An interesting look and breakdown at the cost of Urban Sprawl in the United States. While the conclusions are both predictable and obvious it's good that someone crunched the math. I'm guessing that they've underestimated it greatly, Calgary's sprawl alone must account for several billion dollars squandered annually...
Link: http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/06/cost-of-sprawl-us-commuters/486170/
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A rather intriguing way of looking at addiction and mental illness.
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A couple on Moran Cerf, former computer/bank hacker and current expert on hacking the brain. Some intriguing insights into dreams and how changing the dream can change the waking outcomes, still lots of research to be done, but lots of interesting discoveries already...
Link: Moran Cerf on TED
and, if you liked this, maybe listen to his bank-robbing story on THE MOTH...
He reminds me a bit of Justin Trudeau, handsome, that Gallic Charm
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In my early 20's I had the idea for "Zen Wristwatches", which were essentially faceless watch dials mounted upon straps. Of course they wouldn't be plain faceless, we'd do a whole variety, out of different materials, jade, onyx, clear crystal, stainless steel, hundreds of possible materials, big, small, whatever.
The genius wasn't so much in the watch, it was in the marketing of it: "Zen Watches - for the Here and Now" or "No Time Like the Present: Find Your Zen" and there would be a whole bunch of irrelevant quotes about the meaninglessness of measuring time and the importance of Now and Living in the Present and Bullshit and all. Pretty much like every other product on the market...
I think that I got the idea because I was getting into collecting wristwatches, and I couldn't get why people would pay enormous sums for brand names...
Anyways the marketing was good, only I didn't have the product or the budget to bring it to fruition. It's still there, I think, in a notebook someplace in the locker. There wasn't any Kickstarter in those days. There is now, though, and I was a little surprised that someone else had a similar idea...
Link: "Jesper: Minimalist Wristwatch"
It's not actually all that minimalist, with all the pointless crowns and crystals and all...
For an excellent article on Minimalism read this: James Altucher - How Minimalism brought me Joy and Freedom. I don't think he's wearing a watch. Certainly not a Jesper...He does seem to have a surprising number of bright ideas, though, if you browse through the rest of his blog...
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