The Big Give!

The Big Give Challenge has begun, support Escape Artists and see your Xmas spirit double: http://tinyurl.com/eabiggive

Curious Sundays: Weekly Q & A

I’m going to try something new to spark some discussion on this blog. Every Sunday, I’ll ask a question for you to respond to. We’ll see where the answers lead us…

This week’s question:

What does ‘wellbeing’ mean to you?

I already started this question through Escape Artists’ twitter, but wanted to open it up to more people in the hope of getting a better idea of what ‘wellbeing’ means to you.

Please respond by Sunday 13th.

Golan Levin makes art that looks back at you

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One man’s trash is another man’s art

New Yorker, Justin Gignac, is doing his part by collecting trash around New York and repacking them into art works that are sold on his website for between $50-$100 a piece.

The Syd Barrett Trust Charity Walk

“The aim as you probably know is to do what Syd did when he’d finally decided he was done with London, that is walk all the way to Cambridge.

Nobody knows exactly what route he took, however it’s likely to have been along the most direct road, which is now the M11 so we won’t be going that way.

Having considered a couple of options for dates, I’ve settled on my original plan of the Easter weekend. Easter provides a four day holiday period which I hope will make the walk more accessible. The other option was the following bank holiday at the beginning of May, one consideration for moving it back a month was the potential of slightly better weather, but as you know, planning anything long-term based on if it might rain or not is impossible, I remember a couple of years ago the coldest temperature at an England cricket test match was recorded during May, and we’ve all seen the mess Glastonbury gets into during June.

So the dates are: Friday April 2 to Monday April 5.” For more information, visit The Syd Barrett Trust

Piano stairs – TheFunTheory.com – Rolighetsteorin.se

More projects like this please!

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The life of oil: Edward Burtynsky

See more of Edward Burtynsky’s Oil images

Measurement, Quantum Mechanics, and that damn piece of string

One of the projects that I’m investigating at work is the problem of how to measure well being. In the realm of working with prisoners and people with mental health difficulties, one can theorise about how policies and programmes help better lives, but without a solid basis with which to measure well being, our policies and programmes remain theories.

This programme on BBC Horizon, though not directly linked to measuring well being, tackles the concept of measurement of something as simple and tangible as a piece of string, proving that to accurately measure something is not always as simple as it seems.

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Switzerland’s Suicide Clinic

I saw this headline whilst on the tube yesterday: “We can suggest places to eat and visit, but most of our members prefer to get on with dying”. Unfortunately, haven’t found the accompanying article, but here’s one about this suicide clinic in Switzerland.

“There is talk, too, of a “Dignitas Clinic”, which conjures images of crisp Swiss efficiency, mountain air, a kind of peace. The reality is rather more shabby. While the organisation maintains a solid air-conditioned head office in a dormitory suburb of Zurich, the location of the assisted suicides is constantly changing. The present address is a second-floor apartment at Ifagstrasse No 12, an urban wasteland about 15 km (9 miles) from Zurich. Down the road is the Globe brothel, which is garlanded with a dozen flags representing the different nationalities of the girls inside. Near by, a Caribbean club, a Greek internet café and, next to the suicide apartment, a place where you can change your car oil.” Rest the rest of the article here.

Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other’s minds | Video on TED.com

“Sensing the motives and feelings of others is a natural talent for humans. But how do we do it? Here, Rebecca Saxe shares fascinating lab work that uncovers how the brain thinks about other peoples’ thoughts — and judges their actions.” TED.com

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