The African Bricks 3. Mosaic artworks inspired by the culture and beauty of Africa, by Charis Tsevis.

The Cello in Soho Square. I like this description by Michael Lopp of the difference between “dabblers” and “S-tier” people (who are the absolute best at something): “There is an infinite list of exciting things to learn, but the Dabbler knows they have finite time, so they dabble. They get 80% of the juice, and they move on. Respect. S-Tier knows the last 10% of the challenge is the hardest, but it also teaches you the most.”

Physicists Say Aliens May Be Using Black Holes as Quantum Computers. This is fine. “In a recent study, a German-Georgian team of researchers proposed that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) could use black holes as quantum computers. This makes sense from a computing standpoint and offers an explanation for the apparent lack of activity we see when we look at the cosmos.”

Honestly, it’s probably the phones. Don’t dismiss this argument just from the headline, like I almost did. There’s some solid evidence presented here. “If we’re looking for one big ‘silver bullet’ or ‘grand unified theory’ of modern teenage unhappiness, phones are probably the place to start looking.”

Papercraft Models by Rocky Bergen. “Construct the computer from your childhood or build an entire computer museum at home with these paper models, free to download and share. Print, Cut, Score, Fold and Glue.”

In an Uncertain Job Market, How Can Companies Retain Workers? The conventional wisdom that people tend to hunker down when there are layoffs around them might not be accurate: “Layoffs ‘create an environment where people worry it might happen to them next,’ said Laszlo Bock, who was Google’s SVP for people operations. Poorly handled reductions may ‘degrade trust in management as people start hearing rumors of further cuts, and that in turn raises anxiety, which causes more people to quit.’” (NYT gift article)

How the Phonograph Created the 3-Minute Pop Song. I can’t resist a good “technologies people thought would ruin everything” article, and this is another fascinating one: “Plenty of folks worried that records would destroy musical culture. John Philip figured it would demotivate anyone from learning to play an instrument themselves. Why bother, when you could just put on music by a true virtuoso? ‘When music can be heard in the homes without the labor of study,’ he fretted in a 1906 article, ‘it will be simply a question of time when the amateur disappears entirely.’”

The Case for Hanging Out. I love this essay. “Pushed further into isolation by the pandemic, we’re all losing the ability to engage in what I view as the pinnacle of human interaction: sitting around with friends and talking shit.”

Explore. I think it’s probably too late for a viable LinkedIn alternative, but this site would be a great contendor.

In Meaningful metrics: How data sharpened the focus of product teams Erin Gustafson goes into detail on how Duolingo grew their Daily Active Users (DAUs) by 4x since 2019. It all starts with the growth model they built:

The Growth Model is a series of metrics we developed to jump-start our growth strategy with data. It is a Markov Model that breaks down topline metrics (like DAU) into smaller user segments that are still meaningful to our business. To do this, we classify all Duolingo learners (past or present) into an activity state each day, and monitor rates of transition between states.

Once they were confident in the model they did a bunch of simulations to build a hypothesis of where they should focus on for the most growth:

With the Growth Model in place and trained on historical data, we began to run growth simulations. The goal of these simulations was to identify new metrics that—when optimized—were likely to increase DAU. We did this by systematically pulling each lever in the model to see what the downstream impact on DAU would be.

Click through to see a visualization of the model, and where they are planning to take this work next. The article also pairs well with Jorge Mazal’s How Duolingo reignited user growth.

Open Circuits is “a photographic exploration of the beautiful design inside everyday electronics. Its stunning cross-section photography unlocks a hidden world full of elegance, subtle complexity, and wonder.”

Good conversations have lots of doorknobs. This is a fascinating essay about the elements of good conversation and the difference between “takers” who keep things going, “givers” who tend to ask a lot of questions, and how the wrong match-up can cause a conversation to stall. Includes good advice backed up by tons of academic research. This is one to save and revisit often.

Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers? Some of the examples are wild. “When these cases are settled in favor of the plaintiff, more songwriting credits are added after a song’s release. This is why the number of songwriters listed on Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” has increased over the years. To avoid a Mark-Ronson-style-courtroom-induced headache, artists will sometimes preemptively credit writers of older songs even if the similarity between the older song and their composition is purely coincidental.”

A “Last of Us” Episode 7 musical mystery (light spoilers). I just want to say don’t worry The Last of Us fans, I’m thinking about the important things over here.

The choice is easy. Robin Sloan with a good reminder: “Anyone who adds one of those email newsletter pop-ups to a website demeans them selves and makes the world worse for everyone else.” Reminder that if you are an author using Substack you can turn off “Subscribe prompts on post pages” in Settings.

Quick Review Summary. Ok this seems like an actually good use of OpenAI. Instead of poring over hundreds of reviews of a hotel, copy the Tripadvisor URL of the hotel into this website and it will generate a summary of the general sentiment of the hotel.

Neurodiversity Design System. Great resource. “The NDS is a coherent set of standards and principles that combine neurodiversity and user experience design for Learning Management Systems. Design accessible learning interfaces supporting success and achievement for everyone.”

SoundPrint is an app to “discover quiet places and share them with others.” This looks really useful, especially if you’re a fellow tinnitus sufferer.

I’m sure every generation writes lots of articles like Freddie deBoer’s It’s So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive. But hear me out. This is the impassioned, forceful, yet balanced Gen X take I wish I had the skill and wherewithal to write. It is a balm to the nostalgic soul in a way that somehow doesn’t feel like cringey old-person fanfic.

Here he is on the experience of visiting a record store:

When you were there you were Doing Music. Now we’re never doing anything—we’re always getting through something to get to something else to get through, using various time-saving techniques that maximize the amount of time we have to get through things while keeping our attention divided into a thousand things we then get through. When you went to a record store you were intent on music, and sometimes, you’d care enough about a particular artist that you paid for their album, real money, so that the artist got a cut that was more than the .002 cents they get per stream now.

This reminds me of the question Alan Jacobs asks: What exactly are we’re rushing towards with all our 2x listening and cliff notes skim-reading?

My question about all this is: And then? You rush through the writing, the researching, the watching, the listening, you’re done with it, you get it behind you—and what is in front of you? Well, death, for one thing. For the main thing. 

But in the more immediate future: you’re zipping through all these experiences in order to do what, exactly? Listen to another song at double-speed? Produce a bullet-point outline of another post that AI can finish for you?

Maybe the 90s have a thing or two to teach us yet.

Randy Silver in The Myth of Velocity:

When we measure how quickly teams ship stories & code, we’re measuring speed—how quickly they move. It’s only when we measure the effect it has on the target metric—the value that we’re after—that we’re actually looking at velocity.

It doesn’t matter how much you ship if the end result doesn’t deliver value to your customers and your company. If you’re measuring story points, you’ve fallen into the trap of measuring outputs, not outcomes. When we talk about slowing down to speed up, this is the point: the only thing that matters in this equation is how quickly we can deliver actual value. Everything else is theater.

In You can’t stand under my umbrella the Raw Signal team makes the case for when it’s not appropriate for managers to be “sh*t umbrellas” for their teams:

When things are steady, and people know the right things to work on, teams are constrained by velocity. We know the course we’re racing, the question is just how fast we can go. In that context, it makes sense for a manager to clear every obstacle out of our way. But during times of significant change, teams are constrained by agility. It’s not that velocity doesn’t matter, it still does. But when everything has changed about the race, we need the ability to steer. A manager who tries to preserve velocity at all costs risks running us into a wall.

They go on to talk about how to Accept, Adapt, and Act in such moments of significant change.