A weekly collection of links to interesting things curated by Colin Wright.
The ‘Soft Life’ Is Trending. How Can You Have One for Yourself?
“The soft life doesn't mean going for the easier option. It means doing something that makes you happy. If you're not sure what that is, psychotherapist and author Tasha Bailey suggests listening to your body. Really listening. “Be more intentional with listening to your body and it's response to stress,” she says. “Notice when your heart rate increases. Notice when you feel dread or anxiety, and what parts of your job triggers that. But also look for the glimmers, the moments where you feel joy, safety and confidence in what you do. Glimmers are the makings of soft life – they are the moments when your nervous system is at its most relaxed, soft state. Prioritise a job that brings you more glimmers.””
The $1.6 Billion Quest to Build America’s Tallest Skyscraper in…Oklahoma
““I’ll ask you the question that many people ask me every time this project comes up: ‘How are you intending to build a tower this tall in the wind and storms and tornadoes we have in Oklahoma City?’” asked Planning Commission Chairman Camal Pennington.
Rob Budetti, managing partner of AO, the project’s California-based architect, said engineers plan a core of concrete walls between 4- and 6-feet thick surrounding the elevator shaft, and windows that can stand the force of a tornado without shattering or being sucked away. “It is probably one of the safer places to be,” he said.
“I don’t know if you’re going to catch me at the top,” quipped Pennington.”
The Future of Silk
“Vaxess is testing a skin patch covered in dozens of microneedles made of silk protein and infused with influenza vaccine. Each needle is barely visible to the naked eye and just long enough to pierce the outer layer of skin. A user sticks the patch on his arm, waits five minutes, then throws it away. Left behind are the silk microneedles, which painlessly dissolve over the next two weeks, releasing the vaccine all the while.
The silk protein acts as a preservative, so there’s no need to keep it on ice at a doctor’s office. ‘It’s similar to what happens when you freeze something,’ said Vaxess founder and chief executive Michael Schrader. ‘It’s room-temperature freezing.’ In testing, Vaxess found that flu vaccines stored in a silk patch at room temperature remained viable three years later.”
Writers On Working in the Service Industry
“We’re not a “turn and burn” bar, we’re a steady neighborhood joint. We’re open until 4am, so a lot of industry comes in after their shifts. They introduce themselves and soon drop how they also work at a bar. It’s a way to trade checks of general vibes and gossip about who’s been on one, if someone’s had to break out the Naloxone. Customers in February 2024 were wilder than usual. Maybe coming off a Dry January, maybe general hopelessness. Industry tips better than anyone else.
Will I go back to writing as a job job? I was on that grind for more than 15 years, and I’m not sure I have the mindset or editorial Rolodex to make rent again pitching three dozen stories a month. My website clips are quickly becoming ghost links as publications die. It might have been a fun career while it lasted, but the bar actually pays on time. ”
Space Junk Hunters Are Trying to Catch a Spent Rocket Stage From 2009
“A Japanese mission to stalk, capture, and hurl space junk into the atmosphere is progressing rather nicely. The orbital garbage truck recently completed the rendezvous phase, parking next to a second stage rocket that’s been aimlessly zipping around Earth orbit since 2009.”
Zzzzzzz
“The causes of sleeplessness were obvious and largely intractable: the spread of electric lighting had cut into the hours of darkness and made it possible to extend workers’ shifts beyond the interval between dawn and dusk. Labouring to the rhythms of the factory and the economic machine, rather than nature or the human body, led to a state of exhaustion and burnout which the US neurologist George Miller Beard diagnosed as ‘neurasthenia’. Beard defined the condition as a depletion of nervous energy and explained it by analogy to an electrical current: when a circuit is overloaded with light bulbs, it eventually reaches a point where ‘the amount of force is insufficient to keep all the lamps actively burning.’”
Online Dating After 50 Can Be Miserable. But It’s Also Liberating
“For Young, trying to figure out how to date better and more efficiently started one night three years ago, when she was feeling “pitiful” about her own experiences online, rife with misogyny and “clichéd nonsense.” She did a Google search for “How do you find a needle in a haystack?” The answer: Burn the haystack to the ground. Only the metal needle will remain.”
Love this roundup Colin - never came across the soft life but it sounds quite similar to the slow life! What do you think are the main differences in your opinion?