Probably the best dance video you’ve seen in at least a couple of years:

I’ve been thinking heavily about art and design over the last few weeks. I think the concepts of creativity and beauty are going to be crucial to my search for meaning. As such, I’ve been thinking a lot more about the aesthetics of things.

More to come on this, but for now a talk by Milton Glaser.

A great talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on fighting the demons of creativity.

Here’s a brilliant collection of six-word stories from Wired.

Here’s Hemmingway’s famous one:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

And here’s another of my favorites, by David Brin:

Vacuum collision. Orbits diverge. Farewell, love.

Definitely worth the time.

[ Six Word Stories | Wired.com ]

I’ve been thinking a lot about what matters in life recently–specifically about focusing in on the things that matter, and trimming much of the rest.

One thing I keep returning to is creativity. Something I’ve noticed in myself is that when I’m in the middle of building something I have very little interest in acquiring new things. And when I feel idle and bored I get the urge to go to Best Buy (or somewhere online) to pick something up.

Why?

Because at that moment, when I’m not doing anything productive, I start telling myself that, “If I had this gadget it’d help me do x…”, which is usually crap. We can create whenever we want, really; tools are seldom the obstacle.

Anyway, the point is that I should be aware of this. Nothing makes me happier than creating things. So the next question is “what qualifies as creation”? This is a question I’ve been working on for some time now, and I’m going to have a separate post on it soon.

But in the meantime, if you get the urge to purchase something it might be a creativity void you’re trying to fill. And the gadget/widget/thing isn’t going to help. ::

My current favorite iPhone app is Bloom, by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers.

You can do two things with it:

1. You can just listen to it for some very pleasant ambient music
2. You can use the touch interface to create some yourself

I usually do the first; I’ve been listening to it at work quite a bit, as it’s soothing and conducive to both real thought and grinding as well. And when it comes time to show off some apps the creation piece is excellent.

I highly recommend it. ::

[ Bloom | iTunes ]

British inventor Josh Silver, a former professor of physics at Oxford University, has come up with a game-changer of a product design with his water-lensed glasses.

Silver has devised a pair of glasses which rely on the principle that the fatter a lens the more powerful it becomes. Inside the device’s tough plastic lenses are two clear circular sacs filled with fluid, each of which is connected to a small syringe attached to either arm of the spectacles.

The wearer adjusts a dial on the syringe to add or reduce amount of fluid in the membrane, thus changing the power of the lens. When the wearer is happy with the strength of each lens the membrane is sealed by twisting a small screw, and the syringes removed. The principle is so simple, the team has discovered, that with very little guidance people are perfectly capable of creating glasses to their own prescription.

[ Brilliant Water-based Glasses | core77.com ]