Welcome to this week's edition of our Quality Linkage column. Please enjoy this week’s collection of interesting and entertaining links. Brew a fresh cup of coffee, find a comfortable place, and relax.
??: I'll never miss an opportunity to look at the gorgeous birdlife captured in each year's Audubon photography awards if I can help it, and this year is no different.
??: On a similar topic (kind of), Noah Kalina's search for the ultimate watermark for his bird photography is pretty amusing.
✏️???: Absurd.design is a project by Spanish graphic designer Diana Valeanu where she creates and publishes collections of “absurd” (I think of them more as abstract or surreal) illustrations and vector art that are free to use for both personal and commercial projects. Quite a bit different than the usual stuff you find in illustration libraries.
??: If the trailer alone doesn't get you to watch Van Neistat's The Spirited Man series on YouTube, I don't know what will:
He and his brother Casey (yes, THAT Casey) put on a Kickstarter project for the series a bit ago, and its description couldn't be more accurate:
Van has pioneered a new film genre called the INDUSTRIAL ESSAYFILM.
An INDUSTRIAL-ESSAY FILM is a hybrid of the INDUSTRIAL FILM and the ESSAY:
- INDUSTRIAL FILM: A film that explains a concept, product, or idea. Like the film they showed you in shop class so you didn't chop off your hand with the table saw.
- ESSAY: Well...you know, an essay. An insight from a particular point of view.
INDUSTRIAL ESSAY FILM: Sort of like a newspaper column, but with image and sound.
?: Ever wondered what a big city like Tokyo might look like without all those signs, cables, etc? As it turns out, a little strange.
I wonder what will Tokyo look like when we no longer need material functions. There are no entrances and no exits, only box-like structures spreading out. All activities are completed in the box, and photos, text, and traces of human consumption activities disappear from the city.
Discarding the garment of civilization that humans decorated it with, Tokyo reveals its naked form as “TOKYO NUDE”.
??: I haven't tried it myself yet, but if this “Brickit” app actually works the way they claim it does — essentially, point your phone camera at a pile of LEGO bricks, scan them in, and it will give you ideas for new stuff to build with them — then it's going to change everything here at T&T HQ.
?: Here's an interesting website that provides exhaustive explanations of how various items, products, electronics, and machinery are manufactured. The list is alphabetized, so if there's anything you're curious about the making of, it's easy to find. Here are just a few entries I was curious about:
❓: Seth Godin offers five useful questions to help you get your projects, tasks, and calendar back on track.
⏳?: David Sparks wrote about the difference between important and urgent, because the distinction does matter and it might be affecting how you approach your own tasks.
Neat Stuff We've Published Recently
- If you ask us, Lodge's best product may not actually be their famous cast iron skillet, but instead their reversible grill/griddle.
- Is ERRA's self-titled album already the metalcore release of the year? We wouldn't be surprised one bit.
- These travel-friendly wall adapters pack all the charging power of a traditional laptop power brick in a much smaller footprint.
- Here's a capable and nice-looking coffee/espresso scale (with an auto-timer) for your brewing station.
- The Instant-brand “Vortex Mini” air fryer is a smaller, budget-friendly alternative to the NuWave Brio.
- Carbon steel skillets: The secret weapon of chefs since the 19th century.
Got any suggestions for articles, videos, stories, photographs, and any other links you think we should be posting in our weekly Quality Linkage? Please do let us know on Twitter.