Topic
newsletter
- Two roads to longevity
The latest issue of Res Extensa draws parallels between the story of Ford and Rolls-Royce and Stewart Brand's framework of Low Road and High Road design, from How Buildings Learn. We have polar opposite philosophies o…
- Where You Work Shapes How You Work
Our levels of productivity, creativity, and inspiration have an intimate, hard-to-articulate connection to our environments. And we all have different predilections — quiet vs. noisy, calm vs. bustling, light vs. dark…
- Natures Barbell Strategy
Evolution has generated two opposed modes for organisms to find fitness: r-selection is about speed: rapid reproduction, fast growth, many offspring K-selection is about carrying capacity: slow development, robust fit…
- Gratitude And Resilience
Gratitude is how we maintain the fragile, critical systems of relationships that come to our rescue when things go bad. Strong institutions get that way through the effortful work of the grateful to nurture them on.
- Gratitude and Resilience
My latest post at Res Extensa, on the importance of gratitude and resilience for building the systems and networks we rely on in times of crisis.
- The Wisdom Of Restraint
Riffing on one of my favorite quotes, from Calvin Coolidge:
- Escape The Algorithm
Wrote this week about the problems with feeds, algorithmic discovery, and passively letting the machines define your taste. We all need a return to active participation in what we consume.
- Escape the Algorithm
In this latest issue of Res Extensa, I wrote about the need to escape from the passive consumption trap. We wake up, pick up the phone, and wait for algorithms to tell us what to read, watch, and listen to. Our attent…
- The CUA Factor
From the latest issue of Res Extensa: thoughts on Andy Grove's idea of "modes of control", from High Output Management: Thinking about this in the context of my own work, I can map past hardships and bad business deci…
- Monthly Links May 2024
Last month’s interesting finds.
- Book Notes How Buildings Learn
My latest post is a deep dive on Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn. If you can’t tell from the length, this book is full of gold, and one of my favorites in a long time:
- Tools The Technium And The Importance Of Agency
On Kevin Kelly’s “Technium” and why human innovation is different than the biological variety.
- The Exploration Instinct
Latest Res Extensa , on our natural genetic wiring to explore, and its biological benefits of asymmetric bets:
- Comfort with Contradiction
From my latest issue of Res Extensa: One of the most important things we can teach our children as they're coming of age is to cultivate a comfort with contradiction. Sometimes good things come at the expense of other…
- Monthly Links March 2024
My most interesting links from March.
- Scenes Pattern Languages And Nested Systems
My latest essay. Comparing the notion of “pattern languages” across domains, like writing and architecture:
- Simplicity On The Other Side Of Complexity
My latest post on Res Extensa:
- The Other Side of Complexity
The latest issue of Res Extensa, on the path from "simplistic" to "simple" understanding, over the hill of complexity: Superficial simplicity is our first impression, a naïve jump to conclusion. Simplicity on the othe…