As with all global or national calamities, COVID-019 is going to cause a huge “reset” in its wake. Like 9/11, the 1918 Pandemic, Hurricanes, Tornados and more, people take stock in their lives and, in some cases, discover there is something more important than what they were doing before the crisis. It is only natural when faced with your mortality to reevaluate your life. What would people say about you had you died at that moment? How would your obituary read?
Alfred Nobel had a similar, personal, epiphany when he awoke one morning to find his obituary in place of his brother’s, who had died the day before. The newspapers obituary was scathing. It called him the “mercchant of death” and said “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” Alfred created the Nobel Prize as a way of recovering his reputation, and perhaps, purging himself of a small bit of his guilt over all the harm his creations had caused.
While I don’t believe that any of us carry the guilt the Nobel did, we can still take a good example from his horrible experience.
Are you accomplishing what you want in life?
Are you affecting the world, both your small, local, world and the world at large?
What small concrete actions can you take to have that effect?
What long postponed change do you need to make NOW?
What is stopping you?
Why?
The world is being turned upside down in the wake of COVID-19 and instead of worrying about it, perhaps we can imagine how we can use this Great Reset to craft a new day, a new life and a new world for everyone!
Things that will be in large supply once this is over…
Retail/Restaurant/Commercial Real Estate
Talent — in all fields
Stimulus Money
Businesses looking to grow again
What can you build from these? Is it time to start your own business? Is it time to move to a better career?
You want to start your plans now so you are ready to move as soon as the opportunity provides itself. It will be the first movers that benefit the most because they will have access to the best unemployed/underemployed talent in their fields and, hopefully, stimulus money before it runs out.
From Dr. Aisha Ahmad, some advice for how to adapt to conditions of a long-term crisis like the pandemic we are currently facing. (This was written specifically for educators, but applies to anyone.) First, the necessary sobering bit (italics mine):
The answer to the question everyone is asking — “When will this be over?” — is simple and obvious, yet terribly hard to accept. The answer is never.
Global catastrophes change the world, and this pandemic is very much akin to a major war. Even if we contain the Covid-19 crisis within a few months, the legacy of this pandemic will live with us for years, perhaps decades to come. It will change the way we move, build, learn, and connect. There is simply no way that our lives will resume as if this had never happened. And so, while it may feel good in the moment, it is foolish to dive into a frenzy of activity or obsess about your scholarly productivity right now. That is denial and delusion. The emotionally and spiritually sane response is to prepare to be forever changed.
With most of us stuck at home, this might be the time to dig out the D&D rule books and use this site to generate some dungeon maps to get you restarted on your mythical adventures. — Douglas
Oleg Dolya (last seen here for his amazing procedural medieval city-map generator) is back with a wonderful procedural one-page dungeon generator that produces detailed, surprisingly coherent quickie dungeons for your RPG runs (it’s an entry in the monthly challenge from /r/procedural generation).
There are many rules, guidelines, suggestions, and ideas around what makes a good photographic composition. Every person has their own particular aesthetic and way of seeing, and it can be difficult to find your way through all the information to a concept that works for you.
However, there is one simple tip that may be the easiest and quickest way for you to improve your images. It’s free and doesn’t usually require you to buy anything. All you need to do is stop, think, and make a different choice. What is that choice? The choice of changing your point of view.
I love time-lapse videos and often create them myself, but never to the length or hard work required to created the videos detailed here. I like time-lapse because I think it can help us see the unseen in the world around us. As one example of this, we don’t really notice the movement of the sun across our home or garden as it happens much too slowly to really capture our attention. Speed up time though, through a time-lapse and we can clearly see how and where the sun is traveling about our environment. Analyzing the movement of people in a space is another great use for time-lapse. You can see patterns that might not otherwise be obvious at normal speed.
Most phones have the ability to easily create time-lapse videos. Try it out for yourself. What is happening around you that might benefit from a little “seeing differently.”
Once you’ve made a few time-lapse videos, trying slowing things down with your camera’s slo-mo features and record an entirely different world. — Douglas
Time-lapse has become popular with the growth of digital cameras. This technique can be very time-consuming, so why do some people dedicate their career to shooting time-lapses? And can this technique help you to tell stories in filmmaking? Let’s see in this video!
In this video we talk with Morten Rustad, a professional time-lapse photographer which spent a year in South America to capture the incredible landscapes there. We talk about his fascination for time-lapse, 8K resolutions and motion controlled gear.
I am always looking for new ways of keeping my anxiety at bay and these breathing animated GIFs are a great and new-to-me way of regaining control of my breathing. Check out the entire series. — Douglas
When you’re stressed — consumed by thoughts about your next career move, that embarrassing thing you said a few weeks ago, or anything else that makes your chest tight — it’s helpful to bring yourself back into the present by taking a few deep, steady breaths.
Obviously, that’s not always easy, but there are plenty of captivating GIFs that can help you visualize your way to mindfulness. These 10 will shift your focus away from your thoughts and toward your breathing. Take a look, breathe in, breath out, and wind down.
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Amazing puppets in this short Great Big Story video. I am always amazed at the power of puppets and how puppeteers can bring them to life even when they remain visible in controlling their creations. — Douglas
Puppets—they’re child’s play, right? Spend five minutes watching Barnaby Dixon and you’ll surely disagree. At first, it might seem strange for a 26-year-old to be hand-building puppets in his bedroom and shooting videos of his performances for a living, but the puppet prodigy’s creations are completely original and totally addicting to watch. Barnaby started his career solely to make YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/user/barnabyd…), but recently hit it big after winning a 50,000 Euro grand prize on the German puppet talent show, “Die Puppenstars.”
Another great collection of public information freely available on the Internet and to use in your own educational projects.
No matter if you enjoy taking or just watching images of space, NASA has a treat for you. They have made their entire collection of images, sounds, and video available and publicly searchable online. It’s 140,000 photos and other resources available for you to see, or even download and use it any way you like.
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