Web Miscellany: Compilation #60

Hello, internet friends! How has you week been? Last weekend, I had the opportunity to gift a friend some homemade baby gifts I’ve been sewing up over the last few months and every day she’s been texting to point out another small detail she just noticed. I can’t believe I’m going to be an auntie in a few short weeks! I haven’t been around kids at all since my siblings were young, so I’m both nervous and excited to meet this itty-bitty human.

As this letter goes out, I’m chilling in creek-side cabin, surrounded by changing leaves. Soon, we’ll be embarking on either a one-mile walk along the creek or a four-mile trek up the canyon, then returning for a simple meal and jigsaw puzzling. Unfortunately the “magic” jigsaw puzzle I backed on Kickstarter was sent to Target rather than it’s backers… so we’ll either be picking a new puzzle or revisiting an old favorite.

The anniversary gift made it home with a comical chorus of “don’t look in the backseat!” and “go in the office and close the door!” and “don’t look under the bed!” He received a huge piece of digital artwork he has been coveting for years with a special commissioned piece on the back. I got a tube of cortisone cream for the seven-year itch. It’s been our inside-joke for years and I’d have be disappointed if I received anything less. 😉

I hope you have a fantastic weekend! Here are a few links from around the web. Feel free to share anything interesting you’ve stumbled upon in the comments.

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1. “Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom—poets, visionaries—realists of a larger reality.” —Ursula K. Le Guin
2. “Going for a walk is an age-old salve for many ills: isolation, disappointment, drowsiness, worry, heartbreak, writer’s block, general stagnation, and boredom. The activity of walking benefits the mind and body in ways we’re still discovering, due to its all-star ingredient list of fresh air, exercise, change of scenery, contact with nature, and contemplation time… A recent study has identified another beneficial ingredient of walking: the emotion of awe.” The Healthy Emotion We Don’t Get Enough Of from David at Raptitude.
3. Using an AI-based framework called Pixel2Style2Pixel and searching for faces in a dataset harvested from Flickr, Nathan Shipley made some more photorealistic faces for Pixar characters. Fascinating and uncanny.
4. In Flight: Dramatic photographs by Mark Harvey capture acrobatic birds mid-air. Stunning.
5. The comments section of of this article on The Easiest Relationship Tip melts my heart.
6. ‘We’re like athletes’: the secret lives of giant-vegetable growers. This was strangely fascinating.
7. We picked up these Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 THX Computer Speakers at Costco a few weeks and set them up in our living/dining room and they’ve been a fantastic upgrade. We’ve been listening to Enya’s The Memory of Trees on repeat and thoroughly enjoying it.
8. Daisugi is a sustainable forestry technique that originated in Kyoto in the 14th or 15th century. The tops of Kitayama cedar trees are carefully pruned so that a stand of very straight branches grow straight up from a main platform.
9. What does it mean to for clothing to spark joy? How do you know whether or not an item deserves your time and energy and a place in your home? Learning What it Means to Spark Joy.
10. Stumbled across this older music video recently. It’s a great pick-me-up in this uncertain times.