10th January 2022

From MIT. The way many of us will initially experience climate change will be through water—either too much of it or not enough. We will flood. Or burn. Or both. The latest issue of MIT Technology Review brings you stories of the way changes to the water cycle are playing out all over the world as we begin to experience climate change (reg needed but free for limited number of stories).

This controversial commercial, uses fear as tool to motivate and sell. Difficult to forget though. The New Apple 911 Watch Advert.

Tim Harford, on the lifesaving magic of playing games, and how this can help with pandemic resilience. This study asked how people had best coped during strict lockdowns in China early in 2020. “Two promising candidates for effective coping,” they wrote, “are flow and mindfulness.” “Flow is a state in which people become absorbed in an enjoyable activity, such that they become blind to their external environment,” explained the researchers. In contrast, “mindfulness is a state of being aware of and attentive to one’s current internal and external experience.”

Extraordinary. An Italian mafia fugitive arrested in Spain after Google Street View sighting. 

In the first newsletter of the year, I would normally do quite large piece on on CES. This year, picked up on one big story was about BMW’s app that changes the colour of your car; but little else. Looks like not that many people attended.

From The Economist. 2021, the year as told through illustration (reg may be necessary).

From @storythings. Brief and amusing piece on setting targets and a reminder of why we need to pay close attention to what we measure.  The Three Musketeers and the Danger of Poorly Set Targets

What San Francisco’s skyline reveals about the city. A visual essay.

Lifts the spirits. The special relationship between The Dalai Lama and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu (video – 2’03”)..and if this is of interest, there is also the book they co-authored in 2016 – The Book Of Joy. Finally, I came across this quote from Archbishop Tutu last night, which struck a cord… “Giving an emotion a name, is the way we come to understand how what happened affected us…..

This ad from Macmillan Cancer support, Whatever It Takes is more than two minutes long but you won’t notice. A rollercoaster but worth taking the ride.

28th November 2021

From Vogue Business. Lush is quitting social media. The start of a trend? The British cosmetics brand is leaving four of the major social platforms. Experts weigh the potential risks and rewards.

From WARC. ‘Behavioural science tells us that motivation is based on the gap, or discrepancy, that we perceive between our ‘actual self’ and our ‘ideal self’. Closing the gap is a ‘job to be done’ for which brands can be instrumental.’

This is really wonderful. Andrew Garfield’s thoughts on grief as ‘unexpressed love’. This ‘grief visual’ is also great. Growing around Grief– makes a great deal of sense to me.

A stunning animation, of both social commentary and technical dexterity, “Migrants” explores the heartbreaking aftermath of a climate disaster.

A must-watch Christmas Advert from the Norwegian Postal Service (3 mins)

A couple of cartoon pig stories this week (two more than strictly necessary, you may suggest). Firstly, difficult to avoid Boris’s car crash of a speech to the CBI and its surprising focus on Peppa Pig World (check out the primary colours). He did however get me thinking about the Peppa Pig brand. It turns out, in 2019, Hasbro acquired Entertainment One, including the Peppa Pig franchise in a US$3.8 billion deal…..Still on cartoon pigs, Tom Holland and Dawn French provide voices for this M&S Christmas Ad, featuring Percy Pig (no relation).

Beautiful. New York in the Fall. 

Love the work of artist, Victor Enrich. ‘Organic deformations, heavy structures set to fly or long-distance displacements are just few of the wide range of actions that Enrich applies to “his” buildings with the aim to uncover what is hidden’…. Check out the ‘On Trump’ tab, here.

From @storythings. The Tamagotchi Was Tiny but Its Impact Was Huge. A good nostalgia read for 90s kids that looks at how pioneering the toy was: “It also gave player’s a sense of duty or obligation, because the continual play required them to check in every few hours to keep their digital pet alive and healthy. The Tamagotchi was a pioneer of this type of gameplay, where the game does not pause even if you turn off your device. This was largely unheard of before the Tamagotchi’s release but now lives on in some of the world’s most popular games, like World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls Online.”

A girl keeps her snowman ‘Simon’ all year round in lovely ‘Shot on iPhone’ Christmas spot from Apple. 

12th November 2021

Love this. From Inspired by Iceland. ‘Some said an open-world experience this immersive wasn’t possible. But it’s already here. And you don’t even need silly VR headsets. Introducing, Icelandverse’. A take off of Facebook’s Meta video.

From MIT. Techno-­optimism is once again bubbling up. The pessimism over the real-world impacts of apps and social media has turned into unbounded hope—at least among the tech elite and the venture capital investor class—that new technologies will solve our problems (sub may be necessary).

An Apple car could become a reality by 2025.

Interesting. Apparently, the inventor of Monopoly, Lizzie Magie (1866-1948), has been written out of its history, as has an important part of the gameplay. In Magie’s version, there were two variations of gameplay, one in which players competed to capture as much real estate and cash as possible, as in the Monopoly that we play today. In another variation, the point of the game was to share the wealth as equitably as possible.

The backstory behind Heathrow’s parallel runway take-off to New York last week. A spectacular synchronised, parallel take-off from Heathrow, something that’s extremely rare. Here, the view from the control tower. 3,2,1,GO!

AOC joins the Irn Bru fan club.

How NASA Found Inspiration For the First Space Suit at the Tower of London (and the importance of looking beyond best practice in your own field to solve big problems). ht @neilperkin.

From Why Is This Interesting? The Future of Meat Edition. ‘Should we give up on the dreams of alt-meat? No…we have to fix the climate and eat less meat. But the consensus that alt-meat is the solution for our ills is likely coming to an end. Other ideas are coming over the horizon. In particular, the promise of regenerative agriculture for climate and a better food system is huge, and largely unexploited by climate and food investors.’

An amazing 360 degree view from the summit of Everest on a clear day.

Nicely done. ‘This November, they call it Daylight Saving but the thing that needs saving…is us! WHAT TIME IS IT?! #DaylightSavingMovie’ (2’23”)

25th September 2021

Dave Trott’s history of GREAT advertising in 25 commercials.(41’40”)

Interesting piece from The Guardian. Does the Elizabeth Holmes trial spell the end of the #girlboss era?

When Covid stalled his film work, the writer took revenge on the virus in the form of a poem about Britain, Brexit and the pandemic. by Armando Iannucci

A short, though provoking post about the ‘creativity and relevance’ flywheel’ for brands. Creativity being internally facing value that defines who we are. Relevancy being externally-facing value that defines how we live in the world. ht @neilperkin.

NYT on the future of cinema. “It’s frustrating that people keep writing lazy obituaries for cinema, something they have no feeling for or interest in. I don’t love all that’s transpired in movie history — the shift from film to digital, the loss of technical competency — but I remain buoyed by the persistence of the art and how its ecologies adapt and persevere.

Introducing Circus, an “obnoxious, vibrant, raw and unkempt” new anti-beauty mag. Launched this week as the brainchild of London-based photographer Jackson Bowley, the publication is a circus of chaos and high saturation.

‘Don’t be afraid to disappear’. Great line from an Emmy’s acceptance speech this week. Michaela Coel, creator of I May Destroy You:  ‘..visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success — don’t be afraid to disappear from it, from us, for a while and see what comes to you in the silence.’

You are still exhausted. “Life is still exhausting because the pandemic was and remains exhausting in so many invisible ways – and we still haven’t given ourselves space to even begin to recover.” From Ann Helen Peterson.

A really good interview question. 

48 colours of the moon. Beautiful.