Blogbook
Commuting is bad for your health – it’s not just you. Commuting has been linked to higher rates of obesity, stress, and depression. Via Vox:
The association between long drives to work and poor health has turned up in a number of different studies (see this Slate article by Annie Lowrey for one excellent overview).
“We’ve found that people who commute longer distances are less fit, more likely to be obese, and have worse metabolic outcomes than those with shorter ones,” says Christine Hoehner, a doctor at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.
Hoehner conducted a study of 4,297 Texas workers and found that those with long commutes (greater than 20 miles) had greater rates of high blood pressure and high blood sugar than those with short commutes (0 to 5 miles).
But when researchers probed further, they found that it wasn’t commuting itself that was making people fat. Instead, it was the fact that commuters were less likely to get exercise. When the researchers corrected for this variable, the effects mostly disappeared.
On the surface, this might sound like good news. In theory, the negative effects of commuting can be counteracted — as long as you exercise at home.
Unfortunately, the sad truth is that most people seem to lose their willpower to exercise after sitting in traffic for long stretches of time. Economist Thomas James Christian analyzed data from the American Time Use Survey and found that people who spent more time commuting consistently spent less time exercising, sleeping, and making food at home. They were also more likely to buy “non-grocery food purchases” (i.e., fast food or takeout).
1.30. pic.twitter.com/joIbXlXcCA
— MUTE (@mute) January 27, 2018
Mute, the sequel to Duncan Jones’ acclaimed indie 2009 SF film Moon, will be out on Netflix in February, and the teaser trailer looks very… Bladerunner. Via the Verge:
During the run-up to Warcraft, Duncan Jones revealed that he already had a follow-up project in the works. It wasn’t another blockbuster that would cost a studio hundreds of millions of dollars, but a companion to his quiet debut film, Moon.
Mute is a long-simmering project that he’s been talking about making for years, and it goes into production next week. The film will star Paul Rudd and Alexander Skarsgard in a futuristic version of Berlin, in which a mute bartender (Skarsgard) goes against a gang to figure out what happened to his missing partner. Get excited.
Jones made a splash with his debut film, Moon, when it arrived in 2009. It followed Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a miner for Lunar Industries who’s going stir crazy after three years cooped up in an isolated station. While he’s up there, he discovers that he’s one of many clones who have been pressed into service on the station.
Moon came out in a really crowded year for science fiction. James Cameron released his long-awaited film Avatar, while Star Trek returned from a long hiatus at the hands of J.J. Abram’s Star Trek and Neill Blomkamp made a splash with his debut film District 9. There was a lot going on, but Jones’ quiet, unassuming film was easily the best science fiction film of the year. Jones showed that even with a limited budget (Moon was shot for around $5 million), he could pack in an enormous emotional punch that big budget science fiction movies like Avatar and Star Trek really couldn’t deliver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxGUmtRLm5g
Budweiser highlights its disaster relief efforts this year for its Superbowl ad. A Superbowl without its iconic Clydesdale horses? Aww. Via Adweek:
Over the last 30 years, Budweiser has donated 79 million cans of water to disaster relief. Last year alone, Budweiser donated three million cans of water to disaster relief for people in need in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and California. That relief program is the focus of the beer brand’s 60-second Super Bowl spot, from creative agency David Miami.
“This year we wanted to use our Super Bowl time not only to entertain but also to bring a message that is really [about] purpose and to celebrate, of course, our incredible employees,” said Ricardo Marques, vp of marketing for Budweiser. “The people that you see in the spot are working for the company. There are 23 employees featured including of course Kevin Fahrenkrog, general manager of the Cartersville, Ga. brewery.”
The spot features a cover of the song “Stand By Me” by Skylar Grey (when people download Skylar Grey’s song, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross) which underscores the company’s message that it is committed to the relief program and will continue to provide emergency water for those in need. This year, Budweiser decided to add its Fort Collins, Co. brewery to its emergency water program so that it could provide water more quickly.
The company declined to say how much the program costs, instead referring Adweek to the number of cans it donated last year.
“We believe the Super Bowl will be the right stage to send this message and to reaffirm our commitment to this effort,” said Marques.
Subaru is back with another Barkleys ad for the Superbowl, with an extension of their adorable “Dog Tested” campaign featuring a dog family. Via Motor 1:
The Barkley’s, Subaru’s family of spokesdogs, are back in a new quartet of adorable commercials. This pack of labradors and golden retrievers demonstrate the comedy rule that an animal doing human things is funny. Plus, over half of Subaru owners have pets, so the ads appeal to many of the automaker’s customers.
[…]
In addition to the four ads, Subaru released a one-minute clip of outtakes from the filming. Anyone familiar with dogs knows that they don’t always follow commands, and this applies to canine actors, too. A rod with a treat and a ball on the end appears to be the key for getting any work done.
If you like these ads, Subaru has more pet-related projects on the way. The company will soon partner with BuzzFeed and Funny or Die on short films with animals in them. The automaker will also sponsor the Puppy Bowl on the Animal Planet television channel for the eighth time on February 4.
Credits
Client: Subaru of America, Inc.
Senior Vice President, Marketing: Alan Bethke
National Advertising Manager: Brian Cavallucci
Advertising Production Specialist: Michelle Shoultes
Agency: Carmichael Lynch
Chief Creative Officer: Marty Senn
Executive Creative Director: Randy Hughes
Creative Director: Brad Harrison
Writer: Michelle Lippman
Art Director: Sam Perry
Head of Production: Joe Grundhoefer
Executive Content Producer: Jon Mielke
Business Manager: Vicki Oachs
Account Management Team: Brad Williams, Paula Weisenbeck, Kendra Komejan
Product Information Supervisor: Robert Ar
Project Manager: Andrea Thelen
Brand Planning: Olivia Luterbach
Media: Betsy Burgeson
Apparently, dogs have their personal favourite music preferences, a fact that inspired Spotify to team up with an animal shelter for their Adoptify campaign. Via Adweek:
A recent study from the University of Glasgow suggested each individual dog has his or her own unique taste in music. This was music to Spotify’s ears, and the streaming service has now partnered with an animal shelter in Germany to match owners and adoptable pets based on their song choices.
The program, dreamed up by agency Serviceplan, is called Adoptify. The website features dogs available for adoption at a shelter in Munich, and notes what kind of music each dog prefers (presumably based on testing various playlists). You can watch videos about the dogs, and choose to take one home that matches your own musical tastes.
“No other music provider knows and analyzes the musical preferences of their listeners as well as Spotify,” says Hans-Peter Sporer, Creative Director at Serviceplan Campaign X. “We will use this to make recommendations to users by displaying dogs who like the same music in personalized video banners.”
“As animal welfare officers, we attach great importance to any kind of original communication and increased awareness among the wider population,” adds Jillian Moss, head of PR, advertising and fundraising at the Tierschutzverein München e.V. animal shelter. “We are proud to be pulling together with our two Adoptify partners, who are both market leaders in their respective sectors.”
This revelation comes as no surprise to us – one of our team has a cat whose favourite music is jazz. May many pets get adopted!
Why Dungeons & Dragons is good for you in real life – Ethan Gilsdorf explores how the game helped him become more connected, creative, and compassionate. Via TED:
You’re a member of a team of adventurers, and your shared quest is to rescue a prince who has disappeared near an abandoned castle. In this mission, who do you want to be? A brave dwarf warrior? A brainy human wizard? A skilled elvish archer? A stealthy hobbit thief?
As you approach the ruins, you see a creature. It’s nine feet tall, green and grumbling, and it carries a massive axe. A troll, it’s chained to the entrance gate. What do you do? Rush and attack? Blast it with a magic fireball? Sneak around and find another way in? Try to bargain with it? Or something else?
I grew up in an isolated New Hampshire town before the Internet, smartphones and social media. Like most kids, I played board games like Risk, Stratego, Mousetrap, Battleship, Clue, Monopoly.
Then, in 1974, came Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D — a game that changed everything. D&D introduced rules for fantasy role-playing in a swords-and-sorcery world. I first encountered D&D in 1979 when I was 12, and it blew my mind. My buddies and I played it a lot.
Amazon Go is Amazon’s latest attempt at shaking up retail – cashless, checkoutless, just grab and go. It’s opened a trial store this week in Seattle. Via the New York Times:
The first clue that there’s something unusual about Amazon’s store of the future hits you right at the front door. It feels as if you are entering a subway station. A row of gates guard the entrance to the store, known as Amazon Go, allowing in only people with the store’s smartphone app.
Inside is an 1,800-square foot mini-market packed with shelves of food that you can find in a lot of other convenience stores — soda, potato chips, ketchup. It also has some food usually found at Whole Foods, the supermarket chain that Amazon owns.
But the technology that is also inside, mostly tucked away out of sight, enables a shopping experience like no other. There are no cashiers or registers anywhere. Shoppers leave the store through those same gates, without pausing to pull out a credit card. Their Amazon account automatically gets charged for what they take out the door.
[…]
The only sign of the technology that makes this possible floats above the store shelves — arrays of small cameras, hundreds of them throughout the store. Amazon won’t say much about how the system works, other than to say it involves sophisticated computer vision and machine learning software. Translation: Amazon’s technology can see and identify every item in the store, without attaching a special chip to every can of soup and bag of trail mix.
Ok Go is known for pushing the boundary in their music videos, but their latest video, Obsession, still blew our minds. Via Rolling Stone:
The innovative video, a collaboration between the band and paper company Double A, utilizes stop-motion imagery, precise choreography and 567 printers to create the “world’s first paper mapping” project. “New, unique and very exciting, the technique allows OK Go to have fun experimenting with movements,” Double A wrote of the project. “The band even spent 2 weeks in Japan where the shooting took place to help develop and test the system to ensure everything functions perfectly. They also had to rehearse their dance moves for the video – which they had to perform in front of 567 printers and countless piles of paper.”
Throughout the visual, which took five days to film, the printers work in unison to create a background behind OK Go, with the printers alternating between colorful tableaus to scenic images to the printed versions of the band members themselves.
As OK Go noted on Twitter, the “Obsession” video was delayed by YouTube’s Auto HD function, which resulted in “some pretty intense distortion during a few sections, because when the the colors and patterns get crazy, there’s actually just too much information flying by for YouTube’s normal HD compression.” The band recommends watching on either 1440p or 2160p quality to properly view the visual.
TBWA/RAAD’s Nissan “She Drives” campaign in Saudi Arabia surprises women with a driving lesson taught by their loved ones. Via Autoweek:
Last September, the Saudi Arabian government gave the go-ahead to allow women to drive in the country starting in June 2018. Saudi leaders, according to the New York Times, hoped the new policy would help the economy by increasing female participation in the workforce.
Conservatives in the kingdom were predictably outraged, but the rule passed, and Nissan Middle East is now doing its part to help teach all of these new drivers how to handle themselves on the road (in Nissans, of course) with its “She Drives” campaign.
Many women were still hesitant, as we all were when we first learned. Besides the general prejudice, they also feared that their male relatives would disapprove. So Nissan took a group of women out and asked them about driving, why they were anxious and then put them in cars to wait for instructors.
We hate to go all click-baity on you, but, you won’t believe what happens next. Break out the tissues. Yes, this is an ad for Nissan, but it’s also a nice, heartwarming concept, with a great social campaign behind it.
Gorgeous time-lapse of street artist DAKU’s recent installation at Lodhi Colony in New Delhi, India, titled Time Changes Everything. Via Designboom:
The first dedicated public art district in India came to life this year. as part of st+art, 25 local and international street artists descended upon the iconic Lodhi colony area, turning the urban landscape into an open-air gallery.
One of the core installations sited in the Lodhi district is a dynamic, typographic graffiti artwork by DAKU. ‘time changes everything’ visualizes the passing of the day through an interplay between light and shadow, using the source of the sun as a catalyst for creative expression.
Several words — ‘curiosity’, ‘future’, ‘balance’ and ‘perception’ — have been mounted perpendicularly on a building façade. as light passes overhead, the letterforms cast an ever-evolving shadow on the wall, coming alive between the morning and afternoon hours, after which it disappears with the fading sun.
At 12 noon, a shadow falls directly on the wall, making the letters most clearly legible. the chosen phrases by DAKU for the festival installation not only refer to the perception of life, but also to the ephemeral nature of the street art community.
According to ST+Art:
This typographic piece by DAKU for St+Art India ingeniously visualises the concept of time by playing with letters and shadows. The oldest forms of measuring time were sundials used by the Egyptians as early as 1500 BC, and this piece takes that concept to a whole new level.