10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting

Like-for-like photos of life in Mumbai and NYC via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Nisha Sondh’s photos from Mumbai and New York compare like-for-like scenes of life in crowded, exuberant urban centers — trains and fishmongers and butchers and happy people — and captures each city’s distinctiveness as well as the universal character of urban life.
Nisha Sondhe (via MeFi) Read more

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Philip Larkin described sex as a futile attempt to get “someone else to blow your own nose for you”. Funny, right? Now imagine being his lover...more

Reclaim the city! Reclaim nightlife! via Eurozine articles by Marie-Avril Berthet and Virginia Bjertnes
Nightlife and its role in promoting and diffusing culture needs to be officially recognised, write two Geneva based activists. While the authorities of the Swiss city are indeed becoming more attuned to nocturnal culture, support tends to be limited to its commercial, mainstream variety.
Read in full

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
“Man is hungry for beauty. There is a void.” Nine words. Say them aloud. What else is there to be said about beauty?...more
Review of Umberto Eco’s book, History of Beauty (2nd edn), from September 2010 together with a general discussion about beauty and how to describe it!

How Does Poverty Affect Willpower? via Big Think by Big Think Editors
What’s the Latest Development? With the intention of measuring people’s self-control, Princeton economist Dan Spears ran an experiment in which a discount on buying soap was offered. He found that the poorest shoppers, not surprisingly, deliberated hardest over the decision. Read More

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Thoreau, Keats, Blake, and Shelley grasped the value of idleness, but is there any condition more out of sync with the goal-driven ethos of our age?...more

Why A Good Life Need Not Be a Long Life via Big Think by David Berreby
“I know I will not make old bones”, says Achilles in Christopher Logue’s modern Iliad. I personally have seen enough old people staring, drooling, groaning and pissing into their giant diapers to sympathise with a wish to quit while you’re still ahead. Today, though, we’re all supposed to want to ... Read More

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Word processors were going to liberate us from paperwork: “Machines should work, people should think”. But neither ideal is often enough the case. Now what?...more

Walter Lewin: A Modern Mr. Wizard via Big Think by Big Think Editors
What’s the Latest Development?
Former M.I.T. professor Walter Lewin’s theatrical style of teaching physics interested his students in the discipline. Now he has a large following on the Internet as videos of his lectures have hit YouTube. The eccentric teacher has been known to do risky-looking ... Read More

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
It is becoming physically harder to read a book in print. Online connections have disconnected us from ourselves. Johann Hari is mounting a resistance...more

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