Let’s pause for a moment and enjoy the internet.
The Toast’s Western Art History series – The Toast has a series of hilarious posts featuring famous historical artworks with modern captions, grouped by theme. Most of the recent posts are about the plight of women in art; it’s hard to explain why they’re so funny, so you just have to check them out for yourself. Some of my favourites are Women Rejecting Marriage Proposals, Women Listening to Men, Unhappy Mothers, Women Having a Terrible Time at Parties, and Women Wearing Spectacular Hats.
Headspace – If you are interested in meditation but can’t quite work out how to start, or you know how to start but can’t seem to convince yourself to make the time, try out Headspace. The app is free, and comes with a ten-day starter package to get the ball rolling. It’s a practical, hands-on programme that gets right down to the core meditation techniques, perfect for those who are less interested in new-age-spiritual talk and more interested in concrete health and lifestyle benefits. I recently got a premium membership even though I’m an experienced meditator, just because there are so many fun meditation packets to try.
FutureSelf – This is pretty freaky. You upload a photo of yourself, the engine analyses it, and shows you an animated, talking version of what it thinks you will look like twenty years from now. You can then have a conversation with Future You, though you’ll probably find Future You a bit limited in conversation topics. Still, it’s interesting to play with for a while.
MTSR – The Multi Track Song Recorder free iOS app is not really suitable for heavy-duty recording contexts, but it does enable you to do some pretty fun stuff, like sing harmony with yourself at a moment’s notice, or lay down a beat that you can then sing live over. I don’t think I’d ever use it for actual recording (I just delete whatever I’ve recorded at the end of every session), but it’s a lot of fun to play around with if you just want to do some quick multi-part stuff, and the interface is so simple, you can master it within a few minutes.
Grandmas getting stoned – Now that marijuana is becoming legal for recreational use in some places in the United States, we can probably expect more videos along these lines. Three grandmothers try smoking weed for the first time while one of the filmmakers throws Cards Against Humanity into the mix; hilarity ensues.