One thing makes Scottish photographer David Yarrow’s work stand out from a world of wildlife photography — a unique point of view.

African elephants tower over you, lions stare balefully into your eyes, tigers look up from the water and rhinoceros charge straight at you.

It can be a bit unsettling — this feeling of feeling a little close to the animal.

The unusual angles are the result of hours of research and elaborate planning, as well as countless trial and error in the field.

Yarrow’s new book, “Encounter,” gathers 87 of his most stunning images, taken in some of the most remote parts of the world, in the dreariest of seasons, in the most dramatic light.

Click to read a CNN interview with David Yarrow — Travel Photography 

 Design doesn’t just impact lives, or enrich lives. It can save them. That is the message the American Institute of Architects (AIA) is trying to emphasize in a newinteractive graphical chart that shows the ways in which the choices architects make can affect our lives.

Amazon Prime Air (Drone Delivery Service):

“That feeling of having to obey every impulse and gratify every desire seems to me to be a strange kind of slavery. Nobody talks about it as such, though.”  

If you’re familiar with his work, you know that David Foster Wallace was exceptionally and almost painfully aware of the finer details of both himself and his surroundings. One would be hard-pressed to find an individual whose fingers have been pressed more squarely to the heartbeat of late-20th, early-21st century American culture than were those of Wallace.

In spite of his renown and his brilliance, Wallace carried himself with an air of cautious humility, clearly wanting very badly not to convey self-importance or elitism. Many who call his image to mind probably think first of the bandannas (to soak up his excessive perspiration) and long, flowing hair, two iconic aspects of his long-time appearance.

The hour-and-a-half-long interview is remarkable in its entirety, but I was particularly enamored with one segment in which Wallace discusses American culture:

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Whatever the case, it seems to me that to be conscious of what one does and of one’s reasons for living in such and such a way is to be perhaps freer, or at least more honest and capable of change, than those who are less aware. Your verdict may well be that it is best for you to live by traditional values or to pursue the buzz of the moment. Bits of these two opposed ideals are certainly sprinkled into my philosophy of living, along with a thousand other things. 

Click to read an amazing piece on Refine the Mind on David Foster Wallace — David Foster Wallace Philosophy. 

Ever since the value of one Bitcoin rose above $200 USD in late October, I’ve been obsessively catching up on all the lost time I’ve missed out on since the ethereal cryptocurrency was born in 2009. Back then, like all sorts of other tech enthusiasts who completely missed out on an opportunity to make a bunch of fast cash, I decided not to invest in Bitcoin. Why? Well, to be fair, it was less of a conscious decision and more of a fleeting thought pattern that went something like: “Huh? What is this thing? I don’t understand it, let’s move on.”

If you’ve completely avoided learning about Bitcoin up until this precise moment in time, my favourite way to explain it is with this animation that was screened at the LeWeb conference in London earlier this year. If learning through CGI isn’t your thing, and you’re still unclear on what Bitcoin is, to be brief: it’s a digital form of encrypted cash that’s designed like gold—in that there is a finite supply of 21 million Bitcoins—so theoretically its value should continue to increase over time. So far, that system of increasing value is working remarkably well, and in the interest of full disclosure, I have invested a bit of my Canadian coin into Bitcoin.

Today, Bitcoin is worth well over $1,000 USD per coin and is approaching parity with gold itself.

To learn more about Bitcoin and how it has changing currency as we know it click — here. 

Via Vice

~ Mildred Barthe