The unknown is uncomfortable, but exploring the unknown is fundamental to the human experience. We invent lenses that allow us to perceive incredibly small things, and develop other lenses that allow us to look out at the macro vastness of…
Many of us, at some point in our lives, have reason to pause, take stock, and ask ourselves why we’re doing what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it the way we doing it. This can lead to sudden pivots,…
Human beings are drawn to the unusual and sensational. It’s baked into how we process the world: something that seems to have changed, and which is new and dramatic in some way, will almost always capture our attention and concern…
The word “ritual” is derived from the word “rite,” which refers to a religious ceremony of some kind. Which makes sense, if you consider that a ritual is typically a somewhat dogmatic undertaking: it’s the precise, step-by-step process of making…
Within the world of software development, the term “specification gaming” refers to a behavior that literally fulfills the requirements of a task without achieving the underlying intended purpose. In practice, this might mean that a piece of software is told…
What’s obvious to me isn’t necessarily obvious to you, and the same is true in reverse. After four years of design school and over a decade working as a design professional, the kerning of typography—especially very bad kerning—stands out to me…
I’ve been trying to maintain a focal balance between what’s going on today, right now, in this moment, and what’ll happen next: where I’d like to be, what I’d prefer to be doing, where I’ll go and what that will…
I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a traveler during a period in which travel is not just ill-advised, but also less possible. To be clear: travel is a very bad idea during a pandemic if you can…
There’s an organization called The Long Now Foundation that focuses on planting seeds for long-term thinking. Their most well-known project is the 10,000 Year Clock, which is a mechanical clock conceived back in 1986, a full-scale version of which is being…
One of the most disconcerting aspects of living through a pandemic is the assortment of unknowns we face on a daily basis. How many infected? How many dead? Transmission rate? Spikes, plateaus, curves? How many actually infected and killed by this disease,…