The Open Road Blog

In preparation for Hurricane Irene here on the East Coast, the New York Times has put up a very helpful Tracking Map. Stay safe, everyone!—Lara

I enjoyed John Tierney's essay on decision fatigue in the New York Times, adapted from his forthcoming book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Tierney states that the very act of making decisions depletes our ability to make them well and asks how to navigate a world of endless choice given this reality. Click here for his interesting read on self-regulation.

Also: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone ...

Via Tech Crunch: "Twitter has just rolled out a nifty little feature. Now on anyone’s profile, when you click on the “Following” link, you’ll be able to see exactly how they see Twitter. In other words, you can see the same timeline of tweets that they see when they’re looking at their main feed." Frankly, not sure how much I like this!—Libby

It's always an exciting moment to stumble across a book that makes you cry, makes you think, or makes you fall over with laughter. I lucked out this week and found a humor book that made me do all three! ...

James Grime's piece in The Guardian—How YouTube Is Popularizing Science—is a fun opportunity to explore science lessons long forgotten "with no pressure or expectations." Also, if you haven't yet seen posts elsewhere, Rebecca Greenfield's piece on Monday in The Atlantic—Designing a 19th-Century Kindle: An E-Reader for Dickens—took a look at how art student Rachel Walsh elected to convey the concept of the Amazon Kindle to Charles Dickens. Incredible!—Laura

If you use Flickr, I bet you've seen these wonderful photographs: Running ahead of myself, Sunny Side Up, Trees Snow and Shadows. In weeks, ...

Remember producing spin art at childhood carnivals (and, if you were really fancy, with your in-home toy set)? Claire O'Neill's NPR piece, "How Sound Can Create Sculpture," tapped into my fondest paint memories this week. Dentsu London—the creative agency behind last year's iPad light painting video—has merged music, paint, and photography to create Water Figures. "Water Figures are sculpted by the action of sound waves which eject water based paints into the air from the surface of a rubber membrane (balloon) placed over the front of a small speaker like those used for computers," explains Linden Gledhill, the biochemist/photographer who ...