Platforms for Public Good w/ Mathew Lawrence & Thomas Hanna

[Instead of having ride data siloed inside Uber or Lyft, let it be part of a commons so that local governments can use the data to aid city planning.]

Why the Canadian Tech Scene Doesn't Work

[James P Carse defines finite games as played to win and infinite games as played to enjoy.]

[Accepting free money from the government often means you are reducing scope to what is definable, provable, measurable—this is not conducive to a creative, curious, exploratory environment for generating profound change.]

Building an Open-Source Publishing Platform That Makes $63,000/mo

[You will always get more of what you already have.]

[The best way to grow your newsletter/podcast/blog is to get featured on one by someone else.]

Live like a hydra

[Inviting disorder and embracing chaos can be more antifragile than being frustrated at the unexpected.]

[When you are feeling burned out, focus on recovering instead of being productive: basics like sleep, water, sunshine, vegetables, exercise, stretching, meditation, nature, comfort of friends, walks, good books, other entertainment.]

The Startup Guide to Hiring a Remote Customer Support Rep

[Ask about the current job to see if their reason for leaving makes your company a good fit for them.]

[Ask about what projects they're working on to see if they have the relevant work experience.]

[Side projects can indicate an ability to balance work and other things, avoid burning out.]

[Ask about their preferred work schedule to get the ball rolling about your company's rhythm.]

It Is Never a User’s Fault

[Respond to innovation and uncertainty by focussing on tradeoffs you are (or are not) willing to make, as opposed to concrete goals.]

[Autonomy is about being able to act in the moment with an understanding of resources and constraints, not to do whatever you want.]

The questions and answers reveal what was not asked.

The case for rereading

[Rereading keeps certain ideas nearby so that you can think with them, perhaps moreso than the fleeting ones that you cross on social media.]

[Fiction doesn't take you away, it helps you to see more clearly.]

Every mistake I make now is one I don't have to make later.

Clear expression in music, without overcompensation or moving faster than your thought, is an extension of clear expression in speech and perhaps every other way.

Aliens, insects, and an operating system that works like our minds

[Insects are completely involved in their experience of being alive.]

[It's ironic that we destroy our planet to create rockets that enable us to search for non-human life in space when there is more non-human life here on earth than we have imagined to be anywhere in space.]

[People going around telling each other about bad news, terrifying futures, incredible problems doesn't solve the problem and is debilitating those who are subjected to it. It's just 'sharing the damage'.]

[The vetting sentinel analyzes every media item and exposes agendas, biases, stakeholders.]

[Gamification of social activism.]

[In the way that Cain kills Abel and exiles him to an underworld, in our childhood we are subdued by a dominating linguistic authority that re-defines our notions of what it means to live and exist.]

Let's talk about a foreign policy joke....

[The US government funds gender studies in Pakistan to impede the formation military opposition there. It does not in Saudi Arabia because they are allies and don't want to compromise the power structure of their friends. It's not about women.]

Seeing Whole Systems

[It's hard to effect change without visualizing the whole system. Use tools that help seeing and playing with the dynamics.]

[The three types of feedback loops are re-inforcing, balancing, and chaos. We can effect change in complex systems by creating feedback loops that bring our state to the desired ideal.]

[Create attractors (deepen valleys) that stabilize to positive outcomes. Shorten mountains to make negative outcomes easier to avoid.]

[A block of text creates a certain texture based on the thickness and evenness of letter stroke, the serifs.]

[A font's point size is based on the difference between the tallest ascender (like the tip of a 'b') and the lowest descender (like the tail of a 'p').]

[Body copy tends to look better with a leading / line-height of 120% to 140% of a type's size (1.2em to 1.4em).]

[Similar character widths make for better pairings.]

[Typefaces are built for specific mediums such as print or screen.]

[If you seperate paragraphs with space, a full line break is usually too much, better to have 0.8em.]

[Within Serif fonts: Old style, like Garamond, has a tilted axis, round serifs, modulated strokes; Traditional, like Baskerville, has an upright axis, sharp serifs, heavily modulated strokes, geometrical shapes; Modern, like Bodoni, has an upright axis, thin serifs, extremely modulated strokes, geometric counters; Slab-serif, like Museo Slab, has an upright axis, even thick modulation that matches the size of serifs.]

[Short cones are absent from the fovea, which is the center of our focus and where we can best see detail.]

[Researchers found that exposure to red overloads the brain's rationalizing capacity without you realizing. Participants displayed hesitation and earned lower IQ test scores, but rates their performance the same as the control.]

[Shopping in a Target store involves being assaulted with red in every direction, and there is a joke that you cannot leave without spending $100.]

[When surveying color usage and significance in a particular culture, research the flag, religions, weddings and funerals, holidays, sports.]

[Pointillism exploits our perception of two different colored dots placed next to one another to create the effect of a different overall color.]

[Warm hues and tints pop and appear to be closer. Cool hues and shades recede and appear to be farther away.]

[Tinted purple on black pops in a more jarring way than on blue because there is a relationship between the colors in the former pair.]

[Monochromatic schemes use a single base color with various tints and shades, and tend to be quiet.]

[Analogous schemes use adjacent or alternating adjacent hues, and tend to be harmonious and quiet.]

[Complementary schemes use opposing hues on the wheel and can be more exciting.]

[Split complementary schemes divide one opposing hue into its two adjacent colors, and can be less jarring or more harmonious than complementary schemes.]

[Triadic schemes use three evenly spaced hues.]