School of Curiosity
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Topsy turvy trials and tribulations
July 3, 2012
According to philosopher Alain De Botton “There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
Have a curious day.
Catalogue d’Objets Introuvables
July 2, 2012
Jaques Carelman was a French painter, sculptor, illustrator, set designer and fundamentally self-taught man. Before his death in April 2012 he created his Catal0gue d’Objects Introuvables (Catalogue of Impossible Objects). He said “Human activities are countless and varied. Some make airplanes, others turn into public funds or into a conversation. Personally, I prefer to strip common objects of their normal use. It’s less dangerous, more honest and infinitely more fun! My objects, as opposed to objects worshipped by our consumer society, are perfectly useless.”
Have a look at the whole catalogue here. It’s as thought provoking as it is hilarious.
Have a curious day.
Linger longer
June 29, 2012
We all have ups and downs in life , but faced with the choice I expect we would all quite rather like to linger a little longer rather than face the alternative. Dan Buettner has visited what he calls the ‘blue zones’ – places where people live much longer than the norm. Places like Sardinia, Okinawa in Japan, Loma Linda in California and Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. As you would expect a big factor in living longer is maintaining good habits. What’s great though is that Buettner found that just having an expectation of living longer is a big part of it. Many of us have a fear of doing this in case it brings on some kind of a jinx.
Expect to have a long and healthy life. The chances are you will do things to make it happen. Let’s all try to linger longer.
The Turnip Prize
June 28, 2012
Last year’s Turnip Prize had a 102-year-old winner and his artistic work of muddy water and jam.
Jim Drew, of Cocklake, called his work Jamming with Muddy Waters.
The Turnip Prize is a spoof award that pokes fun at the Tate Gallery’s Turner Prize by rewarding deliberately bad modern art.
Jim said: “I am amazed to win this most coveted art award on my first attempt and I truly feel the lack of effort has really paid off. I aimed low and luckily reached far lower than I could have dreamed. I am amazed at what my mediocrity and indifference has achieved.”
http://www.turnipprize.com/
The art of possibility
June 27, 2012
Something for when things seem impossible….
“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!” Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55), Danish philosopher.
21 slices of goodness
June 26, 2012
Here are 21 pictures that will restore your faith in human nature @ buzzfeed.com
A creative coffee?
June 25, 2012
I’ve been telling people for years that when they see me in the coffee shop staring into space over a skinny flat white, that I’m actually working. Now researchers have shown that there is some truth in this, and that the moderate levels of ambient noise found in coffee shops actually enhance your ability to think creatively.
This is good because I’ve been trying to crack a problem I’m having with Starbucks. They’ve started asking my name and writing it on a cup. The idea is that when your drink is ready somebody shouts your name. Each time I’ve had my name written on a cup, they’ve made my drink and then shouted “Flat white” which makes the whole thing seem a little pointless. Next time they ask my name I’m going to tell them its Flatwhite then I won’t be disappointed when my drink is ready.
If you’ve got a problem to crack today, maybe steer clear of the library and head for a creative coffee.
Is noise always bad? Exploring the effects of ambient noise on creative cognition Journal of Consumer Research
Call me Clementine
June 22, 2012
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Ahem……allow me to introduce myself. I’m called Clementine and I’m the public face of The School of Curiosity. I’m nearly forty you know! I’ll be coming home today after some mechanical work and I’ll be getting ready for my new School of Curiosity paint job. The suspense is killing me.
Anyway, just wanted to tell you that you can follow all of my adventures on that Twitter thing @clementinz
The absolute level of simplicity
June 21, 2012
The UK Government announced plans this week to make the Civil Service more efficient. It’s all very simple, according to Minister Francis Maude. The Civil Service will become “Digital by default”. As if that wasn’t enough they are going to engage in “Rigorous daily collective self-evaluation”, “lean continuing improvement” and follow a “Demanding methodology in the delivery landscape”.
I think this means that they are going online, they are going to talk to each other and try to do their jobs better. Though heaven knows what they will say when they try to explain what job they are supposed to be doing.
Contrast this with Apple insider ken Segall who says that CEO Steve Jobs would go berserk if his team brought something to him that had not been boiled down to its absolute level of simplicity. Thank goodness our Civil Servants didn’t work at Apple. We may have ended up with a “Digital sonic portable platform with self-select functionality for integration in an advanced entertainment landscape”. Personally I think iPod sounds better.
Thought for the day: Boil everything down to its absolute level of simplicity.
Insanely Simple: The Obsession that Drives Apple’s Success, Ken Segall
Friendly flyers
June 20, 2012
Lewis Dryburgh lives in Aberdeen. A few years back he began hiding messages, like the one pictured above, around the city in the hope that they would be found by random strangers. He included a website address on the back. Some people thought he was a driven by religious fervour or promoting a business. He was doing neither. He just wanted to cheer people up.
So many people replied via the website saying how the message had affected them. You can see all his messages and the replies on Friendly Flyers. It’s heartwarming stuff.
Make someone’s day today. Hide a friendly flyer.