I'm a huge fan of Positive Psychology and have read dozens of books (by Ph.D researchers of the subject).
My favorite academic summary is The Good Life: Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-Being by Michael A. Bishop. As a hyper-short summary: psychologists studying well being have used different definitions and approaches, yet what unifies them is positive feedback loops - behaviors and activities that beget more positive affect in the future. Think spending time with good friends, etc.
A classic read is Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. It shows how humans are systematically bad at predicting to what extent future events will make them happier or sad. His TED talk is a nice 20 minute summary of the book.
Whoever posts this monthly, please include the tag in your description. Employers need to know this is an in-demand feature we want. I for one will not be taking any non-4DWW jobs.
Super relevant: Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked? by Douglas Husak
One of my favorite philosophy papers. The author argues that because of the high crash incompatibility of SUVs, they are immoral - imposing needless harm on others. It's also ironic that on average, there is no net safety benefit to those who drive them -- because of higher rollover risks!
I have gone full "pocket forest" / Miyawaki Forest - planted 100 trees in my tiny back yard.
Technique developed by the Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki: planting seedlings close together makes them compete for sunlight, thus growing tall quickly. Get a forest in under a decade!
I heard in Germany when a vehicle is being inspected (yearly?) the headlights' angles are checked to not be beaming into oncoming traffic. Feels like useful regulation to include in every country.
For piano, look at Pianoteq - 50MB of math code that simulates $100k+ pianos, letting you adjust and fine-tune numerous parameters (lid position, microphone placement, etc), no sound-banks used! https://www.modartt.com/
I've wanted to code a VR game for juggling but never found time for it.
Feels like it would be super-easy-to-code and probably would be lucrative. Implement "slow down time" so people can practice juggling in slow motion, add some other features like catch radius and bias towards consistent height of throws and you've got a great game!
My 8-year-old video browser software Video Hub App - shows thumbnails from video as you hover with your mouse. Working on adding minor improvements before I finally get to the (optional) facial recognition "search by face similarity" feature.
Creator of Video Hub App https://videohubapp.com
Previously: Engineer & Data Scientist @ Forbes.