21st November 2020

From NYT – What did Europe smell like centuries ago? Historians set out to recreate lost scents. A project announced this week and funded by the European Union will catalogue and recreate the scents of Europe from the 16th century to the early 20th century.

WARC on the six challenges facing brands in 2021 – and what to do about them.

Time Magazine’s Inventions of 2020. Categories include – Accessibility, AI, AR & VR, Beauty, Connectivity and many more…

NESTA’s 4 tests of good innovation

A 3 metre high refugee puppet is currently walking from Syria to UK. Good Chance Theatre are  dramatising the global refugee crisis with The Walk. And good luck, Amal. We look forward to welcoming you. (HT @davidpearlhere) (2’01”)

‘So Bradley created a keyboard shortcut that triggered a system reset without the memory tests. He never dreamed that the simple fix would make him a programming hero, someone who’d someday be hounded to autograph keyboards at conferences. And he didn’t foresee the command becoming such an integral part of the user experience. This is the history of CTRL + ALT + DELETE.

Tim Harford on the power of negative thinking. ‘The third advantage of thinking seriously about failure is that we may turn away from projects that are doomed from the outset. From the invasion of Iraq to the process of Brexit, seriously exploring the daunting prospect of disaster might have provoked the wise decision not to start in the first place.’

From Texas Monthly. ‘During the pandemic, Sam Waring put a sign in his yard: “If the Curtain’s Open, Give Us a Wave, Eh?” Passers by obliged. How I Became “The Guy Who Waves”.

Lovely. Rubens’ Cupid escapes his painting & flies around Brussels Airport, Thanks to projection mapping technology. (3’29)

Let’s be honest. We all do this on Zoom.