Social – Page 6 – Michael's Musings

Week’s highlights

Here some things I was looking at this week:

Spider-Man: Far from Home, and the black outfit. I saw the film just a few days ago, and then this article popped up for me. The four-color dot printing process was something I’d been familiar with, but not given much thought in terms of blue vs. black. Enjoyed this piece, and the film (with AC/DC’s Back in Black making the rounds ala the Iron Man films).
Free Nintendo Online for Amazon Prime members. A buddy passed this on to me, and hey, if you have Prime, why not?
Why mosquitoes like my girlfriend more than they like me. Just something interesting.
And what I’ve passed on the most – JOMO. Probably the thing that aggravates people the most about me is that I say no. A lot. But with my time being the only commodity I can really actively control, I just can’t say yes to everything. Really, hardly anything – with many requests coming in for my time, there aren’t enough hours in the day. So I miss out, and happily so. It’s the joy of missing out.

Some of the interesting things I have been thinking about this week:

First – my new car. I’ve seen this ad a number of times now, and I have completely fallen in love with this vehicle. Now, it won’t come out until 2020, but I’m on the list for initial test drives. I. Cannot. Wait.
Thanks to the above ad, I’ve resisted a song I listened to three years ago a lot. Simon & Garfunkle’s Sound of Silence, performed by Disturbed. It was a haunting take on a classic song, and listening to it again this week was a bit cathartic.
Humble Bundle. Another revisit that I seem to have been discussing a lot this week. Several years ago I purchased the Neil Gaiman bundle, and have since added comics and other ebooks to my library, with some money going to charity and some going to creators, with only a little bit going back to the company. It’s a good model, and I appreciate the work that they do there.
Why I don’t need to be superproductive. It was nice coming across this week, when it’s felt so hectic that I just didn’t seem to get near enough accomplished. So, thank you Outside. Thank you Brad Stulberg. Thank you Oliver Burkeman, of The Guardian. And thank you me, for letting me slow down a bit.

Some of the interesting things I came across this week:

Social network gaming. How gaming has become the go-to place for people to connect, taking the place of social networks, or at least supplementing them.
Make me Smart on Alexa – courtesy of APM’s Marketplace. One of my favorite radio programs on NPR is Marketplace, and I’ve been listening since first getting into the public radio scene in 2007. This new feature for Alexa smart speakers is wonderful to have.
It’s good to be the dumbest guy in the room. Robert Kiyosaki wrote in Rich Dad, Poor Dad something along the line of “a successful business person will hire people smarter than themself.” This is basically the same concept, and it’s one I often find myself thinking about. Coming across this during the week was apt timing…
How hangovers started Brunch. Just for fun. Subsequently, this caused my rant on avocado toast.

Some of the things that caught my interest this week:

Brain Pickings – My Heart. The openness and closedness of a heart is one of those things I’ve pondered for several years. Long before the emotional breakdown in 2016. This children’s poem beautifully covers the spectrum of heart acrobatics in a sparse way.
A throwback to The OC. In this interview with Olivia Wilde she chats about the perceptions of including a queer character on the early 2000s pop culture juggernaut. (I still own the series on DVD).
Pollution is a problem in our National Parks. I’ve only recently begun exploring the outdoors – last three or so years. So the National Parks have grown in my purview, and I even entertained becoming a park ranger for a time. Caring for our natural resources, and the places we’ve set aside to visit the wilds, is of crucial importance.
Booming Broadway. The NYTimes reports, spoiler alert, another record year for performances on the Great White Way.

Some of the things that caught my interest this week.

Stu Larsen’s “I Will Be Happy“. This may be my new travel anthem for a while. I had listened to George Ezra’s Wanted on Voyage, especially on my last trip to Europe. (Barcelona was a particular favorite.)
Fountain Pen usage. After listening to Neil Gaiman’s interview on the Tim Ferriss Show, where he talked about Moleskine and Leuchtturm notebooks, and the fountain pens he uses, I decided to look into breaking out some pens that I’ve had stashed away for quite a while. I usually use Uni-Ball Vision Micro, but I’m always willing to try something new.
“How Not to be Boring”. This was an interesting video that I think came to me from one of the few newsletters I didn’t unsubscribe to. There’s a lot going on here, and I think it touches on charisma, introversion, honest and truthful exchanges with others, and self-discovery.
Godel, Escher, Bach. This is a book I came to through Seth Godin’s blog some years ago, and I started reading it but never finished. While perusing a used book store a couple of weeks ago I found a well-thumbed copy, and I decided to give it a go. It’s been my go-to nonfiction for the past week, and I’m excited to make a dent in this tome.