At Your Leisure

Culture

by William Hirsh | Sep. 29, 2013

Word of the Week:

Caterwaul (verb): To cry out or howl.

Sentence: Jeremy caterwauled as the grades from his lab practical sent his GPA into a tumble.

Quote:

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it" -Henry David Thoreau

Stream of Facts:

A render wrangler is a job position in the animation industry in which a person monitors the rendering progress often spread across mutiple computers. They are key to the animation process because rendering a frame of animation can take anywhere from a few minutes to several days, needing somewhat constant supervision.

The kilogram is one of few units of measurement not measured by a constant. Instead, the kilogram's worth is according to the International Prototype Kilogram, a cylinder consisting of 90 percent platinum and 10 percent iridium.

The symbol of the command key on Apple keyboards was chosen by Bitmap artist Susan Kare, who settled upon a symbol called the Bowen Knot, which is used across Europe to signify a heritage site worth seeing. Steve Jobs demanded this change from his design team because he thought the Apple logo was being used too much.

The Pininfarina Group, the company behind the design of Ferrari P4/5, an Italian sports car, also created the designs of the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines – the ones with mutiple drink options.

Reporter Recommends: Read Thoreau 2.0

Pinboard founder Maciej Cegtowski's gave a recent speech entitled Thoreau 2.0, that takes an incredible look at the writing and philosophy of Thoreau and applies it to the 21st century.

He begins by detailing some of his own personal history, when he was $50 thousand in debt and without a job. Looking back on his trials and tribulations, he read the work of Thoreau again in order to reflect on his past and provide some good advice. Next, Cegtowski calls all who have heard Thoreau only through his famous quotes to actually give his works such as "Walden" a read to gain a complete understanding of what he was trying to say in that time and place.

Throughout the speech, Cegtowski breaks down some of Thoreaus's own philosphy and highlights why it is so relevant in this day and age. For example, he mentions an anecdote from Thoreau's life where in his first book was a failure and he had to bring back home 700 copies of his book from a local book store. In spite of this blunder, Thoreau continued to write and that's what Cegtowski wants us to do: never give up.

A spectacular read full of good advice juxtaposed with historical info on Thoreau's life and work, it's worth a read.