Five Things #81

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

  1. An interesting piece on why we perceive some works of art or literature to be greater than others. Being exposed to something more frequently influences how good we think it is (the mere-exposure effect). However, it's not the only factor. Being repeatedly exposed to something we think lacks quality can lead to us liking it less. — "Great art and mediocrity can get confused, even by experts. But that’s why we need to see, and read, as much as we can. The more we’re exposed to the good and the bad, the better we are at telling the difference."

  2. I like the sound of this: Kiss the Good Times Goodbye (an auto industry veteran on the future of cars).

  3. Who'd have guessed the innovation of reading silently to yourself could have such a big impact on society: "'In the still largely oral world of the ninth century, if one’s intellectual speculations were heretical, they were subject to peer correction and control at every moment, from their formulation and publication to their aural reception by the reader.' As Saenger writes, asocial reading helped facilitate intellectual rigor, introspection, criticism of the government and religion, even irony and cynicism that would have been awkward to read aloud."

  4. This video of a Japanese game show (apparently called Slippery Stairs) has been doing the rounds on Twitter this past week. What an emotional rollercoaster!

  5. Don't you just love it when you completely forget about a song that you really like, and then you rediscover it? Here's Snarky Puppy performing Shofukan.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

ps. There'll be no Five Things next week as I'll be on holiday. But fear not, Five Things will return the following week!

five thingsRoss Farley
Five Things #80

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

  1. “You have to copy and recopy the masters, and it’s only after having proved oneself as a good copyist that you can reasonably try to do a still life of a radish.” A great quote from this wonderfully titled piece on Louvre copyists: How to Walk Out of the Louvre With a Masterpiece

  2. This Verge headline tells no lies: A game about AI making paperclips is the most addictive you’ll play today. Frank Lantz's game Universal Paperclips starts off with you making paperclips and ends (quite obviously) with you taking over the universe.

  3. Should you become a specialist, a generalist... or both?

  4. Tristan Harris' TED talk on How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. If you found that interesting, this piece is worth reading too.

  5. Nils Frahm has announced he'll be releasing a new album in January 2018. To celebrate I've spent much of the past week listening to... Nils Frahm albums! This week's music recommendation is his album, Felt.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

five thingsRoss Farley
Five Things #79

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

  1. I've just started reading Mark Tegmark's book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence — the subtitle helpfully tells you what the book is about! In chapter three Mark linked to this video showing Google's Deepmind AI program learning to play the Atari game Breakout. Pretty cool!

  2. I really enjoyed this conversation with Robert Wright on Sam Harris' podcast. They discuss consciousness, Buddhism and the science behind meditation and enlightenment.

  3. A good list: 33 ways to stay creative. "4. Get away from the computer" — Noted!

  4. Morgan Housel on Expiring vs long-term knowledge: "Long-term knowledge is harder to notice because it’s buried in books rather than blasted in headlines. . . . It’s not just that long-term knowledge rarely expires, letting you accumulate it over time. It’s that [it] compounds over time. Expiring knowledge tells you what happened; long-term knowledge tells you why something happened and is likely to happen again. That 'why' can translate and interact with stuff you know about other topics, which is where the compounding comes in."

  5. This week's music recommendation is Benny Greb's latest album Grebfruit 2. His reworking of Genesis' Jesus He Knows Me is really great. There's only one Benny Greb!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

five thingsRoss Farley
Five Things #78

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

  1. A technology horror story — "I Forgot My PIN": An Epic Tale of Losing $30,000 in Bitcoin

  2. It's easy to forget this: "Education isn't here to make you feel comfortable. A good education should, inherently, cause us discomfort. Part of the 'enlightening experience' built into the definition of the word 'education' itself is shining light into the darkness of our own ignorance. When has that ever felt good?" — We Shouldn't Always Feel Comfortable: Why 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Matters

  3. I just finished reading The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley. It's a fascinating, thought provoking book. It definitely tested my assumptions and biases in a number of areas.

  4. Attack of the VR shark.

  5. This week's music recommendation is Otto Totland's album Pinô. This album reminded me a lot of Nils Frahm's piano based albums, maybe that shouldn't come as a surprise as it was recorded and produced by him!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

five thingsRoss Farley
Five Things #77

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

  1. I hope so! — Owning a car will soon be a thing of the past

  2. I absolutely love these colourised black and white photos. There is something really powerful about a black and white photo, but seeing these historical photos in colour really brings them to life. This is one of my favourites.

  3. Probably not this goalkeeper's proudest moment.

  4. Well, this will make me think twice next time I take advise from an online review — The War To Sell You A Mattress Is An Internet Nightmare

  5. This week's music recommendation is Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm's album Trance Frendz. It might have a stupid name, but it's a great album. If you haven't listened to much "wordless" music, this is a good place to start.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

five thingsRoss Farley