Close to Kai Fagerström´s family summer home in Finland, some houses are abandoned due to the fact that the previous owner has either moved out or died. However, the buildings are not fully abandoned, new tenants have moved in as you can see in this unusual photo series:

Persistence pays off! Kai spent several evenings waiting to capturing this moment involving his dog and a bank vole:

This is what Kai told National Geographic:

It was the air of desolation that drew Kai Fagerström to the handful of derelict dwellings near his family’s summer home in rural Suomusjärvi, Finland. As the amateur photographer peered through broken windows and cracks in doors, he noticed tiny tracks: Mice, badgers, and other feral trespassers had made themselves at home after the residents had died or relocated. “When I go into these houses, it’s like stepping back in time—the past lingers in the corners,” says the 48-year-old, who works by day managing properties for a parish in his hometown of Salo. “But there’s consolation in the idea that nature is reclaiming the places it has lent to people.”

This image really puts a smile on my face:

Via TwistedSifter.

Related:

• The Abandoned School Once Again Comes Back to Life in This Wondrous Photo Series

Since many of my readers come from the United States, I´d like to take this opportunity and wish you all a Happy 4th of July.

For you outside the US, I wish you a great weekend!

Featured image: An American Flag Cake from Food52. Photographed by Mark Weinberg.

I´m about to get on the mat and do an hour long yoga session. It´s late in the evening, but due to recent changes in my daily routine, exercise early morning or day might not always be possible.

I´ve been thinkning that exercise this late isn´t so beneficial, but luckily this science report came my way today and proved me wrong. The report published in Sleep Medicine gives that exercise before bedtime can result in better sleep:

Against expectations and general recommendations for sleep hygiene, high self-perceived exercise exertion before bedtime was associated with better sleep patterns in a sample of healthy young adults. Further studies should also focus on elderly adults and adults suffering from insomnia.

[…]

Greater exercise exertion was associated with higher sleep efficiency, shortened sleep onset latency, fewer awakenings and shorter duration of awakenings after sleep onset, less light sleep and more deep sleep.

[…]

Among a sample of healthy young adults, self-perceived exercise exertion and objectively assessed sleep were positively associated. The present pattern of results puts into question both scientific and lay opinion that increased exercise exertion in the evening should be avoided immediately prior to bedtime.

Featured image: Woman exercising with dumbells, 1920s. Copyright by Bettmann/CORBIS. Found via vintage everyday.

Via @mikeolpin.

In Downtown Los Angeles 1936, highwire walker Bunny Dryden did some really daring feats when he without any safety equipment at all performed numerous stunts that will make your palms sweat:

There´s a story in which Bunny tried to talk Amarillo mayor Ross Rogers into accompany him on the wire to ride on his shoulders. The conversation that follows is witty and fun:

On Aug. 10, Rogers was invited by daredevil Bernard "Bunny" Dryden to accompany him on a stroll. The invitation was to ride on Dryden's shoulders as he walked across a cable over Polk Street, according to a story in the Amarillo Daily News.

The article quoted Dryden as saying, "A fellow who has nerve enough to be the mayor of a city has nerve enough to ride on my shoulders as I walk a wire."

The mayor's reply was an emphatic "No."

The invitation was then extended to city manager H.R. Smith, who was no more thrilled with the prospect.

"What's the matter? If you don't like our work, you don't have to do that to us to make us quit," was Smith's reply, according to the story.

The brave wife of Bunny:

Dryden tried to put the best spin he could on any possible negative outcomes as he attempted to find someone else to ride on his shoulders.

"The fellow who rides on my shoulders has more than 10 seconds to catch himself if I start to fall,," he was quoted in the story. "I have 10, and he has two or three more."

No Daily News articles concerning the outcome of Dryden's tightrope antics over Polk Street and Seventh Avenue could be found.

Related:

• Old Timer Does Wire Walking

Detroiturbex is a website focusing on documenting the past, present and future of the City of Detroit.

In their photo series entitled Cass Tech - Now and Then, they have used old photos from The Cass Technical High School and then overlayed these onto photos of a now abandoned building. The results are interesting and stir up mixed emotions in me, the photos are so full of life, yet at the same time not.

In 2004 new modern facilities were built close to the original building, which got demolished in 2011, so this is a wonderful historical record of a school with a long tradition, established as early as 1907.

A joyous moment when a pep band makes their way through a crowd:

Featured image: The former book store.

Via TwistedSifter.

Wow, such great vocals! Why using an expensive recording studio when the only things you need are a canoe, a bridge and a great voice. Irish recording artist and singer-songwriter Rhob Cunningham performs Wait Until the Sun Grows Cold.

Love how he handles the noise from the fire trucks at 3:22 into the song:

Here is the playlist for more canoe concerts.

Via Digg.

Sometimes when I see not the most visually pleasing patterns on different products, or just the overall idea of the product, I find myself thinking it must have been a real challenge too even come up with such a dreadful design/product in the first place. Sadly, these products tend to have a short life cycle for obvious reasons, which in turn will have a negative impact on the environment.

Seat patterns seldom look good, and there even exists a Hall of Death for the worst ones.

However, in one of her art projects, artist Menja Stevenson from Stuttgart, made seat patterns a bit more beautiful by making clothes out of them, which she later wore while commuting:

Image credit: Images via Urbanshit. Copyright by Menja Stevenson.

Related:

• "Seat patterns of death" – dreadful designs by road and rail
• Public Pattern Transport (Tumblr)
• A Collection of the Worst Seat Patterns in the World

After have been given a typewriter as a gift, artist Leslie Nichols started to write, but since she didn´t think she was a very skilled writer, she instead began to create drawings with the letters. This development evolved into her professional work and the results are these interesting and beautiful textual portraits.

In the video, Leslie talks about her background as an artist and takes us through her working process:

Featured image: Jeanne (Pizan 1405; Spencer 1913)

So many times I´ve been amazed at how long a few minutes seem to last when I´ve turned off my computer or TV and sat down to focus on an assignment with just a pen and paper at my disposal. Time seems to slow down since there are no distractions, and I come out of it feeling refreshed and with a new sense of how much I´m able to accomplish in just a short while.

I´ve noticed that a task such as reading a book sometimes can be a bit difficult because the habit of skimming through text on the Internet, but after awhile I tend to maintain focus and reading then become a rather tranquil experience.

Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D. tells us how you can switch from being a multi-tasker to a single-tasker and why that is both healthy and makes you smarter:

Many scientifically proven strategies to boost your mental performance involve easily embraceable, common-sense tactics that can have an immense impact on the long-term health of your most important natural resource. One such tactic is eliminating toxic multitasking.

[…]

So often we find ourselves in environments that erroneously place a high value on being able to multitask, the prevailing perception being that the more you can do at once, the more expertly intelligent and efficient you are. Alarmingly, some people even believe that multitasking is a good workout for the brain.

This type of thinking is damaging to your health.

Multitasking is a brain drain that exhausts the mind, zaps cognitive resources and, if left unchecked, condemns us to early mental decline and decreased sharpness. Chronic multitaskers also have increased levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can damage the memory region of the brain.

The truth is, your brain is not designed to do more than one thing at a time. It literally cannot achieve this, except in very rare circumstances. Instead, it toggles back and forth from one task to the next. For example, when you are driving while talking on the phone, your brain can either use its resources to drive or to talk on the phone, but never both. Scans show that when you talk on the phone, there is limited activation of your visual brain – suggesting you are driving without really watching. This explains how we can sometimes end up places without knowing exactly how we got there.

Frequently switching between tasks overloads the brain and makes you less efficient. It’s a formula for failure in which your thoughts remain on the surface level and errors occur more frequently.

The Health Editor James Hamblin from The Atlantic talks about this subject in an excellent way. I think we all recognize ourselves more or less listening to what he has to share with us:

Featured image: A multi-tasking dad in a Citroën C4 Picasso commercial (video).

Related:

• Stop multitasking. It's a brain, not an octopus

Tony Zhou has directed this short video called The Art of Silence, in which he talks about Martin Scorsese’s frequent use of silence in his films. Silence seems to be used by Martin whenever the characters are all making important choices that will have consequences.

I found it interesting to hear Tony discuss how popular cinema today tends to misuse silence or don´t use it at all. It´s a rare commodity it seems.

Via Brain Pickings.