The Soil, Not Just the Harvest - The right’s long, systematic campaign to take over politics and get a strong hand in culture wars: “Blaming Trump alone offers psychological comfort, by localizing a systemic problem in a single figurehead. It legitimizes the false promise that removing one man solves the underlying condition. It absolves millions of their responsibility while leaving intact the machinery that produced Trump - and will create future authoritarian leaders."
Why Skyscrapers Became Glass Boxes - by Brian Potter - ”Ultimately, it was economics (or at least perceived economics) that drove developers to embrace this style. Glass curtain wall buildings were cheaper to erect than their masonry predecessors, and they allowed developers to squeeze more rentable space from the same building footprint. Ornate, detailed exteriors were increasingly seen as something tenants didn’t particularly care about, making it harder to justify spending money on them. And once this style had taken hold, rational risk aversion encouraged developers and builders to keep using it.”
Measuring Productivity: All Models Are Wrong, But Some Are Useful - ”Measure Speed, Ease, and Quality Different facets of productivity warrant the use of different metrics. We typically think of productivity as a balance among speed, ease, and quality.”
I’m Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better - Try to avoid tools that require you to acquire new tools to use the first tools.
America Voted For Chaos. The Markets Are Feeling the Punch. - Dumb disruption: “Disruption can be a positive force. But over the last decade, it has become a hand-wave that forgives and excuses irresponsible governance, poor decision-making, and financial incompetence. The reason you can’t run the government like a startup is simple: 90% or more of startups fail. That’s a risk threshold that should be unacceptable to anyone serious about the responsibility of America’s stewardship. Productive disruption in the context of an economy or a nation is possible. But there is no evidence of anything productive in Donald Trump’s current approach to economics. Just more deliberate and collateral damage, more flagrant disregard for common sense, and more policies designed to shake things up while shaking the monetary baby to death."
The difficulty level of children - ”It also runs the other direction. If you have two kids, and one kid is away (with a grandparent), it feels like having zero kids.”
Four Marketing Principles That Redefine Markets from Klaviyo’s CMO - ‘“Creating fear never works, because in the immediate, you can probably prompt people to take action because they’re like, ‘Oh my! I must do something,’ but it leaves a negative perception in their mind.” “You don’t become a beloved brand over a period of time."'
Skype is dead. What happened? - Ode to Skype, and complaining about Microsoft having no imagination to evolve it. It’d be helpful to read a detailed analysis of how and why.
What we love is good for us, sometimes
What we love is good for usDavid Lynch on smoking:
"But that said, he admitted smoking played a huge part in his life. “I don’t regret it. It was important to me. I wish what every addict wishes for: that what we love is good for us.”
He went on: “A big important part of my life was smoking. I loved the smell of tobacco, the taste of tobacco. I loved lighting cigarettes.
Why did Hemingway like Cézanne so much?
Hemingway saw in Cézanne a kindred spirit—a man who stripped nature down to its essentials and reassembled it into something honest and uncompromised. Here are a few reasons for his admiration:
Structural Purity: Cézanne’s work revolves around reducing forms to their geometric fundamentals. His method of breaking objects down into simple shapes and planes resonated with Hemingway’s own drive for clarity and precision in language. Hemingway’s lean, unadorned prose sought a similar kind of structural integrity—a means to get at the truth beneath the surface.