Blog

Check out: ‘Bored and Brilliant’ – The Case for Boredom

illustration credit: John Hersey

I’ve recently started listening to the WNYC public radio show New Tech City. It’s an interesting and well-done show! (The episodes are also not that long, so it’s a quick listen.)

Recently they’ve been doing a series called ‘Bored and Brilliant’. From the episode called ‘The Case for Boredom’:

Paying attention to our smartphones through so many of our waking moments means our minds don’t spend as much time idling. […]

Mann’s research finds that idle minds lead to reflective, often creative thoughts (we discuss her projects in depth in this week’s show). Minds need to wander to reach their full potential.

During bouts of boredom our brains can’t help but jump around in time, analyzing and re-analyzing the pieces of our lives, says Jonny Smallwood, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of York in the UK. He says inspiration strikes in the shower because it’s a moment when we’re not really looking at or focusing on anything else. […]

“That’s where daydreaming and boredom intersect,” Smallwood says. “What smartphones allow us to do is get rid of boredom in a very direct way because we can play games, phone people, we can check the Internet. It takes away the boredom, but it also denies us the chance to see and learn about where we truly are in terms of our goals.”

In addition to being some good, interesting radio to listen to, the Bored and Brilliant series is also presenting a challenge. They’re asking people to sign up for an experiment in which they make certain experimental changes to the way they relate to their phones.

To start with, they’re asking for people to record baseline behavior…And then, starting in February, they’ll actually start giving daily instructions to experiment participants.

I’m down for it — I’m fascinated by what we can learn about ourselves, what kinds of unconscious things come out, when we pay close attention to our habits, and try to examine or tinker with them.

Whether you want to sign up for the experiment, or just want to check out the show, visit Bored and Brilliant at New Tech City!

The Actual Path of Civil Rights

I kinda liked this last phrase so I mocked up a design for Teespring! I mainly want to get one for myself.

HERE IT IS:

the type is pretty small

The shirts are available for 5 days only. I also made a bumper sticker version:

wondermark-laugh-bumper-sticker

The stickers are available through StickerMule, a store that also sells my other stickers by the each if you ever want just a single one of them.

Do people ever say that? “By the each”? Sounds weird to me but I swear I’ve heard people say it. Now, it’s always sounded weird even when they said it, but I’m pretty sure they were grown-ups, so who knows??

Wondermark Valentine cards are still available too!

A Free, Printable Progressive Calendar for 2015

I made a simple, printable wall calendar for my office! You can have it too — here’s a PDF file you can print yourself.

Those of you who’ve picked up copies of the Wondermark Calendar in any of the last three years know about my interest in progressive calendars.

By that, I mean a calendar that doesn’t have any breaks between months. I think I invented the term? By that, I mean “nobody else has ever used this term.”

Back in 2012 I wrote all about it. The special Wondermark branded calendars, of course, address the matter with their modular card design.

But this year, I also wanted a big work calendar I could mount on the wall and write on. I like being able to see the coming weeks and months at a glance.

So I made this:

WHAT DAY IS IT

It’s an entire 2015 calendar that fits on six sheets of regular typing paper. In the picture, you can see I’ve trimmed the pages so they line up in columns of 2 pages each; you could arrange it a different way, if you prefer.

I tried to make it very simple and very clear, with no wasted space or ornament. We all basically know which holidays happen when, so holidays and other observances are marked with just an abbreviation.

The “businesses-are-closed” holidays (where I live, anyway) are further indicated with a shaded circle. The letters “DS” mark the Daylight Saving changeover dates. Some other possibly confusing ones are “CNY” (Chinese New Year), “RAM” (Ramadan), and “CHAN” (Chanukah).

Since I also do a lot of weekend travel, I decided to group the weekend days together on the right, and start each week with Monday on the left.

I thought this might be useful to you as well, so here you go! Please feel free to print out your own!

{ DOWNLOAD PDF FILE }

EDIT: Jason McDermott has created a version featuring the significant Australian dates!

João Paulo Bernardes has created a Brazilian version as well!

I’ve also updated my version to correct the March 8 date for Daylight Saving Time.

Wondermark Valentine cards!

If you have a sweetie of any kind, you should know about my Wondermark Valentines! Here are a couple in particular:

And there are others too! Click here too see the full suite of designs. My Valentine cards are either a nice way to show your affection OR a heartless tool of the consumerist spendocracy. One or the other!

2014 Errata

Embed from Getty Images

Sometimes, you write and publish a comic strip, and sometimes, you find out later that you got something wrong. Since files on the internet are impervious to change, please find instead, below, a comprehensive list of our errors, omissions, and misstatements of fact in 2014.

#1023; The Counsel of the Expert (Part 3)
Clearly, Darren also benefited from networking.

#1034; A Masterpiece in every Router
Craig does actually have a choice in the matter; he is just choosing to ignore it for dramatic effect.

#1053; The Star So Softly Said Hello
Later reports indicate that the star was probably billions and billions and billions of miles away, rather than simply hundreds of millions. Whether the bird knew this at the time the strip occurred is unclear.

#1074; Le Roman à Crybaby
This strip originally used the word “twats”, which I have since learned is more offensive in some places than I had realized. It has been corrected to “twits”, which still basically gets the bloody point across.

#1062; The Terrible Sea Lion
It has been suggested that the couple in this comic, and the woman in particular, are bigots for making a pejorative statement about a species of animal, and then refusing to justify their statements. It has been further suggested that they be read as overly privileged, because they are dressed fancily, have a house, a motor-car, etc. This is, I suppose, a valid read of the comic, if taken as written.

But often, in satire such as this, elements are employed to stand in for other, different objects or concepts. Using animals for this purpose has the effect of allowing the point (which usually is about behavior) to stand unencumbered by the connotations that might be suggested if a person is portrayed in that role — because all people are members of some social group or other, even if said group identity is not germane to the point being made.

Such is the case with this comic. The sea lion character is not meant to represent actual sea lions, or any actual animal. It is meant as a metaphorical stand-in for human beings that display certain behaviors. Since behaviors are the result of choice, I would assert that the woman’s objection to sea lions — which, if the metaphor is understood, is read as actually an objection to human beings who exhibit certain behaviors — is not analogous to a prejudice based on race, species, or other immutable characteristics.

My apologies if the use of a metaphorical sea lion in this strip, rather than a human being making conscious choices about their own behavior, was in any way confusing.

As for their attire: everyone in Wondermark dresses like that.

#993; In which a Party is supposed
It actually was a pretty good party.

Wondermark regrets the errors.

Previously:
2013 Errata / 2011 Errata / 2009 Errata / 2008 Errata