In Japan, children commute alone to school in a much higher degree in comparison to, in this case, Australian kids.
The footage got me thinking about my own childhood – as soon as I started school, I cycled to and from school everyday, alone or with classmates. But that might have depended on several different reasons such as living in a relatively safe small town and having great access to bike lanes.
Via Holy Kaw.
Isn't this 15 minute glass timer by Manchester-based company Polite looking good or what?! A perfect companion to place on your desk for a gentle reminder to take a break every now and then.
In the short "Coffee: Six Degrees of Caffeination" by Swallow Magazine founder James Casey, we find out more about New Yorkers growing passion and interest for coffee.
On Kickstarter, Silvan Audio Workshop is trying to fund their nice looking handmade wooden turntables and they offer three models to choose from as of today.
Thinking about establishing a daily meditation practice? Maybe CBS Sunday Morning's cover story "The Quiet Power of Meditation" can spark your interest further.
Outside Magazine's correspondent Gordy Megroz decided to get more sleep so he better could endure the physically demanding ascent to climb the 13,770-foot peak Grand Teton in Jackson, Wyoming.
After some minor changes of habits, the payoff was tremendous, something that can act like a good reminder for the rest of us to not neglect our sleep.
Going into my experiment, I worried that not working at night would put me way behind schedule. But after just three days, I was feeling so refreshed each morning that I was far more efficient behind the desk. By six I'd completed most of my work for the day and still had plenty of energy for my workouts, without having to caffeinate.
Ten days later, my friend Andy and I climbed to the top of the Grand, summiting just before sunset. On the way back down, after a good nine hours of effort, Andy let out a big yawn. "Man, I'm getting tired," he said. "Weird," I responded. "I'm not."
Featured image: New York City, 1972 by photographer Michael Putnam taken from Putnam's book "Sleep" 2007. Via The New Yorker.
In the following short "Icheon Master Hand" (2013) that was part of a promotion for the American Museum of Ceramic Art's exhibition "ICHEON: Reviving the Korean Ceramics Tradition", five South Korean ceramics masters display their hard-earned skills in action by forming clay into beautiful art. The piano piece is called "Piano".
Via Trending Hot. H/t Laughing Squid.
I'm pretty certain that most of us needs space, physical and mental activity and some form of creative outlet to functioning well and feel good. That's one of the reasons why I don't feel that solitary confinement in prisons is the best route to take, but I do understand that it's also a very complex issue for various reasons.
The PBS Frontline documentary "Solitary Nation" (2014) by award-winning producer and director Dan Edge gives you an insight into the work of the solitary confinement unit in Maine's maximum security prison.
The unit that never falls silent:
The town Chaouen in Morocco is known as "The Blue City" since most of the town is painted in shades of white and blue.
The town's now-absent Jewish population started the practice hundreds of years ago. Chefchaouen (or Chaouen, as it's also known) was founded in 1471, and shortly thereafter a wave of Jewish and Muslim refugees arrived from Andalusia, Spain. Jews lived alongside Muslims in Chaouen until 1760, when the local sultan ordered them to move into the medina. Jewish families built there, in the Andalusian style, and in all likelihood started adding indigo into the whitewash at this time in order to differentiate their houses from green-painted Muslim ones.
But Chaouen didn't become "The Blue City" until the 1920s, when the Jewish blue effectively became a trend. (After centuries of enforced isolation from the West, Chefchaouen came under Spanish control in 1927. Foreign rule in Morocco ended in 1956.)
High school teacher Bruce Farrer gives his students an assignment to write a 10-page letter to their future self, which he then stores for twenty years before returning the letters to respective student by mailing them, a sometimes time-consuming task since many of the students have relocated and changed addresses.