5 Cool Things – June 2015
Every month we bring you five things that we think are cool. Because that’s how we roll/ You may also have this opinion once you check them out. Are you aware of cool things yourself? Let us know below!
1. My fridge
David: This is not a dad joke, my cool thing really is my new fridge. In the last month I haven’t had time to consume any media cool enough to mention but in that time I moved house and after six years of living with a bar fridge that couldn’t freeze anything and seemed to accelerate the rotting of all foods, I now have a brand new quiet-running 341L Samsung. After unpacking and building furniture all day, I turned to it, saw the beautiful white obelisk, opened the door and took out a cold drink. It was a beautiful moment for me and thank you for sharing it. Three cheers for modem technology and my catching up with it!
2. NASA SoundCloud
Chris: NASA – the hub of much nerdy excitement – has released a huge range of recorded sounds as they go about their day-to-day. From recordings of radio waves pinging around in the atmosphere, to lift-off announcements and sound-checks, this little collection has all you need to get you in the mood for that space opera you’re writing. Oh, and they’re free to use. Link.
3. What happens when the oil runs out?
Tom: So I’m still revved up on Mad Max: Fury Road, and in the spirit of the postgas apocalypse I have been checking out articles on No Tech and Low-tech Magazine (hyperlinked). In particular check out this piece about how the world should be more dangerous in order to be safer, and this one about wood-fire powered cars. Mad Max indeed.
4. Mad Max Fury Road soundtrack
Mark: Pretty much everyone who sees Mad Max mentions the masked flaming guitarist on the hotrod packed with speakers, or the drummer boys on the back. The man behind the mask is the very excellent Australian musician, Iota, although the score for Mad Max: Fury Road is by Dutch composer Tom Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL. He also scored the Dark Knight Rises, Inception and the Man of Steel. You should buy it, but here’s the full album as a YouTube playlist too. Quality accompaniment for when you need to up the tempo in your story.
5. Planet Money
David: Planet Money has been doing a bunch of episodes on the theme of human jobs being lost to robots and software. It’s one of my favourite topics and the argument is raging as to whether this time the technological advancement will disintermediate the majority of the human population. And is that a bad thing? Check out Planet Money here.
