Remember a few months ago when we wondered how museums would catalog this time? In April, our imaginations were limited to masks, photos of empty cities, and those rainbows that kids draw. Then the summer happened.
This month, the Skidmore Storytellers’ Institute is (remotely) exhibiting the work its multimedia documentary fellows (remotely) produced in June, many of which process the moment in individual and collective ways. There are vulnerable and valiant self-portraits by the writer and photographer Gioncarlo Valentine; a short film by the new Skidmore grad Shana Kleiner about seeing her mom die; and don’t miss the kipi— a visual and aural time capsule that Fernanda Espinosa and Raul Ayala built for their nieces and nephews. Some of the sweetest parts of the exhibition are the collaborative works that the fellows made together at a distance (mail art!). If you have a quiet moment this weekend, dig into these and see where they take you.
Of all the before-time things that went away, the commute is not one I want back. Microsoft’s latest innovation suggests otherwise. They’ve just rolled out a “virtual commute” tool that actually has nothing to do with commuting except that it’s supposed to bookend your day. Rather than putting you on the subway in VR, the platform prompts you to set goals in the morning and look back to log whether you accomplished them as you wrap up— and rate your feelings about the day on a scale from the angry emoji to a happy one. As Microsoft told the WSJ, “The virtual commute feature represents Teams’ move into employee wellness” from productivity. But when your wellness tool is basically just a to-do list, it sounds like a way to gather productivity data, not to make sure workers are well. After you shuffle your to-dos, however, there’s an optional Headspace meditation, so..
In slightly more intuitive tech news, Twitter will now stop to ask if you read an article before you retweet it. If that’s not embarrassing enough, know that in their initial tests, the feature spurred a 40% increase in users actually clicking through to the articles they were ready to promote. The good news is that you now have plenty of time to read with that train ride out of the way.
According to people who shave four times a week, your eighth shave with the new, sharper Harry’s razor blades is now as smooth as your first. And yet, Harry’s kept the price of their new blades exactly the same: as low as $2 each. A smooth deal for a sharp bunch— get yours here.
