Five things on Friday #81

Things of note for the week ending July 18th, 2014

oakoak-urban-interventions-1

– OakOak street art, via Web Urbanist

1. Drone Photography
The results of the first annual Dronestagram Photo Competition came in this past week and, of course, they are all pretty stunning. The image below, by Dronestagram contributor, ‘Capungaero‘, took first prize but the others are well worth a look too.

Dronestagram1

2. ‘I don’t recognise the British Image of the EU’
My general guidelines for creating Five Things on Friday every week tend to fit around a couple of rules. One of those rules is ‘Never share anything you’ve seen posted 2-3 times elsewhere’.

I’m breaking that this week because I really think you should all watch this video of Finnish Prime Minister, Alex Stubb, talking to Channel 4 News about Britain and the way it approaches its own internal EU debate.

Alexander Stubb Channel 4

I may make no secret of my love of all things Finland (the people, the produce, the cities, the festivals) and it seems that love now extends to the Prime Minister too.

Engaging, charismatic, and articulate, Alexander Stubb is definitely worth six minutes of your time.

3. Sex Lives of the Humanitarians

When you introduce yourself at a party as a former humanitarian, people expect that your field experiences were shaped by witnessing suffering, violence and displacement. What they don’t expect to hear is that your day-to-day management challenges also included arguments over what time your colleagues could watch porn in the common room, and negotiating how staff could get to and from a brothel. Yet it is often a reality of the job and it is time we talked about it.

After that opening paragraph, I wanted to read more. You might too.

4. Snapchat in The FT
This past week, ephemeral media platform and darling of all brands who want to get at ‘the yoof’, Snapchat, starting experimenting with ‘geofilters’. That is, filters for its self-destructing images that only appear when the user is in a certain locale. Said place could be a city (eg: Malibu) or a big sprawling metropolis of a living, breathing brand (step up, Disneyland).

FT Snapchat

The Financial Times asked me what I thought of this development – so I told them. Basically, talking about what this means for brands and of course, does this mean that Snapchat might have a business model? Maybe.

You don’t need to pay to read it [but you do need an account] and it’s actually quite a good read. Worth your time if only for finally getting around to setting up that FT account you’ll know you’ll appreciate in future.

5. The best comic redesign of the week
A bunch of stuff got announced in comic book land this week. Everyone is talking either about either Captain America now being black or how a woman is about to become THOR. Big whoop.

Screw those people, the coolest thing that happened in comic book land was the epic redesign of Batgirl.

Batgirl Stanley Lau

So. Good.

Details, and more, over at Comics Alliance.

___________________

Bonuses (all podcast related):

Whenever I try to talk to people about podcasts I get one of two responses. The first one is ‘Yeah, what do you listen to? I’m really into [insert awesome podcast name]’, which is fine. The second response is this ‘Yeah, I’m not really a podcast person’, which, to be frank, is a pile of crap. You’re an idiot. Go and download a podcast app and just start listening to stuff. My friend Stefan has a pretty comprehensive list of good stuff that he listens to. That’s not a bad place to start.

Y’know where else is also not a bad place to start?

The following bonus items.

 

Five things on Friday #57

Things of note for the week ending January 31st, 2014.

ROBOT BUILDING IS AWESOME

1. Robot Building: Big, Bold, and Benign
One of my favourite blogs to appear in 2013 was ‘Adam’s Apples’, the blog of design/storytelling agency, FreeState. The image (and title) above is taken from a post exploring the virtues of ‘building as message’. I love the photo but the short, accompanying post is worth a look too.

2. I really like the idea of ‘secondary attention’
That is all.

3. Hope Soap
Washing hands frequently with soap, is the most effective way of preventing the spread of infection and deadly disease. Providing the disadvantaged children of South Africa with free soap is one thing, but how do you get them to use it?

I love this idea. So much.

4. Stop the Cyborgs!
Are you a shop/venue owner? Do you fear the impending onslaught of Google Glass-based surveillance about to come swarming through your door? Is the very thought of your own customers being able to record everything that you do FROM THEIR FACES break you out into cold sweats?

Then you need to get your hands on one of these handy signs!

BAN GOOGLE GLASS

Find out more more about these signs, and this movement in general, over at Stop the Cyborgs. The future of surveillance-free zones may depend on it. Speaking of the future…

5. 2014: Year of the Drone?
They’re cheap, they’re useful, they’re coming –

Drones designed to do the bidding of ordinary people can be bought online for $300 or less. They are often no larger than hubcaps, with tiny propellers that buzz the devices hundreds of feet into the air. But these flying machines are much more sophisticated than your average remote-controlled airplane: They can fly autonomously, find locations via GPS, return home with the push of button, and carry high-definition cameras to record flight.
Besides wedding stunts, personal drones have been used for all kinds of high-minded purposes — helping farmers map their crops, monitoring wildfires in remote areas, locating poachers in Africa. One local drone user is recording his son’s athletic prowess at a bird’s angle, potentially for recruiting videos.

Much more via Tyler Cowan.

 

Until next week.