I saw a few things I thought were clever.
One was a device placed over a sink. It holds a bar of soap. Below the soap is a grater, and you can use it to scrape soap shavings onto your hand when you want a quick wash. I think that’s really smart, and economical and environmentally friendly :)
Another was this interview with Sherry Turkle that Fast Company did. Sherry Turkle is an ethnographer who studies how people interact with technology, and has written about it in her new book “Alone Together”. Her words convey her research findings in a very genuine and accurate way. She speaks of how the speed and frequency of incoming information have led us to shorten our interactions with others, that “[w]e’re not necessarily putting our investment in the ties that bind; we’re putting our investment in the ties that preoccupy”. She speaks about how the metaphor of addiction is misused when we apply it to our relationship with technology, which is abundantly useful when used “in accordance with [one’s] social, professional, and personal values”. She speaks of how this relationship with technology has created a “constant connection”, via social media or always-on email, which results in a sense of loneliness when one is not connected – the connection is the drug one could get addicted to then, maybe? – and a loss of the capability to be alone without being lonely.
And another was Laura Schroeder’s blog post about why people would work for House, everyone’s favourite brilliant misanthrope doctor, and even hang around after they’re kicked off the team. (I appreciated the post so much partly because I’m a huge Hugh Laurie fan, from Blackadder The Third times :p) She comes up with a very plausible answer :)
Oh, and this game too was I thought clever. Trailer for your viewing pleasure below.
