Top New Travel Videos: “Austria – Top Places To Visit” (Touropia – 2020)

Austria is a country that is as well known for its scenic beauty as it is for its cultural activities. Situated in the Alps, it is a very popular place with skiers and hikers, but it is also a country that gave the world an important musical heritage, ranging from the classical composer Mozart to the Strauss waltzes and the Von Trapp family whose story was told in The Sound of Music. Here’s a look at the best places to visit in Austria.

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Infographics: “Experience With Ageism” For Adults Age 50 – 80 (July 2020)

National Poll On Healthy Aging - University of Michigan

What is everyday ageism and how common is it?

This poll examined older adults’ experiences with nine forms of everyday ageism. These forms were categorized into three groups: (1) exposure to ageist messages, (2) ageism in interpersonal interactions, and (3) internalized ageism (personally held beliefs
about aging and older people).

Experiences With Everyday Ageism - Adults 50-80 - University of Michigan Healthy Aging

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Health & Nature Books: “The Well-Gardened Mind” By Sue Stuart-Smith (2020)

 ‘The Well-Gardened Mind’ provides a new perspective on the power of gardening to change people’s lives. Here, Sue Stuart-Smith investigates the many ways in which mind and garden can interact and explores how the process of tending a plot can be a way of sustaining an innermost self.

A distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener offers an inspiring and consoling work about the healing effects of gardening and its ability to decrease stress and foster mental well-being in our everyday lives.

The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Gardening is one of the quintessential nurturing activities and yet we understand so little about it.

Stuart-Smith’s own love of gardening developed as she studied to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. From her grandfather’s return from World War I to Freud’s obsession with flowers to case histories with her own patients to progressive gardening programs in such places as Rikers Island prison in New York City, Stuart-Smith weaves thoughtful yet powerful examples to argue that gardening is much more important to our cognition than we think. Recent research is showing how green nature has direct antidepressant effects on humans. Essential and pragmatic, The Well-Gardened Mind is a book for gardeners and the perfect read for people seeking healthier mental lives.

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Top New Travel Videos: “Awsome Armenia” By Joerg Daiber (2020)

Filmed and edited by: Joerg Daiber

Armenia is a landlocked country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. It is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.

Armenia has been one of my favorite countries on my Caucasus trip a while back. The people are lovely, the history is intriguing and the scenery is breathtaking.

However, see for yourself and enjoy this ride through this amazing country in only 3 minute.
Shooting locations: Yerevan, Khor Virab, Smbataberd, Khndzoresk, Tatev Monastery, Shaki, Dilijan, Garni Temple, Jermuk, Sevanavank, Noratus cemetery and Lake Sevan.

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Armenia is a nation, and former Soviet republic, in the mountainous Caucasus region between Asia and Europe. Among the earliest Christian civilizations, it’s defined by religious sites including the Greco-Roman Temple of Garni and 4th-century Etchmiadzin Cathedral, headquarters of the Armenian Church. Khor Virap Monastery is a pilgrimage site near Mount Ararat, a dormant volcano just across the border in Turkey.

Morning News Podcast: Covid-19 Surges, Roger Stone & Alternative Meat

Axios TodayCoronavirus cases are on the rise in 33 states — and California and Florida hit record high numbers of daily cases last week. Now, hospitals and other medical facilities are feeling déjà vu, as they start to experience personal protective equipment shortages again.

  • Plus, Roger Stone talks to Axios’ Mike Allen 48 hours after President Trump commuted his sentence.
  • And, the massive rise of alternative meat sales means a fundamental change for the American diet.

Guests: Axios’ Bob Herman, Mike Allen and Bryan Walsh.

Architecture & Design: “Texture + Transparency – The Glass House” (2020)

https://vimeo.com/434020908

Produced and Directed by: Michael Biondo, Dallas Bennett, and Michael Robison

Edited by: Dallas Bennett
Cinematography by: Michael Biondo

Architectural photographer and filmmaker Michael Biondo and creative reality capture duo Michael Robison and Dallas Bennett (aka MYND Workshop) have collaborated to create an episodic series of short visual tours of the Glass House, a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

This video series seeks to create an ambient and intimate tour of Philip Johnson’s Glass House property in New Canaan, CT. These films are unique in the sense that they combine film and the use of point cloud technology to allow for a tectonic and artistic examination of the buildings in order to better understand the architecture and site design.

“Point clouds are an exceptional visual tool for understanding a space in ways which the human eye doesn’t typically allow,” said Michael Robison, co-founder and CEO of MYND Workshop. “The Glass House site could not be a more perfect subject to be experienced as a point cloud, providing insight into the complex relationships between the various structures and their careful placement throughout the dramatic landscape which defines the Glass House property.”

These films focus on a dialogue between Biondo’s carefully composed videography and MYND’s spectral point cloud visuals. Each video presents one of the different structures which comprise the Glass House property.

Biondo’s breathtaking video manages to capture those visceral experiences which one may come across when visiting the 49-acre property. These scenes offer the textures and light which define the sensual and emotional nature of Johnson’s work. In contrast, MYND Workshop’s animations speak to the layers and transparencies which Johnson often referred to when speaking about the design of the various buildings on the site, allowing for a design perspective that has never been seen before.

MYND Workshop’s medium of choice, the Point Cloud, may be best described as a 3D photograph which adds a spatial dimension to an otherwise 2D scene. The Brooklyn-based studio recognized early on the inherent beauty of the point clouds, exploring their creative potential by using them to create ethereal animations like those in the series.

This project was made possible by the generosity of Joanne and Stanley Marder.

About MYND Workshop
MYND Workshop is a Brooklyn based reality capture studio founded by Michael Robison and Dallas Bennett. Since 2015, they continue to implement a combination of 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry processes to document architecture, historic sites, film sets and artwork. MYND pushes the boundaries of these technologies by merging utility and creativity. Past projects have included Waldorf Astoria Hotel New York, Trinity Church Wall Street, World Trade Center Plaza, 9/11 Museum & Memorial, New York Stock Exchange, The Ford Foundation, The Brooklyn Navy Yard among many others.

About Michael Biondo
Michael Biondo is a New York and Connecticut-based photographer / filmmaker specializing in architecture and design. He studied Photography, Graphic Design, and Art History at the Pratt Institute where he earned a BFA. Recently Biondo contributed photographs to Rizzoli’s 2014 monograph, Allan Greenberg: Classical Architect; Design Book’s 50 U.S. Architects, published in 2015; and Inventive Minimalism, Monacelli Press, 2017. He co-authored and photographed Mid-Century Houses Today, Monacelli, 2015. His photographs have appeared in Architectural Digest, the Wall Street Journal, Architizer, Dwell, a+u Magazine and other publications.

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Global News: American Racism, Iran And Low-Earth Orbit Battles

The Economist Editor's PicksA selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, how not to tackle American racism, (10:28) a better way to contain Iran’s nuclear programme, (14:38) and the battle for low-earth orbit.

Top Home Design: “The Cloud House” – Peter Morris Architects (2020)

THE CLOUD HOUSE

Peter Morris Architects - Cloud House - Top View

The Cloud House takes its cue from the beautifully eccentric Grade I listed St Martin’s Church opposite, which looks like it could come straight from fairy tales – we have embraced that spirit too. Arches appear again and again on the church, so we modernized and simplified this shape, as the starting point for The Cloud House.

It’s not in a conservation area, and the architecture on the street is wildly eclectic, so a little flamboyance feels appropriate.

Peter Morris ArchitectsCoated in a buff render, with a pale pink tone and duck egg blue metalwork, it brings some gentle colour to the street. As one neighbour has kindly put it: ‘The Cloud House introduces a valuable ‘softer’ element to the street’s dressing, with its hoops and curves and decorations. It is just what Vicars Road needs and will lighten and humanise the street’.

Peter Morris Architects - Cloud House 2020

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Health Infographics: How “Strong HVAC Airflows Spread Covid-19 Indoors”

From McKinsey & Company (July 9, 2020):

McKinsey & Company logoThe World Health Organization recently acknowledged that some evidence about in-room transmission is worrisome. In addition, after analyzing a transmission event at a restaurant in China, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that an asymptomatic patient transmitted the virus to families at two nearby tables.

Strong Airflows Spread Coronavirus Droplets Within a Restaurant - McKinsey July 2020

Based on the restaurant layout, seating arrangements, and smear samples from air-conditioning inlets and outlets, the CDC found that the coronavirus was likely transmitted when strong airflows from a nearby air conditioner spread large droplets from the infected person. These droplets traveled more than one meter—further than usual, but less than the distance aerosols can typically travel.

Solutions to Help Prevent Airborne Spread of Viruses between Rooms - McKinsey & Company July 2020

Three Different Common Methods to Purify Contaminated Air - Filtration, Irradiation and Thermal - McKinsey July 2020

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The World’s Top Artists: American Painter Eric Johnson – “Masters Style”

Eric Johnson is a Boston based Painter and instructor at The Academy of Realist Art Boston who is devoted to the preservation and growth of traditional painting. He aspires towards adding his own link into the chain of tradition by mastering the working methods of the old masters who he admires and employing those methods into his own working process. 

Eric Johnson - The Story of We -As a complete painter he aspires to reach a high level of verisimilitude and truth in his works on a variety of subject matters from portrait, still life and landscape. Eric primarily makes all of the pigments and paints to create each prepossessing painting. Eric yearns that every new presentation to beauty and truth can show us the old beauty and the old truth only seen from a different angle and  colored by a different medium. 

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News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious