Interesting Finds: Issue #16

Reindeer Eyes, Zoom Quilts, David Chang and Growth Hacking your Album on Spotify

Each week, I curate the most curious content I find, and add a spotlight on portions I find most interesting.

This week is about Reindeer Eyes, Zoom Quilts, David Chang and Growth Hacking your Album on Spotify.

If you’re enjoying the newsletter, I’d love to hear from you and for you to share it with your network. If you were forwarded this newsletter or found the link on social, you can subscribe here:

Who Is Susan?

Thanks for the laugh Myrah 😂

Source: Reddit

Zoom Quilt

Sometimes you come across things online that totally mesmerize you unexpectedly. This is one of those projects, and no, it has nothing to do with Zoom video-conferencing.

A project by some independent illustrators created this “infinitely zoomed painting” called ZoomQuilt in 2004. This then inspired ZoomQuilt2 in 2007 and Arkadia in 2015. Each of them are absolute works of art and ridiculously addictive to stare at.

Ok, Let’s Get Creative

In a fit of creative growth hacking genius, a musician released an album on spotify called “Ok Google Play Music” with each song being titled a Google Assistant command. For example, it features tracks named “Hey Google Play Christmas Music” and “Hey Google Play Instrumental Music”.

I have no idea if this hack works to hijack people’s spotify playback, but it’s a genius attempt nonetheless. If you have a Google Home in your house, let me know if this is as infuriating as it seems.

Reindeers: More Than Meets The Eye

Being the holiday season, Reindeers are on my mind (and my children’s). Courtesy of the Smithsonian Magazine, I learned that Reindeer eyes change colors to match the season which helps make them more or less sensitive to light.

By default, their eyes are gold in color but in the winter, they turn blue which makes them see better in the dark due to the scattering of light on the retina. Their golden summer eyes reflect 95% of the light out of the eye, whereas in the winter, their eyes only reflect 40%.

COVID-19 vs Candle Sales

Scented candles are another victim to COVID-19. According to Kate Petrova on Twitter, there is a relationship between the rise of COVID-10 infections and negative reviews of scented candles on Amazon:

Kate Petrova @kate_ptrv

I couldn’t just walk past this Tweet, so here is some fun #dataviz Scented candles: An unexpected victim of the COVID-19 pandemic 1/n

Terri Nelson @TerriDrawsStuff

There are angry ladies all over Yankee Candle’s site reporting that none of the candles they just got had any smell at all. I wonder if they’re feeling a little hot and nothing has much taste for the last couple days too.

Kate Petrova @kate_ptrv

First, I downloaded a random subsample of US-based customer reviews of the 3 most popular scented candles on Amazon. Between January 2017 and January 2020, the average rating stayed around 4.3/5, but there was a sharp drop between January and November 2020. 2/n

Kate Petrova @kate_ptrv

Since the beginning of 2020, customer satisfaction with scented candles has been dropping at a much faster rate compared to unscented candles. 4/n

Kate Petrova @kate_ptrv

Since the beginning of this year, the proportion of reviews mentioning lack of scent grew from < 2% in January to close to 6% in November. These numbers may not seem like much, but the trajectory of no-scent reviews over the last 11 months is certainly an interesting one 7/n

David Chang

David Chang is a Chef and Restaurateur famous for his Momofuku restaurants and more recently, his Netflix series Ugly Delicious (which I highly recommend).

He recently made headlines this past week because he became the first celebrity to win a million dollars on the gameshow “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”. Watch it here:

Other Interesting Finds 🔎

• 🤓 Nice nerdy article on why the new Apple M1 chip is so fast

• 😷 Watch what a sneeze looks like in ultra slow motion and 4k

• 🎬 Warner Bros will make it’s 2021 movies available on HBO Max including The Matrix 4 and Dune. Just don’t think you watch Wonder Woman 1984 for free sneakily with a free trial since they are eliminating their trials.

• 🦶 Does Fist of Fury have the best fight scene in the history of movies?