May 2017

Jonathon Keats on Google Glass design

It’s not often one of [my design heroes](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=4150) comments on something I worked on, so [Jonathon Keats’ comments on how to redesign Google Glass](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2015/08/14/this-insider-look-at-google-glass-shows-how-google-should-and-should-not-design-glass-2-0/#316843461386) were interesting to read. > To navigate this uncanny valley in time, the designer must either create something so futuristic in appearance that it arrives from beyond our collective vision of…more

When privilege kills

What’s behind the increased rate of deaths from suicide, drug abuse, and heart disease for middle-aged white Americans? According to Nobel Prize winning economists Case and Deaton, it might be that [they’re just not able to fulfill their own expectations](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/24/the-disease-killing-white-americans-goes-way-deeper-than-opioids/): > Most of the increase in white deaths is concentrated among those who never finished…more

We already think about the future a lot

Contradicting [Jane McGonigal](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=5585), Martin Seligman says that [we already spend plenty of time thinking about the future](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/opinion/sunday/why-the-future-is-always-on-your-mind.html?_r=0): > We learn not by storing static records but by continually retouching memories and imagining future possibilities. Our brain sees the world not by processing every pixel in a scene but by focusing on the unexpected… > Even…more

Think, wait, fast

> “What is it now what you’ve got to give? What is it that you’ve learned, what you’re able to do?” > “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.” > “That’s everything?” > “I believe, that’s everything!” – Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Trusting the artist

Ahmet Ertegun – arguably for a long time the greatest record executive of them all – told me that unless you’re 100% sure the artist is wrong, go with their vision. – Jason Flom True for designers as well, in my experience.

How to run the fastest marathon ever

[Some fascinating techniques](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/may/06/eliud-kipchoge-misses-out-on-sub-two-hour-marathon-by-2-seconds): > At the start the three athletes were immediately joined by six pacers, who adopted an arrowhead formation behind a Tesla electric car with a giant clock timer on it. Wind tunnel studies show that this formation would help them as it saves energy… > Kipchoge was also using a new carbohydrate-rich…more

Why Elon Musk is working on brain interfaces

Because any other way of evolving humans isn’t fast enough: > Genetics is just too slow, that’s the problem. For a human to become an adult takes twenty years. We just don’t have that amount of time. – [Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future – Wait But Why](http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html)

Design Sprint Kit

Great set of resources for running a sprint: Design Sprint Kit. This is the highly, highly distilled and refined version of what designers at Google (especially [Knapp, Kowitz, and Zeratsky](http://www.thesprintbook.com)) have been developing for years.

What computers can teach us about the world

By thinking differently than humans do: > Our machines now are letting us see that even if the rules the universe plays by are not all that much more complicated than Go’s, the interplay of everything all at once makes the place more contingent than Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, or even some Chaos theorists thought. It…more