Movie: What We Do in the Shadows Having been a fan of Eagle vs Shark from many years ago, I thought this New Zealand comedy would be similarly enjoyable. It’s a mockumentary, tracing the adventures of a share house of vampires in Wellington. A journey through a lot of vampire / horror tropes, it manages …
Author Archives: cafedave
Notes from parenting course
Kel and I went to a parenting course this weekend: there were lots of notes handed out, but there were also a few additional recommendations made: both books and articles. If you want a better understanding of parenting, these resources might be helpful: Maggie Hamilton: Our Girls The Confidence Gap Carol Dweck: Mindset The world needs …
book: the laws of simplicity
Book: The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) John Maeda has worked in industry, and more recently as a design teacher at MIT. I grabbed this book from the library from a recommendation from the Boagworld podcast. It’s a short read (only 100 pages) but provides a helpful framework for thinking about how to …
new watches and the shrinking attention span
A bit of insomnia struck around 5am Sydney time, and I thought I’d check the predictable hysteria around the new Apple product launch. As everyone expected, there’s a new set of phones, and a new wearable device: the Apple Watch, as they’re calling it. The headlines are varied, but predictable: “everything you need to know …
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Making sense of Facebook Page Insights
Sending a message out on social media (well, any digital communication, really) is like sitting on a desert island with a message in a bottle, waiting to be rescued. Your message is very important to you, but to someone sitting on the beach at the end of the world, it is much less interesting. And …
cafes on instagram
Instagram (a social network bought by Facebook for around $1B, even though they had no revenue source at the time, and still have a fairly low level of revenue coming in) is still in its early stages as a social network. I’m fairly selective with who I follow on instagram, which means I’m still able …
John Smith, Waterloo
Rebel Roasters Coffee. 1 John St, Waterloo. As it turns out, there are many reasons to visit John Smith, but it is the giant copper sign that made it first hit my to-visit list. When you walk in, you’ll see lots of little pots of micro herbs, and a community garden on the cul-de-sac outside: …
book: the filter bubble: what the Internet is hiding from you
Book: The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (2011) Being surrounded by vast expanses of content is so commonplace now that we are no longer amazed by it. If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared today, what would be the most difficult thing to explain to them about today?” “I possess a device, in …
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book: Contagious: Why things catch on
Book: Contagious: Why Things Catch On Jonah Berger has put together a highly readable series of insights around what makes people share ideas, packed with examples. The acronym of the book’s ideas is STEPPS. Social Currency – insider knowledge you can introduce to your social circle. Triggers – part of the idea is closely tied to …
Movie: Expendables 3
Movie: Expendables 3 I should qualify this first of all that I watched this movie out of a sense of family bonding tradition, and not necessarily for its significance in the pantheon of cinematic choices. Stallone is back, with a range of 1980’s movie stars from the action genre, with another series of set pieces. …