Things of note for the week ending Sunday September 25th, 2016.
It’s Sunday. It’s 19:23. And I’m settling down to write this week’s edition. There are a few things in my inbox that I’ve emailed myself throughout the week and a few other favourites/likes from Twitter that need to go in too.
Shall we dive on in?
1. SNAP / SPECTACLES (DON’T SKIP)
You may have been under a rock this week if you missed this one. But stay tuned… there’s something really, really interesting here.
If you did miss it however, in a sentence: Snapchat rebranded itself as Snap Inc and, at the same time, announced a new set of $129 glasses (nay – spectacles) that can snap a 10 second circular video that you can then share direct from your phone.
And it’s that last part that has really caught my attention.
A new video format.
Not landscape.
Not portrait.
Circular.
Why circular?
This is what it looks like in action:
So simple. So innovative.
The landscape vs portrait argument: null and void in one fell swoop.
Well done, Snap. I’m certain that Spectacles will be a complete sell out (it helps when on limited sale) but it’s this video capture/sharing technique that’s the real thing to look at here. This will be copied and copied and copied.
Just watch.
Oh – and as a bonus thing here: if you’re talking to someone at a party/over dinner/in the pub and they say ‘Ewww, it’s just Google Glass but for Millennials’ – just reel off this perfect counter point after counter point.
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2. HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED HOW MUCH EFFORT YOU PUT INTO NOT BEING ASSAULTED?
Incredibly hard reading.
So read it.
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3. I USED TO BE A HUMAN BEING
Another day, another article endorsing the whole digital detox thing. In fairness, it’s barely been two months since OFCOM announced research stating that nearly a third of the UK’s internet users had ditched their devices – so it follows that a few more would be give it a go.
There may be a sense of mockery in the words above but they are merely in jest. I tried this (and dabble with it occasionally – maybe once or twice a year now) way back when I spent a month on the trans-mongolian railway… it was a refreshing experience. One I’d recommend in a heartbeat – both the detox and the train ride.
But this isn’t about me.
This is about Andrew Sullivan, in Select/All.
“I had sensed a personal crash coming. For a decade and a half, I’d been a web obsessive, publishing blog posts multiple times a day, seven days a week, and ultimately corralling a team that curated the web every 20 minutes during peak hours. Each morning began with a full immersion in the stream of internet consciousness and news, jumping from site to site, tweet to tweet, breaking news story to hottest take, scanning countless images and videos, catching up with multiple memes. Throughout the day, I’d cough up an insight or an argument or a joke about what had just occurred or what was happening right now. And at times, as events took over, I’d spend weeks manically grabbing every tiny scrap of a developing story in order to fuse them into a narrative in real time. I was in an unending dialogue with readers who were caviling, praising, booing, correcting. My brain had never been so occupied so insistently by so many different subjects and in so public a way for so long.”
The man has a point.
Question: when was the last time you unplugged?
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4. EVER TRIED RIDING 2000 MILES WITH A BROKEN SHOULDER?
Laura Scott has.
I know Laura from the internet. We even met in real life once – shortly before Laura was about to set off on this journey. I followed it closely – across Twitter and Instagram – and the pain points along the way were palpable.
On personal note: I have so much respect for your commitment and effort, Laura.
I can’t wait to read about your next adventure.
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5. DID YOU ENJOY BEING A GIRL?
Plan International published its findings on what it’s like to be a girl in the UK today. The State of Girls’ Rights In The UK (PDF) is sobering reading (so I say to you again: make yourself read it).
Included in the paper are the top ten best and worst places to live in the UK if you’re a girl.
Emerald Street asked two writers what it was like growing up at opposite ends of that list; a stark comparison.
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6. A REAL AND TRUE THING THAT MIGHT ACTUALLY BLOW YOUR MIND A LITTLE BIT
Did you know that Australia is drifting so fast that GPS – that’s the global positioning system – needs to be adjusted so it stays correct. Over the past ten years or so, the continent down under has drifted a little under five feet. As the director of cartography at the National Geographic, Damien Saunder, says: [it would seem] ‘Some countries are more stationary than others’ – amazing.
Amazing.
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7. ‘THE TERM ‘MILLENNIAL’ IS USELESS’
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Bonus items this week are as follows:
- Is this the best Batman film ever made?
- LA / SF
- Tribes
- Google has opened its Daydream VR platform up to developers
- If you were a Symbian user way back when and you REALLY miss the killer Twitter app, Gravity. @Janole has launched Gravity Forever – for Android. Go get.
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PS. The keen-eyed among you will have noticed the odd numbering of this week’s issue. I numbered last week’s issue incorrectly. Normal service will return at some point soon. Although to be fair, ‘normal’ around these parts is fairly hard to come by.
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Last note: thanks to all of you for the emails, Whatsapps, Tweets, SMS’s, Voicemails (for real), Carrier Pigeons (this is a joke) of congrats re: the new gig.
You know who you are.
Yes, you.
Thank you.
Super super excited and there’s a whole bunch of stuff I’ve been working on that I can hopefully start talking about soon.
Seasons change and, as I am wont to say: bring. it. on.
Until next time…
Whatley out x
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