Learning never stops and I am always hungry to know more. Knowledge is power, as the adage goes. Below is a brain dump of random things I've stumbled across or taken an interest in lately.
Art/Design
Turns out there was an artist by the name of Hieronymus Bosch back around the 16th century who liked painting triptych's (paintings that consist of three separate panels). One of his paintings called "The Garden of Earthly Delights" is shown above, and is fucking incredible. It reminds me a little of the surrealism I have come to love from Salvador Dali. Just take a little time to appreciate the intricate detail (akin to what I adore about dioramas), and the underlying message(s) depicted in the above triptych. Incredible.
I always enjoy finding quirky and unconventional gifts, even if I never actually purchase them for people. This company
Woodili popped up on my Instagram feed and caught my eye. I find their products very aesthetically pleasing, and also they ooze sentimental value which I'm a sucker for.
Locations
Hands up if you'd never head of Lake Baikal, Siberia until 2022... 🙋 despite it being allegedly the Earth's oldest and deepest lake! Well, thankfully Windows 10 blessed me with it as my login background one day and I was awestruck at how pristine and idyllic it looked. It also has the added phenomenon of frozen methane bubbles!
Next up in random locations I was unfamiliar with we have Kiribati Island, an independent nation in the central Pacific Ocean near Fiji which was used for nuclear weapons testing in the 1960's by the UK. Why you would want to bomb such beautiful islands is a mystery to me. This one hit my radar when it recently declared it's first Covid lockdown, approximately 2yrs into the pandemic. History really does show our ancestors as being utterly detestable.
Next up we have Salekhard, Russia, the only city in the world that lies within the Arctic Circle. The temperature can drop below -20°C during winter, and the Aurora Borealis is visible all year round! This one hit my grid thanks to my friend Daz posting about it on his Instagram story.
And finally we have
Pumapunku, Bolivia which came to my attention after I happened upon an article explaining how historians have remained baffled since it's discovery due to the precise stonework therein. It is part of Tiahuanacu and belonged to the Tiwanaku empire that predates the Incas. I have always been fascinated by ancient cultures such as the Egyptians, Aztecs and related sites of historical significance.
Health
With quitting smoking (and alcohol too for the time being), I was reading up about free radicals and oxidant stress as encouragement to remain resolute in my decisions. These unstable atoms that are believed to cause cancer and other illnesses can be best mitigated via antioxidants. These antioxidants then hunt down free radicals and neutralise them. This is why we are encouraged to consume a multitude of diversely coloured fruits and vegetables to ensure our intake of antioxidants is sufficient.
Different coloured fruits/vegetables/nuts provide different antioxidants such as:
- Carotenoid Lycopene
- β-Cryptoxanthin
- Sulforaphane
- Isocyanate
- Indoles
- Anthocyanins
- Allicin
- Quercetin
- Kaempferol
- CoQ10
Not only am I improving my health by quitting smoking/drinking, but I'm also going to be trying to improve my diet and antioxidant intake!
Technology
I've been listening to Darknet Diaries podcast which covers a lot of cyber security stuff. Heard of an alternative to WhatsApp that is actually secure and private; it's called Signal. Also intrigued by a book that was mentioned:
Extreme Privacy - What It Takes To Disappear. I may take a deeper look into that at some point. Privacy and anonymity are not easily secured in the current day and age.
I also subscribed to a newsletter called TLDR which has been putting me onto a whole new range of interesting articles and new areas of research. Turns out for example, that there is a website that allows for the leasing of URL's containing emojis:
https://y.at/ - random right? Also there is a thing called
Drop Servicing (somewhat similar to
Drop Shipping) where people are brokering online services for a fee, and making serious money in some cases. Someone needs a logo designing - you tell them you can do it for £50, then go pay someone on
Fiverr a £10 to do the work, and pocket the £40 difference.
Just on a tangent, I've always wanted to get myself a
Wacom but popular consensus via TLDR now seems to encourage buying an iPad Mini and Apple Pencil then using Procreate, Notability, Bear and Concepts instead. Thought I may as well make a note of that for future consideration.
TLDR also do a Crypto newsletter and since I've always been curious about this stuff so figured I'd give it a look. There is a big push toward
Web3 these days, which would be a decentralised replacement for the current internet (Web 2.0). The idea of decentralisation extends further to apps (or
dapps) which use
blockchain technology. A possible technology for this is
Ethereum.
Gotta mention this too because it's bizarre.
There is a virtual world called Decentraland. I know right, fucking mental. What is even more mental, is that companies are creating digital spaces within it. I need to find out more, because this is fucking surreal. Kinda like that whole weird Metaverse stuff from Facebook.
It's like trying to totally 'gamify' real life and insulate people into staying in their home on devices permanently.
TV
I recently became aware of the Grishaverse thanks to Netflix's "
Shadow and Bone" show. Impatient to learn more about the varied cast, and lore of the series after mistakenly thinking there was a second series already available.
"Hope is dangerous; it clouds your judgement." - Kaz Brekker
And as Attack on Titan begins drawing to a close, I hear Jigokuraku is being turned into an anime by the same studio. Be interested to see if it's anywhere near the level of AoT which has set a very high bar.
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