Paul Jacobson

Category: Miscellany

  • Kicking off my Summer vacation

    Today is the first day of my Summer vacation, and I’ve started it with an unexpectedly appealing drink in a park with our daughter while we wait for our son to finish a lesson nearby.

  • Powerful Deer – The Best GIF I’ve Seen This Week

    We share a lot of GIFs in Slack at work, and one of my colleagues shared “Powerful Deer”. It’s probably the best GIF I’ve seen this week, heck all month!

  • Remarkable Formula 1 Photographers

    Remarkable Formula 1 Photographers

    I just watched a YouTube video featuring three photographers who capture Formula 1 races: Vladimir Rys, Qian Jun, and Mark Thompson. Of the three, I really like Vladimir Rys’ style, with his emphasis on the shadows, and underexposing the images in varying degrees. Here’s an example: unsplash-logoFeatured image by Chantel Lucas

  • Shoe polish and noodles – retail merchandising decisions

    Shoe polish and noodles – retail merchandising decisions

    One of our local supermarkets is reorganising their shelf space. Placing shoe polish under Chinese noodles is a curious merchandising decision. I’d love to know the thinking behind that one. 🤔

  • Ambling around Lisbon

    Ambling around Lisbon

    We had a free day today, as our team meetup winds down. I went for a casual walk around part of Lisbon that we hadn’t seen yet with two colleagues today. Usually, when I walk, I walk. This time, we literally ambled along in the general direction of the coast. We didn’t actually reach the…

  • Opportunistic diversions for 2019-04-17

    Opportunistic diversions for 2019-04-17

    I watched a couple interesting videos that I enjoyed, and thought I’d share: This Engadget video about the differences between DSLR and mirrorless cameras is terrific. Chris Schodt did a great job explaining both camera categories, and the advantages each type has. Well worth watching. Leonardo Da Vinci was clearly a remarkable person, and this…

  • First-hand accounts of how the President’s team responded to 9/11

    First-hand accounts of how the President’s team responded to 9/11

    I read a remarkable article comprising first-hand accounts by a number of people who surrounded President George W Bush on the morning of 9/11. I remember when the tragedy struck, and read reports about how the President’s team responded to the emerging crisis in the hours that followed. The story of those remarkable hours—and the…

  • Fighting package thieves with glitter and fart spray

    Mark Rober’s approach to tackling doorstep package thieves is ingenious, and hilarious to watch in action: I watched this with our kids over lunch today, and we were in stitches! Brilliant! Via Kottke.org and my wife.