­

Posts

around the traps

  • So you have a lamp made of bones and skulls that you just don't need any more. What do you do? Free to a Good Gothic Home on Flickr

  • According to this TED talk, open plan noise makes you 66% less productive. ....I fucking KNEW it! Rest of the talk is great too.

    ...now I'm off to crank up Confusion.

  • Easily distracted: why it's hard to focus, and what to do about it | Psychology Today: The challenge is that we have not realized the true cost of distractions: they use up what is actually a limited supply of attention each day, and make us far less effective if we need to do deeper thinking work. For example, a university of London study found that being always connected impacts your IQ equivalent to losing a night's sleep or taking up marijuana.
  • The 4WD with seats made of whale penis: A Russian armoured-car builder is boasting that its latest vehicle has seats covered with whale-penis leather. ... because nothing adds that touch of class to your armoured car like the vague feeling of being karmically buggered by a whale.
  • Freudenstein: ABC boss Scott’s paid content claims are laughably inaccurate - mUmBRELLA: As the head of a company that takes in excess of $800 million every year from Australian taxpayers, (Scott’s) claim that the ABC’s online news content ‘will certainly be free’ is as laughable as it is disingenuous. Similarly, he has some gall to criticise the ‘old proprietorial model’, which he says ‘operated as a form of protection from harsh realities the businesses might otherwise have faced’, since this precisely describes the ABC’s government-owned model.

  • Simonova is an Ukrainian artist who won Ukraine's Got Talent 2009. She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII:

around the traps

yoyu

I was introduced to a great concept yesterday: yoyu. I was at the Web Directions South conference and Kelly Goto mentioned it in her opening keynote for day two.

It turns out that yoyu is kind of hard to find using Google. In fact one friend observed Yoyu cannot be found with Google, which seems kind of appropriate ;)

As it turns out the first useful link I found was Kelly's mother talking about it:

There is a Japanese word, "yoyu". We use the word often. It means to have extra preparation.

...

"Yoyu" also has the implication of calmness one feels when they are extra prepared. It is that space between "Get Ready" and "Go" – the space "Get set" or "Be ready" or "feel confident". For instance, I might say, "He/she lacks yoyu." when I see someone leading a frazzled existence. I might tell our daughters to consider scheduling their lives with a little more yoyu. Therefore, I would use the word more for a lifestyle suggestion. It’s a big picture word.

yoyu | goto company

In a linked post, Kelly explains it as the time ‘in-between’ things, allowing moments to relax, regroup and prepare for next appointment, deadline or arrival. We do not have a word like this in English. It is a very significant cultural difference.

I think many of us have lives which lack yoyu.