The Extraordinaries

It is easy to make excuses about not doing volunteer work, but what excuse do you have not to do a little micro-volunteering? The Extraordinaries is a group that helps everyday people do good, 35 seconds at a time. Just go to their website or download their mobile app and get access to all sorts of small activities that will help others. You can help a child out of extreme poverty by providing some worlds of encouragement, tag some photos for a local museum, or help build a database of dog shelters. Lots of the activities can be done right from your computer or phone. Most take less then a minute. You can do good on the bus, while waiting for take out, before going to bed, or in an otherwise unproductive meeting. What is your excuse now?

I couldn't be more excited about this app if I had thought of it myself.

BBC Blast Studio

The BBC currently have a great website up that allows you to play with interactive art in their studios. The BBC Blast Studios connects you to a live stream of the BBC studio (available 12pm-12am) where they have 3 interactive art pieces. Online users can choose an art piece to play with and then follow the instructions to participate.

My favorite is Mark, which gives you three paint gun shots at a large canvas. It is accompanied by a dragable timeline which allows you to see the artwork being created over time.

Fantastic idea. The combination of online visitors with real participatory art exhibits is almost too good to be true. This experiment in creativity will be available until June 9th.

Texts From Last Night

Texts From Last Night is a funny new blog that features those text messages that you shouldn't have sent last night. Some of the texts from the collection have a voyeuristic appeal, well others are all about the intrigue at the hint of a fantastic story. But of course most of them are just plain head-shaking embarrassing. Submissions are posted annonomysly, using just the area code to show a glimpse of authorship.

Sentenc.es

I am one of those people that doesn't read emails that are longer than 2 paragraphs. I'm sorry, but I don't. I just don't have the time or the patience to read 5 page emails. I'm sure that sounds immature, conceited and worthy of a good eye roll, head shake combination. But I would be way more productive if everyone stuck to a two paragraph email rule.

That is why I like the thought behind three.sentenc.es, which applies a disciplined approach writing short emails. Comes in two, four and five sentence variations as well.

My Shelf

Dudes in Suits have an outstanding ask for pictures of things from your shelf. You know, that shelf where you keep your favorite display items; an unframed photo, a design book, StarWars lego men, binoculars... whatever. Here are some of the My Shelf photos they have received so far.