November 2019 Favorites
If you’ve seen the present, you’ve seen all things, from time immemorial into all of eternity. For everything that happens is related and the same.
Videos
- Beowulf – Adapting the Oldest Story in English Literature – A video essay by Like Stories of Old about the oldest work of literature in the English language.
- My Minimalist Workspace – Tour through the new studio of Matt D’Avella.
- Plato Describes Atlantis, 360 BC, ‘Critias’ – I discovered the YouTube channel Voices of the Past, created by two brothers, one with a master in History, the other a professional translator. They translate and read old texts.
- 10 Rules for A Perfect Ninja, The Bansenshūkai 萬川集海, 1676 – Another fantastic historic reading by Voices of the Past, this time from the Ninja manual Bansenshūkai.
- Urban architecture inspired by mountains, clouds, and volcanoes – Fantastic TED talk by Ma Yansong a Chinese architect who creates stunning asymmetric buildings.
- Tarantino Dialogue — How Kill Bill Keeps Us Hooked – A video essay about how Quentin Tarantino uses dialog in his movies to keep the audience engaged over a long time.
- I tracked every minute of my life for 3 months. – Another nice movie of Matt D’Avella about productivity and time management.
- GitHub Arctic Code Vault – A video about the new archive project of GitHub. They plan to archive all public Git repositories on 02.02.2020 in the GitHub Arctic Code Vault. The data is encoded on silver halide film, that lasts over 1000 years and buried deep in an old mine at the arctic circle. This ensures the work of thousands of developers will be safely stored for the future and also allow future generations to have an insight into our time.
- The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run – Trailer for the new SpongeBob movie. Looks really good!
- The Power of Sketchnotes – Short introduction video about Sketchnotes by Scriberia.
- Fight Club – How (Not) To Become A Space Monkey – A nice video essay by Like Stories of Old about the philosophy in Fight Club.
- 2017 Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (University of Toronto) – I finished the last part of the lecture by Jordan B Peterson.
- Vim universe. fzf - command-line fuzzy finder – A screencast about the powerful command-line tool FZF.
- The Kid – A well-made, short Sci-Fi film presented by DUST.
- LIFE BEYOND: Chapter 1. Alien life, deep time, and our place in cosmic history – A 30-minute long visual pleasure into the question
Are we alone?
. With fantastic music, 3D animations in 4K, and quotes from scientists. - Fan Favorite Sci-Fi Short Films | Sunday Night DUST (Episode 15, Year 2) – I just found out DUST presents every Sunday one hour of fantastic Sci-Fi short films.
- The Ants – A short philosophical story about the meaning of everything.
- The Case For Free Speech (Introduction) – Introduction video to a new series on Free Speech and John Stuart Mill. The topics covered in this future series will be very controversial but also highly interesting.
- ‘Indian’ or ‘Native American’? [Reservations, Part 0] – Funny video explaining the controversial word Indian.
- Why Hayao Miyazaki’s Animation Feels Alive – An essay on how the films of Studio Ghibli use sound design and background artwork to create atmosphere. I’ll have to rewatch all of these films now after seeing this.
- The Happiness Fallacy – Video essay about the hedonic treadmill, stoic philosophy and Allan Watt’s philosophy.
- Why is There NO Record of Ancient Humans? - Randall Carlson – A remix video of a talk by Randall Carlson about cataclysmic events in human history, that were strong enough to wipe out most of their achievements. This interesting theory makes a lot of sense and explains why we have all these old myths about flood, Atlantis, or wisdom “from the gods” in cultures around the globe.
- 10 Essential Drawing Materials for SERIOUS Beginners – A half-hour lesson into useful drawing materials to get, when starting to draw.
- Portrait of Lotte, 0 to 20 years – An updated version of the time-lapse video by Frans Hofmeester showing his daughter Lotte growing up from 0 to 20 years.
TV Shows
- South Park, 23 – Another funny season of this political incorrect TV show. These times covering stories like immigration, China, the anti-vaccination movement, or plant-based diets. South Park
- Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, 2 – Good season with a lot of action. P
- The Terror, 2 – I started watching the seconds season of The Terror. This time a group of Japanese prisoners in a US internment camp gets haunted during WWII by a Pyūrei.
- Fleabag 1 2 – This British TV show is very funny. I enjoyed every minute of both (too short) seasons. Hopefully soon more of this. P
- The Expanse, 2 3 – I timed watching these two seasons exactly to be finished when the 4th season starts on December, 13th. P
- Mr. Robot, 4 – This season has some really fantastic episodes. Two have a nearly perfect 10.0 score right now. I liked episode 405 in particular because it is filmed without any talking. P
- The End of the Fxxxing World, 2 – The second season of this British TV show is very funny and filled with black humour. N
- Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, 2 – I already loved the first season of this Japanese TV show, which takes place in a Tokyo diner that opens between midnight to 7 am. It’s a TV show with short stories, interesting dialogs, and food. N
Movies
- Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby – The Netflix comedy special of Seth Meyers. N
- Klaus – One of the best Christmas movies I’ve seen so far. The story, ideas, animation, and artwork are amazing! N
Music & Podcast
- DUST: Horizons – An anthology of immersive science fiction audio stories ranging from classic tales by pioneers of the genre to thought-provoking stories from the emerging voices of today.
Books
- The Laws of Human Nature (Amazon) – Robert Greene on understanding people’s drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves.
- The Divine Comedy (Amazon) – I’m still reading Inferno.
- Yurei Attack!: The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide (Amazon) – The 2nd season of The Terror: Infamy made me dig out this funny and interesting Manga about Japanese demons.
- Indistractable (Amazon) – Nir Eyal writes about how to become indistractable.
- Tiamat’s Wrath (The Expanse #8) (Amazon) – I started reading the new book of The Expanse and I’m really curious where this story leads, as this is probably the penultimate book of the series.
Articles
- Microsoft Japan’s experiment with 3-day weekend boosts worker productivity by 40 percent – Working fewer leads to more productivity. How would you have thought?
- “Watchmen” and the Fundamental Moral Dilemma: Do the Ends Justify the Means? – An interesting essay about the moral dilemma in Watchmen.
- The Secret to Enjoying a Long Winter – Jason Kottke writes about how to pull through a long, dark winter.
- The Dark Psychology of Social Networks – Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell write about outrage culture in Social Media.
- Web Almanac – HTTP Archive’s annual state of the web report.
- 101 Ways to Live Sustainably – An illustrated guide on living sustainable.
Inspiration
- This 19th-Century “Double Sculpture” Tells a Tale of Two Different People on Back and Front – A cool two-sided sculpture with Mephistopheles and Margaretta from Faust.
- D.Potfer Studio – A cool, minimalist website of a french brand studio. Fantastic colors and typography.
- Bruno Arizio – A nice, minimalist website by Bruno Arizio, an Italian designer and writer.
- The Scriberia Sketchnote Depository – A nice collection of Sketchnotes created by Scriberia.
- Folio of Alex van Zijl – Nice, minimalist portfolio of Alex van Zijl. Also fantastic typography and colors. And Humble as F🤭CK.
- Jakub Cech – And another nice, minimalist portfolio with fantastic typography and colors by Jakub Cech.
- Design Thinking Editorial – A beautiful Editorial Design by Juli Descole.
- 50 Jahre Kyūdō in Hamburg – Beautiful branding for a Kyūdō social club.
Stuff & Things
- Duolingo Stories – A cool, new way to learn a language by following a spoken and written dialog. Available for now for Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
- Espanso – Cross-platform Text Expander written in Rust.
- TinaCMS – A new Open-Source project for getting real-time editing into a static site. The video presentation convinced me: I’ll use this for my upcoming Gatsby website.
- The Size of Space – A website comparing the size of objects in space.
- Breitbandmessung Funkloch Karte – A website showing the “quality” of German mobile networks across Germany.
- base16 – An Open-Source project providing the architecture for building carefully chosen syntax highlighting using a base of sixteen colors. Available for nearly every terminal, editor, or tool you can think of.
- unegunn/fzf – A command-line fuzzy finder that is so impressive you won’t believe it. Provides also a Vim plugin.
Quotes
The universe is change. Life is opinion.
When we find ourselves on the side of the majority, we should pause and reflect. Because it means we might be going along with the mob. We might have turned off our own mind. We might be muting our true colors.
Think by way of example of the times of Vespasian, and you’ll see all these things: marrying, raising children, falling ill, dying, wars, holiday feasts, commerce, farming, flattering, pretending, suspecting, scheming, praying that others die, grumbling over one’s lot, falling in love, amassing fortunes, lusting after office and power. Now that life of theirs is dead and gone … the times of Trajan, again the same …
The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.
When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrap of your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others.
Finally, a unique creature in nature, standing with some dignity and nobility and transcending the human condition; and then he is good only for dying.
Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.
You see this goblet?
asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.