Dots

Dots
Originally uploaded by Spherical Roy

I did a recording for Aby on Thursday - have uploaded some photos to Flickr, plus a load of other random ones from this summer so far - turning out to be a good un!

How to attain material wealth, and more..

This is the protocol that I am increasingly using whenever I decide that I need something:

borrow it (added bonus: interacting with humanity) - friends and hirers are a wonderful thing! NB: you can't google for friends, you can google for hirers. I mean you can google for friends, but you shouldn't need to.

make it (added bonus: interacting with your brain) - google for how tos or look on instructables/makezine

get it for free - look on freecycle/gumtree free stuff, check the streets the night before bulk uplift day

get it second hand - look on gumtree/ebay, check the charity shops/bulletin boards

get it cheap - froogle it, or look on amazon marketplace/buy online

get it expensively (added, debatable, bonus: interacting with the physical world) - go to an actual shop!

Obviously it depends what it is and why you want it, but it's amazing how often this can be applied to a want!

A Fine Hour Indeed

I must say I have been enjoying Guy Garvey's Finest Hour on 6Music of late. Almost makes me think that the British implementation of digital radio has been worthwhile. No, hang on, nothing will make me think that.

NYC from the point of view of street furniture

via Why, That's Delightful!

How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion

Brilliant paper in this week's Science (which you probably can't read unless you have a subscription) dealing with our inability to avoid the things (thoughts, actions, comments) we actively wish to avoid. Or in the words of the author:

"... the precisely counterintentional error. This is when we manage to do the worst possible thing, the blunder so outrageous that we think about it in advance and resolve not to let that happen."

I can't help but to think of certain scenarios I've experienced where this is exactly the consequence of suppression of thoughts. 'I couldn't be more embarrassed right now' said the friend who's skirt promptly fell to the ground in a room full of people. And as for the spilling red wine example, I honestly don't think I spill many liquids at all in my life, but give me a glass of red wine and a white carpet to walk over and it's almost a guarantee.

I'll leave you with an urge to read the paper and one of my favourite lines from it:

"Ironic lapses of mental control often appear when we attempt to be socially desirable, as when we try to keep our minds out of the gutter."

Wegner, Daniel, M., 2009. How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion. Science: Vol. 325. no. 5936, pp. 48 - 50 DOI: 10.1126/science.1167346