Totally did not expect that car to be the winner... but if you read through this highly detailed and descriptive article, you'll understand why that car won. Really good read, especially if you are a car enthusiast.
When it came to lap times, we enlisted a licensed club racer with no Thunderhill experience: me. We did this for a reason, and it wasn’t to build my ego. Most of our readers are not pro drivers. When you buy a new car, a professional’s lap time at any track is an interesting metric, but it’s rarely reflective of a normal person’s experience. We wanted to stress accessibility and adaptability. How easy is it to get up to speed in a given car? How communicative is the car? Is it hard to learn the quirks? Under the watchful eyes of our testing staff, every PCOTY contender got a quick warm-up session to set tire pressures, then no more than seven timed laps. Just enough to establish a representative lap and suss idiosyncrasies, not enough to set a record.
I love that. More car magazines/publications should follow suit.
The piece that separates this strategy from the increasingly popular digital-detox concept is that it’s not just about what you avoid but also about figuring out what you should do with your time instead. Stepping away from distracting technology while making no effort to replace it with something better invites backsliding. Seeking meaningful alternatives is so crucial that in Digital Minimalism I suggest that people map out detailed leisure plans to break down their goals, such as achieving a new personal record or finishing a craft project, into weekly milestones and daily habits.
Agreed. Can you imagine doing even just a weekend (2 days) of digital detox without any plans on how to entertain yourself during that time frame? It won't work. You'll be bored to death. Before embarking on any digital detox or digital minimalism attempt, you need to decide on what to do with your free time.
Move to your own little island archipelago on the internet. What Warren Ellis coined as “The Isles of Blogging”. Each blog “a little radio station broadcasting though the night”
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Early 2018 being the start of the Archipelago (re)settlement in my mind. The seas of social media have risen around us. So blogs, what once were the mountain tops of internet culture have become little Islands.
I love this analogy of blogging in today's age where social media dominates the internet.
A surprisingly, pretty good read on struggling to justify the love of automobiles in the face of climate change. Written from a car enthusiast point of view. Not something that I expected to read from a car magazine.
But. How else do you go anywhere in America? Outside a few select corridors, our public transit is patently terrible. And at the risk of sounding like a selfish ostrich, I like driving. You control a satisfying machine. Travel independently and with minimal restriction. In this vast country built by and for the automobile, the machine too often makes sense.
This is definitely a problem here. I've a tried a number of times to find a way for me to cycle to work, but it just won't work. My ride would force me into roads with inattentive drivers who drive with their eyes glued to their phone screens. Yeah I'm not risking my life riding my bike alongside drivers like that. Which is unfortunate, because I think cycling is a better, more environmental friendly alternative to internal combustion engines than electric cars are, as far as work commute goes.
In 2006, I published a new idea that could answer that question and more: the ‘snake detection theory’. I hypothesised that when large-gaped constricting snakes appeared about 100 million years ago and began eating mammals, their predatory behaviour favoured the evolution of changes in the vision of one kind of prey, the lineage that was to become primates. In other words, the ability to see immobile predatory snakes before getting too close became a highly beneficial trait for them to have and pass on to their descendants. Then, about 60 million years ago, venomous snakes appeared in Africa or Asia, adding more pressure on primates to detect and avoid them. This has also had repercussions on their visual systems.
Interesting read on how coexisting with snakes forced the improvement of our eyesight.
Also learned a new word from this article; ophiophobia – the abnormal fear of snakes. I don't understand why Wikipedia labels it as an “abnormal” fear of snakes. Is it normal to not fear snakes?
Speedhunters has a great post featuring the iconic Ferrari F40. If you're a fan of the F40, you'll love the numerous great looking photos in that post. If you're a fan of cars in general, you'll find plenty to like on their website.
As adults, we spend a lot of time talking about all of the things that we have to do.
You have to wake up early for work. You have to make another sales call for your business. You have to work out today. You have to write an article. You have to make dinner for your family. You have to go to your son’s game.
Now, imagine changing just one word in the sentences above.
You don’t “have” to. You “get” to.
Wow! A very simple thing to practice everyday, but the way your perspective changes is huge.
One of the things I get lazy on is washing my son's milk bottles. If I apply this lesson to that scenario, I would go from, “I have to wash milk bottles tonight”, to, “I get to wash milk bottles tonight”. Okay well it still sounds like work, but if I dig deeper, getting to wash bottles means:
I have been gifted with a child.
I am fortunate enough to afford to buy milk and milk bottles for my son.
I live in a house with water clean enough to wash the bottles with.
Now it doesn't like too much work at all. All with the change of a single word.
There are a few fronts on which our attention is being assaulted. First off, there’s just a massive surplus of stuff to pay attention to. And the more crap there is to pay attention to, the more difficult it is to choose what to focus on—not to mention stay focused on it!
So, the first and most important goal of an attention diet should be to consciously limit the number of distractions we’re exposed to. Just as the first step of a nutritional diet is to consume less food, the first step of an attention diet is to consume less information.
– Mark Manson
Digital Minimalism is making it's way around the web and I like Mark Manson's take on it. I think calling it The Attention Diet is also a clever idea. If you have not read Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism book, this post can serve as some kind of head start to cutting out digital distractions and taking back your attention.