“The postage stamp-sized chip from Wiliot is able to harvest energy from the ambient radio frequencies around us, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular signals, and use them to power a Bluetooth-equipped ARM processor that can be connected to a variety of sensors.“
Via The Verge
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dimensions.com is “A comprehensive reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world.”
Via SwissMiss
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Our floodlit society has made sleep deprivation a lifestyle. But we know more than ever about how we rest—and how it keeps us healthy.
www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/08/science-of-sleep/
(Via Kottke.)
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Good night. (at Riga, Latvia)
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It’s taken us a while, but we’re finally starting the realise the importance of access to the internet as our connection to the global human consciousness. So yes – you bet it’s a human right.
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“…So I guess, at the very least, we’re making the world a better place by making these people stop saying they’re making the world a better place.”
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At The Heart Of A Watch, Tested By Time
Watchmakers have long thrived by selling timepieces that will be cherished as family heirlooms. But, if pragmatism rendered the pocket watch obsolete, what happens when watches become computers?
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The chemistry of high-performing groups is no longer a mystery.
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Eight years after it aired, the finale of The Sopranos continues to be hotly debated. David Chase explains how he created the excruciating tension of the last scene. What he won’t say is what happened at the end.
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A more careful look at the Gospels might offer a much less sentimental, much more startling picture of the original Easter message…
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In my preachin’ days, I used to remind congregants that, if they wanted to know what really was important in their lives, they should ignore those religious creeds they recited by rote, and instead look at their MasterCard statements. In those columns of black and red lie a large part of the story of our lives — decisions about bottles of wine, trips abroad, music, books, theatre … yes, even pets. Our chequebooks (together with our calendars) write a digital autobiography — things we’ve chosen to do, meals we’ve chosen to eat, friends we’ve travelled to see, and so on.
And here’s the thing. Every one of those choices has an ethical component. In the column you reference, I made the point (which, strangely, some found controversial) that we live in a world of aching human need. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.5 million deaths among young children are due to diseases preventable by routine vaccination. As many as five kids can be immunized for a dollar — that’s a hundred kids who might live, for the price of the wine I drank at dinner tonight. That takes some of the fizz out of popping a cork.
I’m not arguing we should live ascetic lives, wracked by guilt every time we see a movie. My own MasterCard statement speaks too loudly for that. I am, however, arguing that, whenever we spend a dollar, we have an obligation, at the minimum, to weigh the implications of that expenditure on the environment, our community, and our world.
Gandhi, among many other truth-speakers, taught us to live simply, so that others might simply live.
Ken Gallinger, “What’s important in your life? Check your credit card statements.”
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For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had strange, tense dreams when I fall sick.
The earliest one that comes to mind, which I first had around four or five, was about a roller coaster made of pins. There was a giant doughy ball that rolled down the roller coaster, and for some reason, the thought of it would leave me hysterical, crying and asking my mother if “it was going to be okay.” Of course, when asked what I was talking about, the description of the above that I gave her didn’t exactly plead my case.
The most recent variations of this dream – or feeling, really, of tension and frustration – came to me this past week. The first involved teleportation, the second, James Cameron. Yes, really.
My teleportation dream, which was stuck in a loop much like the roller coaster dream, involved me trying to figure out the best and most efficient way to setup a teleportation device at our office so that everyone could teleport in and out at their leisure or as work required.
The James Cameron dream was about me meeting the director as he was putting the finishing touches on his new memory storage system that consisted of a portable CD player-type device and half-inch-thick discs the diameter of a golf ball made of metal and glass that glowed to convey how full they were.
Unfortunately – thankfully? – that’s all I can remember now.
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This is heartbreaking – so much so that I haven’t, as yet, been able to read it all the way through – but also important.
(via kottke.org)
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If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”. Essays. -
You’re gorgeous, baby, you’re sophisticated, you live well. No need for an apology.
Timothy Egan, “Allez Canada!” -
Accept certain inalienable truths: …Politicians will philander.
Mary Schmich -
It’s not. The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.
The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table’s order, designing the house and organising the party.
Fraser Speirs, “Future Shock” -
Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.
Conan O’Brian, Saying farewell to The Tonight Show -
…sure it’s maligned, sure it’s troubled, but we’re the only ones allowed to go there, bullethead….
Chris Young, “The real reason Brock Lesnar hates Canada”
CM 