I have a deep love of snacks and sweets. Every day I try to either make a matcha set at home or go out in the world to find one.
Unfortunately, the blog Tea, Sweets and Trails hasn’t been updated for quite a while now. Luckily there are quite a few articles –published between November 2020 and July 2022– to go through.
If this feels obvious to you, that’s because you too are in the business of the good life. As architects of desire, the advertising industry shapes our cultural understanding of a life worth wanting. Every time we step on a bus or open a social media app, the invisible hand of our industry is there to build demand for new products and services that might make life better. And with up to 10,000 ads floating into our consciousness every day, how can we resist?
This: Advertising folk, it’s time to rethink what we’re selling
thedrum.com/opinion/2023/02/21/advertising-folk-it-s-time-rethink-what-we-re-selling
Tom reminds us: “The ancient Greek word for ‘leisure’ or ‘free time’ was ‘skole’ which turned into the Latin word for school.”
Austin Kleon (the author of Steal Like An Artist) shared the “Manifesto for Slow Learning” and the free book Slow Learning about “A path to a meaningful and mindful future of learning” which a team of 15 authors, artists, and teachers came up with. Recommended read!
The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other. Entire industries will reorient around it. Businesses will distinguish themselves by how well they use it.
Quite a long essay by Bill Gates, but well worth the read: The Age of AI has begun.
Now, a new study, published Thursday by the American Psychological Association, validates what some parents have experienced when their teenagers cut back: They seem to feel better about themselves.
Not really new knowledge, but some scientific validation that social media isn’t great for teenagers. Following a recent study by the American Psychological Association, NPR points out How to help young people limit screen time — and feel better about how they look.
www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/02/26/1159099629/teens-social-media-body-image
© KubrickIsAGod (via YouTube)
I love it, I love it very much, but I love it against my better judgment.
Apparently, Werner Herzog has been working on his high reputation as an intense and chilling voice actor from quite a young age. Or as one of the YouTube commentators puts it: “He must be such a joy at parties”.
The web is becoming a miserable experience because some salesbro who is trying to meet his KPIs is doing stuff to marginally increase the number of paying customers. (And you know, the hell with the rest of us!) The more each site tries to create its own little walled garden, the less valuable the open web becomes.
I’m with Elizabeth Lopatto from The Verge on this one: I don’t want to log in to your website!
theverge.com/2023/2/28/23618804/google-facebook-login-ads-web-design-hell
We live in undeniably ugly times. Architecture, industrial design, cinematography, probiotic soda branding — many of the defining features of the visual field aren’t sending their best. Despite more advanced manufacturing and design technologies than have existed in human history, our built environment tends overwhelmingly toward the insubstantial, the flat, and the gray, punctuated here and there by the occasional childish squiggle.
Following the recently shared article on “why your stuff is actually worse now”, this article explores why we live in a “slightly duller, worse world” aesthetically. Why is everything so ugly?
nplusonemag.com/issue-44/the-intellectual-situation/why-is-everything-so-ugly/
36. Kindness is vastly underrated. Everyone can be kind – it requires no special skill or training, yet has an immediate, positive impact. It is perhaps the ultimate life hack.
Chris Guillebeau shares this wonderful little gem and other ‘life hacks’ in his 36 Ways to Live Differently shared on his personal blog:
Proponents of this new science believe that experiencing awe may be an essential pathway to physical and mental well-being. By taking us out of ourselves and expanding our sense of time, it counteracts the self-focus and narcissism that is the root of so much modern disenchantment. To experience awe, to fully open ourselves up to it, helps us to live happier, healthier lives.
A rather extensive article by Henry Wismayer, but well worth the read: Finding Awe Amid Everyday Splendor. Really enjoying the articles Noema Magazine puts out lately.
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
Cory Doctorow about Tiktok’s enshittification and how (social media) platforms die. I really do like the sentiment the subline of this blog conveys, too: “No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don’t collect or retain any data at all ever period.”
When a person aspires to be a brand, they forfeit everything that is truly glorious about being human. Building any brand requires consensus. When we position ourselves as a brand, we are forced to project an image of what we believe most people will approve of and admire and buy into. The moment we cater our creativity to popular opinion is the precise moment we lose our freedom and autonomy.
Designer and brand consultant Debbie Millman about The personal brand paradox and how social media (with its followers, likes and click-throughs) is pushing the long-lasting concept of the ‘personal brand’ at the present time.
wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/personal-brand-paradox-debbie-millman
They found that when people made a very subtle shift moving from ‘What should I do?’ to ‘What could I do?’ they generated many more solutions and better solutions.
This is how to solve problems more effectively with one simple change by Daniel H. Pink.