Did you know that Germany is the world’s #2 Tequila importer? A team there used ultrasonic humidifiers to create a tequila mist cloud that rained every time it rained in Berlin. And yes, people drank it by sticking their shot glasses into the fog.
TEQUILA CLOUD // Case from Rodrigo Cantalejo on Vimeo.
Magical. I never realized there was so much rhyming and poetic phrasing.
Now this is the best way to play darts. 🙂
Sailing to Byzantium
W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium. O sages standing in God’s holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
I’m on vacation and decided to spent some time catching up on my travel magazines. I saw an interesting piece on traveling in Syria – and learned something new – “The most outrageous and exuberant lingerie in the world comes from a place you’d probably never expect: Syria”. And when they say outrageous, they really mean it.
Since it’s slightly not safe for work, I’ll include a link to an Amazon book on it. Or Google ‘Syrian Lingerie’ which has some page samples when you’re in an appropriate location.
My brother and I went to London a few years back, and I realized I never really wrote about many of the cool things we saw and did there.
One of the cool things we did was going to a unique Japanese-style restaurant called Inamo. The food was very good, but the most memorable part was the dining experience itself.
After you are seated, your whole dining table becomes interactive. There are no waiters, just food delivery folks. Instead, you order everything from the tabletop itself.
The table is projection mapped and controlled by a small touchpad in the surface of the table. You can select different tabletop decorations instantly. Even more interesting is that while you browse the menu, the items you select appear on your plate so you have a great idea of what you’re ordering. You select everything you want and submit your order.
While you wait, you can play simple games against others at your table. You can also get live feeds of the kitchen and browse drink menus etc.
Soon enough, like magic, your food is delivered by a runner. Did you run out of a drink or want another side? Just order it from the tabletop. It was awesome because you could order drinks and refills without having to wait until you run out of your current one.
When you want to leave, the bill is instantly ready for you. You can even order a cab from the tabletop and wait at your table until it arrives.
Overall, I loved the experience. It was novel, fun, and much more efficient (IMHO). I’d do it again in a heartbeat, and it’s highly likely I will since I keep getting emails from them about their latest deals. 🙂
Engineers from the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology developed a improvisational robotic marimba player that ‘listens’ to the other players and the provides improvised accompaniment via creativity AI algorithms.
VR has been fascinating for revealing human nature.
In the course of 75 seconds on this video, this guy makes more fatal or near fatal weapons handling mistakes than just about anyone I’ve ever seen. The one at 2:46 is particularly cringe-worthy.
A new sandbox game called ‘Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades’ allows anyone to fire all kinds of weapons. What makes this video very relevant is that the mistakes this guy makes are almost all the classic ones that someone with no training does in real life. More than a few people have been killed and maimed by the exact behaviors this guy demonstrates.
Some of the ones you’ll see here are:
Any one of these would get you kicked off of any weapons range or training course. That’s saying the people around you didn’t tackle you first due to the mortal danger in which you were putting yourself and everyone around you.
It’s always a good idea to keep your eye on opportunities being created by our increasingly globalized world.
These 12 well-rated companies are well known for both permanent outpost positions or just making a few annual business trips for those that like to travel and work.
From the original article on Glassdoor
Tanya Short gave one of the best talks I’ve heard in a long time about the fallacies of crunching and bad work habits many people have. The video is now up for free at the GDCVault. Her talk starts at 6:00 :
http://gdcvault.com/play/1024174/Indie
Summary of her points:
When trying to hit deadlines, she starts out by observing that most of the time we think ‘getting X done’ is our highest priority. It’s not. It’s actually #3:
Your real priorities:
That sounds great, but it also sounds a bit idealistic. She says it is not easy, but lays out these points.
Step-by-step roadmap to not dying:
Other quotables:
A few long nights won’t kill you, but a few long months might. Especially if combined with other health and life factors.
Burnout is the feeling of being dulled as layer after layer of exhaustion accumulates. Burnout is the void left behind where your career could have been.
Then she has a real Benedictine moment: The moment right now will never come again. Every one of us will die. No matter what we create, all we have is right now. Don’t use up that joy, love, and creative energy you have by burning yourself out.
Keep death always before your eyes.
—St. Benedict: The Rules: Chapter 4.47
She doesn’t cite the studies, but I found some:
http://lifehacker.com/working-over-40-hours-a-week-makes-you-less-productive-1725646811