Kind Of Blue

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

1. What happens in the brain when someone improvises? Musician and researcher Charles Limb put jazz musicians and rappers into an fMRI to find out.
    
2. Last week, NASA's Juno spacecraft completed its first close flyby of Jupiter. The data it's sent back to earth has revealed Jupiter has a few surprises in store...
    
3. I was very sad to hear the author Denis Johnson died last week. His collection of short stories, Jesus's Son, is one of my favourites: Denis Johnson’s Perfect Short Story.
    
4. Billy Collins on finding your voice.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is The Look by Metronomy. It's from their excellent album The English Riviera. I'm a big fan of the music video and that keyboard sound!

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

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. 

Dreaming of 15°C

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

1. Good news seems to be something of a rarity these days but last week's announcement that astronomers have discovered a record seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a single star is a nice break from that! If all goes to hell here on Earth (and someone can find a suitable spacecraft capable of making the 39 light-year journey) perhaps we can all just move there? — Star's seven Earth-sized worlds set record
    
2. Do you know good music? This quiz will let you know. I thought I'd done pretty well getting 234 (the average score is 158 apparently) but that was before several friends managed to get over 240!
    
3. If you've been paying attention to previous Five Things posts, you've probably worked out that I listen to a lot of podcasts. My latest recommendation is this excellent interview with Naval Ravikant (the CEO and co-founder of AngelList). He's a fascinating and incredibly smart guy. It's a long listen but, in my humble opinion, a worthy use of your time.
    
4. These are the coolest business cards I've ever seen... and "cool" isn't a word I often use to describe something as *yawn* as business cards! Drew Tetz uses the phenakistoscope animation technique to create the illusion of a moving image. The magic happens when his cards are played on a turntable under a bright light and viewed through a camera. It's pretty clever. Here's an article explaining how it works and how, if you are feeling creative, you can make your own.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Kettering by The Antlers. It's a pretty intense, haunting song. The transition at 2:39 is fantastic.

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

"Unloved"

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

1. Interesting work by Sugata Mitra on bringing teaching into the 21st Century. —  "How one man revolutionized teaching by trusting kids to teach themselves."
    
2. "The photo shows the 14-story-tall first stage of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket moments before it landed on a barge at sea this past weekend" — If you hadn't gathered already it's a pretty cool photo!
    
3. Nerdwriter recently did a fascinating breakdown of one of Louis CK's jokes. I'd never really considered how much work goes into the writing and delivery of one joke.
    
4. The inspiring story of scientific marvel, Ed Whitlock — "In October, at 85, he set his latest distance-running record, completing the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 3 hours 56 minutes 34 seconds and becoming the oldest person to run 26.2 miles in under four hours."
    
5. In the latest episode of the Song Exploder podcast, Solange explains how she wrote and recorded her song "Cranes In The Sky". I love learning how different musicians approach songwriting and this was a really great episode. Recommended listening for anyone studying or making music!

That’s all for this week. If you enjoyed it, sign up to receive the next Five Things in your inbox.

What he says (Sent from my iPhone)

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

1. A conversation with Alexander Shelley (conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra & music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa) on the architecture of music and the importance of art and culture to society. It's one of the best things I've listened to this year.
    
2. A learning hack backed by science? Yes please! — The Secret to Better Learning That Most People Don’t Know.
    
3. A great post on originality by Austin Kleon titled Steal Old Stuff — "When any art form or medium becomes primarily about people imitating the dominant form, we get stifling art. If you look at all of the great filmmakers, they’re all ripping someone off but it was someone 50 years ago."
    
4. A very useful cognitive bias cheat sheet (make sure you check out the 'diagrammatic poster' at the bottom of the post) — Because thinking is hard.
    
5. If you didn't know it already, Elon Musk and his company SpaceX are awesome. Last week they announced their plans for Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species. They seem to be very serious when they say they want to send humans to Mars. Redefines what it means to be ambitious!

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.