Q: Why, oh why does the shower curtin blow in when I’m in the shower?
A: A vortex.
To do the calculation, I drafted a model of a typical shower and divided the shower area into 50,000 minuscule cells. The tub, the showerhead, the curtain rod and the room outside of the shower were all included. I ran the modified Fluent software for two weeks on my home computer in the evening and on weekends (when my wife wasn’t using the computer). The simulation revealed 30 seconds of actual shower time.
Carl Honoré wants us to slow down and take things easy, that doesn’t mean that he wants us to become lazy though. He wrote a book “In Praise of Slow” to let us know about the slow movement. In a world in which everything (including walking speed) is speeding up we no longer take time to stop and smell the roses – let alone deliver them on a unicycle.
CNN, the 24 hour information-overload news network, has a good article on why we should slow down.
If it all sounds to you like the musings from a slacker’s manifesto, you’re not yet in tune with the concept of the slow life. Resist the tug of technology: turn off your mobile, don’t send that email just yet and try and forget, just for a few minutes, about the thousand tedious tasks that you feel need to be done.
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As well as the slow food movement, there are slow towns, aiming to improve the quality of life for inhabitants and making them more pleasant places to live. It’s more a philosophical statement rather than a directive. Ludlow was the first UK town to achieve slow town status, but admittedly, life in this Shropshire market town has never been anything other than sedate
The calming blog Zen Habits has five reasons to drive slower and how that can improve your life. The author claims that by driving slower that their overall happiness, such a small change can make a huge difference.
A sample reason:
3. Save time? As Vadim pointed out in his email, while you think you’re saving time by driving faster, it’s not a lot of time. And that small amount of time you’re saving isn’t worth it, considering the other factors on this list. Better yet, start out a few minutes early and you’ll arrive at the same time as someone who drove faster but started later, and you’ll arrive much happier than that person to boot
Personally I prefer riding my bike over any other form of personal transport.
I’ve never been one for fashion, but I think that has just changed with the introduction of clothing that eats smogs and kills bacteria. Olivia Ong, a design student at Cornell, came up with the idea of making a jacket that protects the wearer from bad things. It uses nano-materials (pictured) to do its thing, which makes the material itself very very expensive. Just imagine a world in which clothing actually makes the world better.
Ong’s dress and jacket, part of her original fashion line called “Glitterati,” look innocently hip. But closer inspection — with a microscope, that is — shows an army of electrostatically charged nanoparticles creating a protective shield around the cotton fibers in the top part of the dress, and the sleeves, hood and pockets of the jacket.
An article at the New Scientist puts me at ease because it allows me to remember that forgetfulness is a tool of the brain. Thank goodness! I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast today – apparently forgetting that is a smart move.
According to a new study, the brain only chooses to remember memories it thinks are most relevant, and actively suppresses those that are similar but less used, helping to lessen the cognitive load and prevent confusion.