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Is commuting good for you? I miss the break between work and home | Emma Beddington

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How do you switch off at the end of the day if there’s no journey involved? Gardening? Sex? Crisps?

If you’re reading this standing in a stationary train’s vestibule, squeezed between a furtive flosser and someone eating a keto breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and sardines, while everyone listens to Jolyon on speakerphone review the new draft pitch deck, take heart: commuting is good for you.

It’s the second outing I have spotted for this argument. In 2021, the Harvard Business Review asserted the value of commuting in setting and maintaining boundaries between work and home selves, thus avoiding burnout. Now the concept is back, with US researchers further exploring the role of the commute as a “liminal space” that allows for psychological detachment and recovery from work. There are psychological as well as physical and temporal dimensions to the commute, they argue, and “the experience of rolelessness” during it may create a mental space for “psychological role transition and recovery”.

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist

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abackstrom
604 days ago
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I always end the day with a brief decompress. I unplug my work computer from its docking station to create a definitive "end" to the work day, and short-circuit any habit of checking in on Slack. I read socials or just sit and chill for a minute. You don't have to go anywhere to create this liminal space.
Rumney, NH, US
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2 public comments
sarcozona
604 days ago
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I’ve been grieving my ability to have a career and lately I’m wondering why
Epiphyte City
hannahdraper
604 days ago
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Get fucked. I have the easiest commute of my life right now in Brussels, and I still would rather have the ability to work remotely 2-3 days a week.
Washington, DC

Dancing Baby meme gets an HD remaster

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24 years later, it's now re-rendered in 1080p 60FPS video from the original 3ds Max source
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abackstrom
1702 days ago
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Rumney, NH, US
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Calendar Facts

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While it may seem like trivia, it (causes huge headaches for software developers / is taken advantage of by high-speed traders / triggered the 2003 Northeast Blackout / has to be corrected for by GPS satellites / is now recognized as a major cause of World War I).
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abackstrom
2487 days ago
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Did you know that Toyota Truck Week might happen twice this year because of an arbitrary decision by Benjamin Franklin? Apparently there's a proposal to fix it, but it might be unconstitutional.
Rumney, NH, US
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Covarr
2487 days ago
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Did you know that the blood moon drifts out of sync with the iPhone calendar because of libation of the mason dixon line? Apparently that's why we have leap seconds.
East Helena, MT
Aatch
2487 days ago
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Did you know that leap day might happen twice this year because of a decree by the pope in the 1500s? Apparently it was even more extreme during the 1990s
NZ
alt_text_bot
2487 days ago
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While it may seem like trivia, it (causes huge headaches for software developers / is taken advantage of by high-speed traders / triggered the 2003 Northeast Blackout / has to be corrected for by GPS satellites / is now recognized as a major cause of World War I).

RIP Every Frame a Painting

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Sad but expected news: Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos have shut down their excellent video series on film, Every Frame a Painting. They wrote about their decision in the form of the script for a final episode that never got made:

(TONY) As many of you have guessed, the channel more or less ended in September 2016 with the release of the “Marvel Symphonic Universe” video. For the last year, Taylor and I have tinkered behind-the-scenes to see if there was anything else we wanted to do with this YouTube channel.

(TAYLOR) But in the past year, we’ve both started new jobs and taken on other freelance work. Things started piling up and it took all our energy to get through the work we’d agreed to do.

When we started this YouTube project, we gave ourselves one simple rule: if we ever stopped enjoying the videos, we’d also stop making them. And one day, we woke up and felt it was time.

I was a huge fan of the series and posted many episodes on kottke.org. Here are a few particular favorites:

Cheers to Tony and Taylor…you made a great thing and knew when to quit (unlike some people).

P.S. Poking around, I found a mini Every Frame a Painting that Zhou and Ramos did for Criterion about The Breaking Point, posted to YouTube back in August:

Gah, that just makes me miss it even more!

Tags: movies   Taylor Ramos   Tony Zhou   video
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abackstrom
2502 days ago
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Every Frame a Painting is such a joy. Make sure you check it out if you haven't yet!
Rumney, NH, US
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reconbot
2502 days ago
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Loved the show, worth watching if you like movies =)
New York City

Boston Dynamics 'new' SpotMini robot looks ready for a walk

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Boston Dynamics isn't a part of Google/Alphabet anymore, but that won't stand in the way of new robot videos, like this latest teaser for a revamped version of its dog-like electric SpotMini robot. Described only as the "new SpotMini" it looks sleeke...
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abackstrom
2510 days ago
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My 4 year old saw this on my computer monitor and is currently screaming and saying "that's a monster" and asking me to "put it away".
Rumney, NH, US
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The Road Movie, a feature-length compilation of Russian dashcam videos

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The Road Movie, out in theaters in January, consists of nothing but videos taken from Russian dashboard cameras. There are car accidents, animal hijinks, fistfights, high/drunk people, meteors, and fires. The trailer is really entertaining…I’m curious to see the entire film to see how it’s stitched into something resembling a narrative that can sustain a viewer’s attention for more than 20 minutes.

Tags: movies   Russia   The Road Movie   trailers   video
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abackstrom
2515 days ago
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Rumney, NH, US
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