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Posted on 06.18.08 by Emily
What’s tree-fitty? Loch Ness Monster: $3.50 Global Climate Crisis: 350 is the red line for human beings, the most important number on the planet. The most recent science tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth. Where are we now? About 385. Learn more, connect with others and take action at the newly relaunched 350.org founded by Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy (one of the most compelling and inspiring books I am reading right now.)
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Posted on 04.16.08 by Emily
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Posted on 03.15.08 by Emily
Oprah’s online book club event with Eckhart Tolle for A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose is truly wonderful. You can watch it on her site, download (video, audio and transcript) or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. The most exciting part is the use of Skype, allowing people from all over the world to participate in the live event using video chat. Whether you’re interested in the topic, technology or both, it’s worth registering (free) to see how it works and check out the extended materials. In the amazing TED Talk above, Dr. Jill Taylor (author of My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey) reaches the insights Oprah and Eckhart discuss through a stroke. As a neuroanatomist, she was able to observe her own stroke from the inside out. She uses a real human brain as a prop, showing how differently the left and right hemispheres experience the world, outlining an anatomy of enlightenment and “circuitry of peace.” Her talk highlighted for me how we are literally out of balance individually and collectively. “Modern” education focuses almost solely on the left brain and undervalues development of the right side. We need to develop the whole thing and use everything we’ve got. Bring back arts, music and movement and add in meditation. (Of course, if you use more than 5% of your brain, you don’t want to be on Earth anymore…)
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Posted on 02.18.08 by Emily
Interesting 60 Minutes segment, “Pursuit of Happiness” with Morley Safer investigating the claims that Denmark is the happiest country. United States was ranked 23th, Japan 90th. He interviews Professor Kaare Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark, who wrote “Why Danes are Smug” and tried to discover why Denmark finds it self on top of the happiness heap. Dr. Christiansen attributes Danish happiness to modest expectations. Here are some other qualities that might have something to do with it:
How does that work? The Danes pay about 50% in taxes for these services. Tal Ben-Shahar, professor of Positive Psychology at Harvard, says Americans want it all - more is better. More is better usually applies to material realm. That doesn’t work. It doesn’t make us happier. What does? “The number one predictor of well-being is close friendships and close relationships in general, which includes of course, family relationships. Much better predictor of well-being than affluence is,” Ben-Shahar says. Asked what he would advise Americans to do, a Danish student said: “Well, okay. I have an advice. Don’t depend too much on the American dream. Yeah. I think you might get disappointed.” (Full transcript of show. Tip of the hat to Duplicitous Primates)
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Posted on 02.12.08 by Emily
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Posted on 01.29.08 by Emily
The surreal romance of aristocratic expat Lucy and castaway Jack enchanted me as I strolled through Sydney’s Royal Botanical Gardens in early January, following their love story on a handheld HP GPS device preloaded with Anita Fontaine’s spooky sweet Ghost Garden, part of the 2008 Sydney Festival. As I traveled through the gardens, certain locations would trigger animated scenes that revealed the story, set in the 1800s. I could feel the past, present and future all melting into one, and I got excited imagining the day when it be easy to create my own site-specific adventures for people to discover as they’re traveling through a space.
Anything similar for the iPhone’s fauxGPS maps or soon to be true GPS? For now, you can enjoy my Emily Approved Sydney recommendations in Google Maps and in Google Earth.
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Posted on 01.25.08 by Emily
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Posted on 11.06.07 by Emily
My day started off with some of the brilliant skits and songs that instilled in me an early and abiding love for letters, letterforms and language: Lower-case N, Standing on a Hill from Sesame Street, Easy Reader and the Adventures of Letterman from Electric Company. I love learning that was Morgan Freeman, Gene Wilder, Joan Rivers and Zero Mostel. I’m feeling the urge to indulge in an extended experience. (Thanks, Panopticist!) Not long after, I discovered Hyperwords, an excellent FireFox extension that lets you select any word and translate it, look it up in a dictionary or thesaurus, shop it, search it, blog it, slice it through a tin can and still apply many more commands than I have time to explore right now. One especially handy feature is being able to select any currency amount and convert it on the fly. (Despite how painful it is to convert prices in [any currency] to U.S. dollars now.)
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Posted on 11.01.07 by Emily
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Posted on 10.13.07 by Emily
According to “Is That a Lama Behind the Camera,” Anupama Chopra’s great article in the New York Times on Bhutan’s budding film industry, last year a record 24 films were produced in the tiny Himalayan kingdom, population 700,000; in 2003 the total was only six. Even though there were only ten films produced in the country in 2005, delightful movie posters announced screenings in the theaters or public halls of every town I traveled through. The article describes a trend towards song-and-dance fantasy, but the movies that caught my eye had taglines that sounded far more realistic: “Muensel — True love comes… and goes,” “Ratho Namgay — bungling along a lifetime achievement of failure,” and “Kikhor — the drama of life begins at home, within the family.” It’s clear that while the dialogue is in Dzongkha and the costumes are traditionally Bhutanese, the themes are universal.
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