May Musings - 27

Couple of announcements today folks!

I have these events coming up:

The Last Word - In Conversation at the Roundhouse Theatre - TICKETS HERE

This one is pretty cool… You Must Be Layla book event IN LONDON in collaboration with The Other Box - TICKETS HERE!

I’m also heading to Australia for a week or so in June so stay tuned for those details inshallah

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What’s on my mind today? Well, firstly, I can’t believe it’s May Musings 27. I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep up the habit of writing every day when I started the challange - fairly flippantly - sitting in a cafe in Malaysia. Goes to show that a slow, incremental change that you hold yourself to does make a cumulative difference.

I’m not sure if my writing has gotten any better in this month as I’ve often written squeezed in the moments between five-to and midnight. That being said, I certainly think my fingers are flowing a little easier…It’s also been nice to have a record of my travels and adventures this month.  I’ve got one more trip before the end of Ramadan, inshallah. I really did pick one hell of a month to try write every day!

I’m curious to see if it’s a habit I can maintain. Part of me wants to try continue it for as long as possible, part of me realises it’s probably unsustainable. But then again, some people do continue habits for years at a time - praying, for example, is one such habit. If I reduce the commitment, say to once a week, will that reduce the disciplinary effect? What if I write once a week and focus the energy on developing my newsletter (that I’ve been saying I’ll do for ages?). What if, what if! And that’s not even taking into account that I have to make time for actual paid work that I need to do... haha.

That’s where my head is at, this Tuesday. Where are you? 

Links, Links, Links - 20th January 2012

  It’s that time of the week! Here are a bunch of interesting links to things on this internet this week…

Let's start with a surprisingly frank talk by a supermodel on the power of image...

TO CALL Aaron Swartz gifted would be to miss the point. As far as the internet was concerned, he was the gift.  The Economist remembers Aaron Swartz.

Obama’s move on gun control – will this be the time “real” change is made in this area?  (I still believe that the argument for focusing on gun control is slightly misguided as surely mass shootings are an indication of a greater ill in the society?)

What is happening in Mali? French troops deployed…

Another question on the internet and privacy generally posed by this article: Is your data really your data?

So why have the Boeing Dreamliners been grounded?  It's all in those lithium batteries...

An interesting article on “10 simple body language tips for the workplace”.  I find these sorts of articles interesting.  Do they always work? Perhaps not, but it’s food for thought.

The Washington Academy of Science is doing something really cool – giving science seals of approval to mystery books!  Now you can know whether the book you are reading is scientifically accurate…

Is the “peak oil” concept a irrelevant or is it a case of oil execs trying to keep the share price up?

Great article by a mate on the deeper reasons behind why there is such an outcry this time over the Indian woman’s rape.

Well, we’ve known this for a while but now Cambridge has dug up proof: There is more to intelligence than just your IQ!

A great article about a man who delved into the underbelly of the internet; Chasing the Cicada: Exploring the Darkest Corridors of the Internet.  Follow the thought process of someone who undertook the process: Clevecode

I caved and joined Reddit (there goes all the productivity in my life…).  Found an intriguing comment string by people who have gotten shot…Worth a random peruse.

It was my worst moment, recorded for posterity's sake. What does it feel like? It felt like a cut. A deep, white cut. It felt like all my memories and my personality and what I was or would be were draining out of a hole I couldn't plug.

Also, don’t forget what was published on this blog recently, including a review of Adam Parr’s “The Art of War”, and the question of whether pay imbalance is because women take the lower paying jobs.

REVIEW: ‘Professor Sid Watkins: Life at the Limit’

I recently posted this on Richard’s F1, check out the original post here.

Professor Sid Watkins, 1996, Life at the Limit: Triumph and Tragedy in Formula One. Macmillan, UK. ISBN: 0-333-65774-8

For someone who has grown up watching Fomula One in the last decade or so, it is easy to forget how dangerous a sport it is…and how fatal it used to be.

The recent and extraordinarily sad passing of the books author, ‘The Prof’, is made even more acute while reading this eloquent text as his personality, wit and straight attitude shine through, saddening readers by reminding us such a great character no longer watches over the paddock.

Life at the Limit was written after the death of Professor Watkin’s friend and inspiration to many, Ayrton Senna in 1994.  Chapter one details that fateful weekend…

“Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to go on”. Those were the last words he said to me – Page 8, The Professor and Ayrton’s Last conversation

The book takes you through the recent history of Formula One through the unique lenses of a man of medicine, a man who didn’t miss much. Although slightly outdated now (the majority of the book focuses on the seventies, eighties, and very early nineties), the Professor does a wonderful job of taking the readers through the development of safety within the Formula One scene, and it is interesting having major races and individuals referred to not by their typical characteristics such as wins, but by the crashes involved and the injuries sustained!

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There are two things that particularly strike me about this book and meant that it was more than just your average lazy Sunday afternoon paperback (and no, the answer is not that was a hardback…).

Firstly, learning about the history of safety within Formula One and the truly calamitous accidents that occurred with frightening regularity was quite sobering.  In today’s day and age, accidents in the top level GPs are more often than not a spectacle rather than a true cause for concern, and so it is easy to forget that only 20 years ago, any accident could be deadly – as it often was.

The Professor details his exploits in trying to convert die hard racers and obstinate racing officials to his cause, and often the situations he found himself in were quite amusing!  Told in his amusing, dry English manner I found myself laughing aloud a number of times…and also feeling his pain as he was faced time and time again with the prospect of pulling another close friend or colleague out of a crushed cockpit.  It could never have been easy, and although he is the cynical neurosurgeon you could feel the emotion behind some of the pages. 

The second thing I really enjoyed was the personal aspect of the book; Watkins knew everyone there was to know in Formula One and was quite close to many of them.  The stories of the race drivers and officials in the early years were a nice touch, humanising them for someone who just knew their statistics.  They served to remind that these, were just men (really talented men mind you) doing a dangerous job that they loved, in an environment that was often unforgiving.  There are so many names that they occasionally blurred together, but I definitely feel like I had taken an enjoyable trip down F1 memory lane…

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All in all, Life at the Limit: Triumph and Tragedy in Formula One is an great read for someone who is looking to learn a little about the history of safety in the sport, or any fan who is looking to learn a little more about the great Professor and the personalities of his time.  Stories about Bernie that you’d never hear about, the antics of Nelson Piquet, the trials of organising helicopters for transport or the practical jokes everyone seemed to play on each other…it’s all here, and all worth checking out.

I would say 4 out of 5 flags.  

Enjoy…and if you have had a read, let me know what you think!

Yassmin Abdel-Magied RichardsF1.com (Awesomeness-Accredited) Journalist [Images via Formula1SportNews, SCMP and Yassmin Abdel-Magied]

Spots of Substance: 22nd July 2012

  How was your week? I learnt a whole bunch of new things about motorsport journalism, fell flat on my rear at the first time ice skating for nearly a decade…and began Ramadaan.  I also spent a lot of time online and here are some particularly interesting things I came across!

(after you check out the links, of course :P)

Striking truths. A new picture with an inspirational saying (like the above) every day…

So what is Ramadaan exactly? Glad you asked: Ramadaan guide for non-Muslims

Why smart people are dumb via The New Yorker

Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” This “meta-bias” is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves.

How much money do you need to be happy? What is your number? An interesting post on money, happiness, indulgence and sharing…

But what about individuals who are notorious for their struggles with sharing? Surely the emotional benefits of giving couldn’t possibly apply to very young children, who cling to their possessions as though their lives depended on it. To find out, we teamed up with the developmental psychologist Kiley Hamlin and gave toddlers the baby-equivalent of gold: goldfish crackers. Judging from their beaming faces, they were pretty happy about this windfall. But something made them even happier. They were happiest of allwhen giving some of their treats away to their new friend, a puppet named Monkey. Monkey puppets aside, the lesson is clear: maximizing our happiness is not about maximizing our goldfish. To be clear, having more goldfish (or more gold) doesn’t decrease our happiness — those first few crackers may provide a genuine burst of delight. But rather than focusing on how much we’ve got in our bowl, we should think more carefully about what we do with what we’ve got — which might mean indulging less, and may even mean giving others the opportunity to indulge instead.

Omar Offendum – A Syrian American rapper, using his gift to try bring voice to the uprisings in Syria, muses at The Rolling Stone.

Owen Jones: On Islamophobia in Europe

In France – where recently 42 per cent polled for Le Monde believed that the presence of Muslims was a "threat" to their national identity – a record number voted for the anti-Muslim National Front in April's presidential elections. Denmark's third largest party is the People's Party, which rails against "Islamisation" and demands the end of all non-Western immigration. The anti-Muslim Vlaams Belang flourishes in Flemish Belgium. But those who take a stand against Islamophobia are often demanded to qualify it with a condemnation of extremism. When is this ever asked of other stands against prejudice?

How do you deal with feelings of intellectual inadequacy? “I am not as smart as I thought I was…”

Epilogue: The Future of Print, a beautiful video

 4 Lessons in Creativity from John Cleese! Brilliant, truly brilliant.  It is similar to what he says in the speech below in 1991…