage you to give it a try. It's probably easier to get started than you think it is.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is The Köln Concert by the pianist Keith Jarrett. The improvised performance was recorded live at the Opera House in Cologne in 1975. It's worth reading the story behind the concert. At first Jarrett had refused to play due to a mix up with the piano he was supposed to play. 

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next Five Things delivered straight to your inbox. You can check out previous Five Things posts here. 

Copenhagen

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

1. A vending machine unlike any other — Japanese origami vending machine makes news around the country
    
2. Kurt Vonnegut on the shapes of stories and a related article on the shapes of stories as identified by a computer.
    
3. Eerie is definitely the correct choice of word to describe this. (Great choice of music for the soundtrack)  — The eerie otherworldliness of slow undersea life sped up to a human pace
    
4. Guilty of using terrible passwords? Have a read of this. A good primer on Two-Factor Authentication from Teen Vogue of all places! 
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Gimme Sympathy by Metric. I'm surprised more people haven't heard of them. If you like this song, it's well worth exploring their back catalogue. They have a lot of good tunes!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next Five Things delivered straight to your inbox. You can check out previous Five Things posts here. 

Dreaming of Summer #2

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

1. A two-part conversation between Adam Buxton and Brian Eno. I'm a big fan of Adam Buxton's podcast and was delighted to hear him interview one of my heroes!
    
2. If you are trying to learn anything, read this.
    
3. For April Fools Day, Reddit launched a little experiment. It gave its users a blank canvas and the option to place a coloured pixel anywhere on it every few minutes. The result of the experiment is pretty cool...
    
4. A fascinating three-part series from Vox on the techniques and technology the BBC uses to make the Planet Earth series look so good. — Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Pyrrhic by Julianna Barwick. The song comes from her excellent album Nepenthe.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next Five Things delivered straight to your inbox. You can check out previous Five Things posts here. 

Dreaming of summer

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

1. Last week SpaceX made history by successfully reusing a rocket which had already been up into to space. Here's a video explaining the significance of the launch.
    
2. An interesting read on the potential impacts of electric cars and self-driving cars on our lives and on the places we live. Towns and cities are going to look quite different when people shift from owning cars to just hiring one when they need a ride. It just wouldn't make financial sense to own one when it's capable of driving itself. You could book one when you need it, and once you've reached your destination the car could then move on to the next customer. Any cars that aren't in use could then park in less congested areas outside of towns or cities where the land is cheaper. That would then result in the freeing up of a lot of land in cities that's currently used for parking cars... As you can probably tell, I find all of this rather fascinating!
    
3. These are pretty cool... Crushed cans in the style of Ming Dynasty ceramics by the Chinese sculptor Lei Xue. 
    
4. Food for thought from Seth Godin, how are you using your attention?
    
5. In honour of Piano Day (which was last Wednesday), this week's musical recommendation is a piece called Hammers by one of my favourite pianists, Nils Frahm.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next Five Things delivered straight to your inbox. You can check out previous Five Things posts here.