How to find the right music for coding, writing or any other absorbing activity

A playlist can have magical import upon your creative output. Here’s some music styles that have helped me for writing, creating, sorting and doing the more mundane but necessary tasks in daily life. A few tips on selection 1. Seek out music that’s unobtrusive and doesn’t command all of your attention. It should overall beContinue reading “How to find the right music for coding, writing or any other absorbing activity”

50 Beautiful Words To Sprinkle Into Communications

Our digital world is swarming with recently made-up words like YOLO and SWAG, plus misappropriated words like ‘awesome’ to mean pretty much everything. This demands that literary types everywhere come out of the woodwork in protest! Here are some luscious and fulsome words to sprinkle liberally into your communications. Alternately you could wield these words as Gandalf wouldContinue reading “50 Beautiful Words To Sprinkle Into Communications”

The Earth Only Lives Once: Climate Change Protests Happening Right Now

Street protests demanding urgent action on climate change have galvanised hundreds of thousands of people all over the world into action in 2,000 locations worldwide.In NYC, the People’s Climate Change March took place on the streets ahead of the UN climate change summit in New York.  Image Source Image Source   In Manhattan, organisers that aroundContinue reading “The Earth Only Lives Once: Climate Change Protests Happening Right Now”

What Makes a GIF into Something Great

There’s no cut and dry answer to this question. Infact, typing  ‘What makes a GIF into something great’ into Google gives almost no search results, only instructional guides about how to make GIFs. We’ve already discussed Scorpion Daggers’ great work. This has led me to writing something on what constitutes a great GIF. They visibly skip:Continue reading “What Makes a GIF into Something Great”

The Secret Back Door to the Entire World

This is just perfect for armchair travelers and people with incurable wanderlust. Take a step through this virtual door and be transported to some of the most curious, random and exotic locations in the world, all courtesy of Google Maps/ Google Earth. What a clever idea by this British door replacement company. Surely the marketingContinue reading “The Secret Back Door to the Entire World”

Scotland’s Momentous Decision on September 18th

In about a week’s time Scotland’s people will be making a momentous decision for the country’s future. The decision to cleave away from their historic neighbours and become an independent country, or to stay and be a part of Britain. There have been fiery debates between Tory minister Alaisdair Darling and First Minister Alex Salmond.Continue reading “Scotland’s Momentous Decision on September 18th”

MSG: What Australian and New Zealand Consumers Should Know

Mono Sodium Glutamate was a buzz word from the 80’s and 90’s. It seemed that everyone had a story to tell about the after-effects of this flavour enhancing food additive. MSG used to be a dirty word, but it seems that in the past decade, the tide of scientific evidence has turned the other way.Continue reading “MSG: What Australian and New Zealand Consumers Should Know”

Scorpion Dagger: The Renaissance Needs More Pizza and Beer

Haunting, weird, controversial and wickedly funny, these gifs created by James Kerr A.K.A Scorpion Dagger are made from parts of well-known Renaissance paintings along with the flotsam and jetsam of his insane imagination. Renaissance and Medieval art has been hitherto considered too high brow to be messed with. Although Scorpion Dagger proves that anything isContinue reading “Scorpion Dagger: The Renaissance Needs More Pizza and Beer”

Take the quiz: What New Zealand native species are you?

Take this quiz that originally appeared on the NZ Department of Conservation’s website. It is a lot of fun.  Image Source Kauri You’re one of the world’s mightiest characters. You’re tall and strong and are respected by many. But with great power comes great responsibility, and you find that often you’re reassuring people that ‘My homeContinue reading “Take the quiz: What New Zealand native species are you?”

Hello Fellow Citizens of the Pale Blue Dot

I am so grateful to be alive today. When there is chaos and impending war all around us, that’s about all we can say, in our own individual humble way. All of my posts this week and next were prewritten about a month ago. Before all hell was unleashed in both the Middle East, RussiaContinue reading “Hello Fellow Citizens of the Pale Blue Dot”