Fourth page of the archive

Steve Bryant was interviewed at WITI and said a few things about newsletters which I liked quite a bit, quote below. (And yes, he did mention Sentiers in his recommendations 😉.)

I read widely and indiscriminately and with no plan whatsoever. This is my way and I enjoy it. Many highly impressive, get-shit-done’rs I’ve encountered have IFTTT-powered, Rube Goldbergian systems for tagging and routing content to various digital hobbit holes. I do not. But in defense of my shrug emoji-like way, it’s called a browser, not a supply chain manager. These days I read a healthy amount of newsletters. People who love newsletters love them for their voice and relative intimacy, being in the inbox and all. I love them for that, and also because they enforce a kind of supply scarcity. They come one a time. They’re not in a feed. There are few social signals about their popularity. And y’know, you can always reply and have a conversation that nobody else can see. Which is the way the world used to be, but we forget that.

Why is this interesting? - The Monday Media Diet with Steve Bryant

Would love to visit a library like this and try that system.

The Sitterwerk library in St.Gallen follows a serendipity principle. Every book has an RFID chip, so you can place books everywhere on the shelves - the electronic catalogue will update the location of the book accordingly. The visitors are encouraged to build their own collection, placing books that they used for their research together, thus enabling the next reader to find something relevant by chance, something they didn’t know they were looking for. The Sitterwerk also has a Werkbank (literally work bench). There you can save the state of your research digitally. The bench reads RFID tags in the books and place the book covers on the digital representation of the table. A camera and a note taking function allow the user to add specific pages and notes to the collection. The resulting collection can then be printed and taken home or added back to the library.

https://rybakov.com/blog/open_tabs_are_cognitive_spaces/

In a newsletter writers’ group yesterday we were discussing tracking pixels, which some people have an issue with regarding privacy, vs the open and click rate you get from the same pixels, allowing writers to know how many people are opening each email and clicking through to something. At the same time I was going through my RSS reader which reminded me of the early days of blogging, when we barely had any stats or we did and “no-one” was reading, yet we still wrote for ourselves. Same kind of thinking in this by Austin Kleon which I read this morning… in his newsletter.

“Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment,” he said. “It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.” It is my 37th birthday today, and what I really crave, more than anything, is a continuity to my days. Not an accumulation, the sense that they’re adding up to anything, not necessarily, just a continuity. The sense that one day leads into another leads into another leads into another on and on and on. That they make some kind of chain.

Doing the work that’s in front of you

Quite liked this piece, not necessarily because of anything specifically new to me but because it regroups a number of things together in one read, concerning shorter days and weeks. Focus capacity, length of days, number of days, mental mode, walking, etc.

It doesn’t matter how long you spend in the office, chances are you aren’t working productively for 8 hours a day. Instead, data and surveys from around the world have found that modern workers are only truly productive for a maximum of 2 hours and 50 minutes a day.  But what about the other 5+ hours? They’re spent on non-work activities like reading the news or social media, socializing with coworkers, taking breaks, or lost to multitasking, context switching, and endless meetings.

https://blog.rescuetime.com/new-normal-workday/

There’s no productivity gain from working more than 40 hours, the opposite actually. You can only focus for short periods of time:

“The idea that you can indefinitely stretch out your deep focus and productivity time to these arbitrary limits is really wrong. It’s self-defeating.”

Instead, research shows that attention spans being to decay significantly after 20 minutes while most people require a break every 50-90 minutes.

https://blog.rescuetime.com/new-normal-workday/

Even better, working shorter hours–whether it’s a four-day workweek or shorter days–has been shown to increase productivity, inspire creative ideas, and keep teams happier and healthier.

https://blog.rescuetime.com/new-normal-workday/

It then dives into how to use a specific product, RescueTime, to achieve shorter days and a shorter week but here are still good ideas for people using any kind of system. Two main points for me: rewire your brain for focus, and reconsider your priorities.

Singletasking and focusing for long periods of time are superpowers. In fact, some researchers say that a highly focused hour is up to 500% more productive than one where you bounce between tasks, emails, and calls. Your new normal schedule should be built around optimizing for focus at all costs. This will take some work. But to rebuild your focus you need to do two things.

https://blog.rescuetime.com/new-normal-workday/

L’ami Karl est de retour. En santé (fiou!), en écrit, et en sagesse.

Il est important de ne pas oublier que l’espace des blogs est bien vivant. Le monde autour s’est étendu, mais quiconque peut toujours publier à l’envie à destination de milliers ou bien d’une personne, si ce n’est que soi-même. C’est important, cette distinction. Nous ne devons pas abandonner, ni se soumettre au discours de la disparition ou de la défaite. L’objectif du blog n’a jamais été de conquérir le monde, mais bien de donner un espace d’expression à ceux qui le désiraient. Cet espace est réel. Il existe et est accessible.

Source: de la lecture à l’écriture - Carnets Web de La Grange

Good plan.

So now it’s proven that capitalism didn’t work under pressure. We got saved by governments funded by collective taxes. We see the capitalists asking for bailouts so they can fail again later. Time for system change. Instead of bailing out banks, we should get a citizen salary. Cheaper, more fair and will make the people have money enough to afford supporting local business’ that will NOT get a bailout anyhow. Now that gas prices are low, it’s time to stop subsidising that. Raise taxes on fossil fuels. Now that noone is flying, it’s a perfect time to subsidise trains and other climate friendly travel. Remove all subsidies for air travel. Now that people are using the Internet to work, let’s make the Internet a human right. Let’s ban data caps, surveillance of our communication (people will understand more than ever their need for privacy in a crisis like this). Now that hospitals are given a real budget and new public management isn’t involved, it’s time to keep it that way. Universal health care, and let’s get rid of privatised health facilities. We need a community to be equal. This virus could be the boost that we need to actually achieve that much needed system change. Let’s use the opportunity!

— Thread by Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi.

I haven’t been paying as much attention to coworking in recent year but had to post this because it’s so different from other spaces. It’s actually multiple spaces, sixty circular rooms separated by paths and greenery. Obviously, not something that would work in any climate but looks fantastic!

The surrounding greenery not only creates a calm environment but also creates a more biodiverse landscape from developing the land. The offices’ glass facades and open-plan interior create a sense of openness within the offices while the plants offer shade and some privacy between them.

Source: Co-Working in an Urban Forest — Pop-Up City

Mr Higgins, who was opening a celebration of Trinity College Dublin’s College Historical Debating Society, said “universities are not there merely to produce students who are useful”. “They are there to produce citizens who are respectful of the rights of others to participate and also to be able to participate fully, drawing on a wide range of scholarship,” he said on Monday night. The President said there is a growing cohort of people who are alienated and “who feel they have lost their attachment to society and decision making”.

Source: Universities do not exist ‘to produce students who are useful’, President says   — Via Doug’s Friday Filchings.

I’ve got to find a way to do one of those fellowships! … And/or perhaps find partners to run something like this somewhere?

I’ve really turned into a huge fan of the fellowship model, and not just because I’ve had the privilege and frankly luck to benefit so directly from it: Fellowships are a powerful model that allow to also bring in independents like me; it might be one of the few ways to do that short of hiring/contracting. And the idea of independent research — think of it as free range research, largely self-directed and not tied to specific outputs — allows for really interesting, valuable outcomes.

Source: S06E18 of Connection Problem: 10% into the 21st century

I’d never heard of this, will have to try and find it somewhere!

The movie came out in 1968, but Kirby’s adaptation had to wait until 1976. We can regard that gap as a kind of marker for Kirby’s strong desire to adapt the story even though there may have been little commercial interest in it. Kirby first adapted the movie as a standalone book of 70 pages, and then proceeded to recapitulate the movie’s plot and themes over and over again across 10 issues—except this time with scary aliens with tentacles that have nothing to do with Kubrick’s movie. The resolution of that 10-issue run is a character who is actually oddly resonant with our own times, a human-A.I. hybrid called Machine Man, whose own comic book line, which picked up where 2001: A Space Odyssey left off, lasted for a few months. The character would be fitfully resurrected every ten years or so (1984, 1999).

Source: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ by Jack Kirby | Dangerous Minds