“The culture that feels the most dangerous, and, thus, exciting to young people, will be what you can’t see online. And the most dangerous thing for platforms is not racist garbage. It’s unmonetizeable content.” garbageday.email
slow
A Charlie Brown Christmas: Live at The Jazz Estate. (youtube.com, 58:20)
What podcasts do to our brains. “Silence activates the brain’s “default mode” — and that’s good. Quiet time makes space for self-reflection, planning, and daydreaming.” (vox.com)
Recipe for a good week An ingredient that works for me: take a bit of time to just stare out the window, drinking some coffee, checking in with the locals (birds, bunnies, and squirrels). (tracydurnell.com /via Chris Glass)
Radiant Computer. “We believe the current trajectory of personal computing is leading us to a less free world, and that only a new computing movement rooted in human dignity and creativity can change its course.” (radiant.computer)
The Resonant Computing Manifesto. “… rethinking the system architectures, design patterns, and business models that have undergirded the tech industry for decades.” (resonantcomputing.org)
The Argument for Letting AI Burn It All Down. “But maybe when the crash comes it’ll look like the dotcom crash: A Pets.com or two gets razed to the ground, but the new infrastructure remains, and we humans spend years—decades—weaving it into our systems. I was there for the dotcom crash. I could barely make rent, but it was delightful. I attended tech salons at people’s apartments. The price of admission was a six-pack. I switched to Linux and no one cared. I blogged day and night, as free as a bee. All I could do was read O’Reilly books, learn to code, and hang with friends. What a slice of heaven. And tech became less magical—more normal, more boring. Not driving culture, but reflecting it.” Emphasis mine. (wired.com)
We used to look forward to things. “I hope we will either begin to detach ourselves from instant tech or find ways to use tech more intentionally to deliver a more immersive experience. To give us back time… porous time. Time to spend with a piece of art. Time to listen deeply. Time to world build.” (blobzine.substack.com)
Secondhand Embarrassment. (robinsloan.com)
“What I love about pencils is the balance they strike: you can geek out on materials, production, or mark-making, and yet some of the best pencils being made will only run you a dollar or two. So you don’t have to sweat lending one out or losing one.”
“There seems to be a certain essence in us that we must allow to guide us through life. If we defy this compass, we can end up in places we don’t belong. But if we trust it, follow it, we might do something as grand as fulfilling our purpose.”
On Additive and Extractive Technologies, “an extractive technology seeks to extract value from you instead of providing it.” Avoid.
Seer, “the built environment itself is, for all intents and purposes, becoming a gigantic archive, at all scales, forensically recording every event that occurs within it, with few or no options for opting out.” Also, BLDGBLOG is still alive.
Google Fonts organized by vibe, even if fonts aren’t your thing, visit to see all the little cursors flying around the Figma canvas.
Alistair Smith’s personal site is pretty neat.
Watch: a summer without algorithms.
Sites I like: Artemis, a calm web reader.
Read: Get Your Kids A Landline
“In many ways the Light Phone III is a more mellow act of defiance, because it can pass as a regular smartphone, when in the hand. The camera lens peeks out in a recognizable way right above the palm, and the foreshortened size isn’t obvious at first. Whereas the Light Phone II was a clear if meek middle finger stuck up at smartphone addiction, the Light Phone III is more like the bird that you slowly crank up out of your fist—it takes a second to get it.”
“I often wonder about the costs of the “digital echo.” What is the psychological cost of knowing that your actions aren’t just your own, but create information that can be observed and analyzed by others? As more aspects of our lives generate digital echoes, they force an ambient awareness of being perpetually witnessed rather than simply existing.”
“Meanwhile, my little home-cooked apps each do the one thing they are supposed to do, sparkle-free. These apps are substantially finished the day I “launch” them, and, unlike modern commercial software, they are allowed to just: be finished.”
Watch: Little Joys (2 minutes)
Look: Living seasonally
The return of the Pebble watch
The new watch we’re building basically has the same specs and features as Pebble, though with some fun new stuff as well 😉 It runs open source PebbleOS, and it’s compatible with all Pebble apps and watchfaces. If you had a Pebble and loved it…this is the smartwatch for you.
Why We’re Bringing Pebble Back
I’m so in!
Solitude changes us
The individual preference for solitude, scaled up across society and exercised repeatedly over time, is rewiring America’s civic and psychic identity. And the consequences are far-reaching—for our happiness, our communities, our politics, and even our understanding of reality.
From The Anti-Social Century. Emphasis mine.
A secret attic workspace
From r/CozyPlaces.