Welcome to Thursday Things! If you enjoy this edition, please click the heart icon in the header or at the end of the post to let me know.
Merry Christmas! Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Last minute gift idea
There’s always that one person on your holiday shopping list who already has everything. But I bet they don’t have this:
A team of engineers, materials scientists and chemists at Nankai University, in China, has developed a microfiber-based meta-fabric that provides full-day thermoregulation of body temperature during periods of changing external temperatures.
In this new study, the researchers built on a prior innovation that creating microfiber-based meta-fabrics that could provide daytime radiative cooling. The researchers sought to combine flexible solar cells with electrocaloric technology to create a micro-fiber-based fabric that can be used by people under ordinary circumstances.
At the heart of the new fabric is an organic photovoltaic module combined with a bidirectional electrocaloric device. Because both are flexible, the resulting device can be integrated into fabric used to make clothing. Also, because of its bidirectionality, such clothes can provide heat or a cooling effect depending on the weather.
That’s right! Self-warming, self-cooling clothes. It’s electrocaloric! Sure to be a hit in any weather.
And so stylish. Image: Nankai University
Last minute resolution ideas
I quit making formal lists of New Year resolutions some years ago. Mainly because I was usually just recycling the same list, only updating the year. And I still don’t have a personal zeppelin.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not always looking for ways to improve, enhance, or simplify my life any time of year. This list of 9 Minimalist Habits appeals to me. And if you need to populate a list of resolutions for 2024, there are some good ones here.
This article will explore ten habits to help you declutter your home and simplify your life through minimalism. From purging excess and going paperless to choosing experiences over material goods, these habits allow you to cut out the unnecessary and focus on living intentionally—a journey towards simplicity and fulfillment by starting to minimize life’s excess today.
I won’t go through them all in detail, but here is the first habit:
Habit 1: Regularly Purge The Unnecessary
Set aside monthly time to review your belongings and purge what you don’t use, need, or love. Be ruthless and honest with yourself. Get rid of clothes that don’t fit, books you’ll never read again, and knickknacks gathering dust. Donate usable items to charity, sell valuables, and properly recycle the rest. Regular purging keeps clutter from accumulating again.
Here’s the rest of the list:
Habit 2: Adopt A Capsule Wardrobe
Habit 3: Pause Before Making Purchases
Habit 4: Choose Experiences Over Things
Habit 5: Go Completely Paperless
Habit 6: Keep Horizontal Surfaces Clear
Habit 7: Follow The “One In, One Out” Rule
Habit 8: Prune Your Email Subscriptions
Habit 9: Use Hidden Storage
Read the article for details and inspiration on each habit.
(Did you catch that the intro said “This article will explore ten habits" but there were only nine habits? I guess decluttering top ten lists by removing one item was the secret tenth habit!)
Last minute flight
I have only slowly come around to using the QR code in the airline app on my phone as my boarding pass. I still don’t fully trust it. What if my battery dies? What if the app suddenly logs me out (as has happened) and I can’t remember my password to log back in?
Paper is real. So I still like to get a printed boarding pass when I check in at the desk or the automated kiosk. But the move toward — and beyond — electronic boarding passes seems inevitable. It’s more convenient (allegedly) and more efficient.
Still, aren’t losing something in exchange? A paper boarding pass is tactile, comforting, and can double as a keepsake of your trip. You can put it in a scrapbook, if that’s your thing.
In times past, boarding passes were even works of art.
So let’s take a look at what we’re giving up as we fly into the future, with this feature from CNN:
Final call for paper boarding passes?
A treasured memory from a flight that started a new life abroad. Tangible proof of how far someone has come from humble beginnings. A perfect book mark. A memento from travels with a loved one. A reminder of a flight turned around on September 11, 2001.
For many travelers, a paper boarding pass from an airline is a lot more than a set of directions to help you get to your airplane seat on time.
Emirates Airlines announced earlier this year that they are getting rid of physical boarding cards for some of their customers, prompting the question of whether other airlines will follow suit. Whether this is the beginning of the end of the physical boarding card is yet to be seen, but the mere idea of it made hundreds of CNN readers write to us to share why they save old boarding passes and the stories behind them.
See how the paper boarding pass has changed over the decades, and read why so many people have saved boarding passes for as long as 50 years.
It’s a visual article, with lots of examples of boarding passes of yore, so click through and have a look. Do you save old boarding passes? Will you miss them when they’re gone for good? Let me know in the comments!
Now boarding all seats, all rows! Photo by CardMapr.nl on Unsplash
Thank you for reading!
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