4th Sept 2020
From Wired. ‘Cameo lets you buy personalised greetings from sport stars, singers, influencers and… zoo animals. What does it say about the nature of modern celebrity?’
..and in the same neck of the woods, this short film portrays a dark side of an online influencer. ‘Jordan desires a lot of attention from his followers and people around him. Surrounded by luxury and armoured with a bold image, he carefully builds his own fake kingdom full of digital dreams. However as it turns out, being the most popular person isn’t always the best outcome.’ (3′ 08″)
Stripe is a payments company that describes itself using the word “infrastructure.” It doesn’t get more boring than that in tech, and yet, Stripe is fanatically adored. People love the company’s co-founders, the charming, intellectual Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison. Its mission is audacious: to increase the GDP of the internet. Engineers rave about its simple-to-use product that makes something as complex as payments ‘just work’. But could it be the internet’s most under valued company? (HT @neilperkin)
From Aeon. ‘William Blake saw angels and ghosts and the Hallelujah sunrise, even on the darkest day. We need to foster his state of mind….Blake’s descriptions, the energy of his verse, and his imagination, can help us expand our sight in the light of the signs we receive, just as he made much of having seen angels on Peckham Rye.‘
LA 2028 unveils a dynamic Olympics logo, updated by athletes and celeb creators.
Here, a thread of the most beautiful Libraries of the World.
Definitely worth subscribing. Free from the shackles of the Gartner sponsorship, Professor Galloway is back on YouTube with the Prof G Show.
Funny and clever piece from Coors. Win a trip to the background you’ve been staring at for months.
Worth a listen or a look. ‘Nine things we learned when Andy Puddicombe (founder of Headspace) spoke to Joe Wicks about meditation.’
The totemic Windows 95 operating system was released 25 years ago this week. Here is the launch commercial.
‘Beef or chicken?’ What $2 airline meals taste like on the ground.
Camden Town Brewery gives away free pints in ‘world’s first (kind of) drinkable TV ad’.
A goose remembers his last migration. How the Miracle on the Hudson may have looked from the geese’s perspective. (5′ 25″).
Another piece from Vimeo. Circulatory Systems – ‘The major highways, arteries and veins of our cities (2’ 15″). Kind of a souped-up version of 1982’s Koyaanisqatsi (trailer – 2″ 16″).
God is a single parent and amateur programmer. He’s working on project ‘Earth’ but never seems to get a break from the kids. One day though, he finally gets a breakthrough. (7′ 00″).