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Southwest is all of us...

Southwest’s recent problems have been well-documented by various experts, but it’s important to recognize that these issues are not unique to Southwest. In fact, they are problems that many of us are facing in our own lives.

There are two main factors that led to Southwest’s problems: over-optimization due to deregulation and computer software issues due to cost-cutting measures. These issues are not just limited to Southwest, but are prevalent in our culture and society as a whole. Our jobs, hobbies, and relationships have become so optimized and dis-intermediated that we often don’t have time to enjoy them or when we would like to, getting back to it requires a lot of complex setup. This can lead to a feeling of anxiety and a sense that we have too many dependencies that are not being properly managed.

One example of this is the issue of computer software. Many of us have multiple accounts, such as retirement accounts or streaming services or passwords or messaging services, and it can be overwhelming to try to manage them all. Even simple tasks like organizing personal notes or planning a vacation can require a lot of digital intermediation, which can be frustrating across multiple systems, with me as the point of contact for all problems.

Like Southwest, we may have accumulated layers of complexity that feel overwhelming. Even chatting with friends, I have multiple channels we use, and multiple places we store information, and it’s hard to maintain the continuity of thought with this fragmentation.

I’m not the only one experiencing this stuff:

https://thejaymo.tumblr.com/post/705161027193536512 on how migrating information between systems is stupid and causes heartache

https://pudding.cool/2022/12/yard-sale/ on how our economics disadvantage the poor and advantage the wealthy

https://feld.com/archives/2023/01/same-as-it-ever-was/ on how Southwest is just Kmart, faster. Twitter is also Kmart, faster.

I wonder if this is the new normal, seeing companies melt down in months and weeks? Should this be the situation we are prepared for as employees? As travelers? As healthcare patients? It seems, uh, yes? Really? It seems so.

Take Southwest. Despite being aware and informed beforehand, regulators did not take action to save Southwest’s TRAVELERS from SOUTHWESTS current problems. When the government is so stoked about economics that it allows tragedies to happen, yikes. Where companies that make mistakes can suffer the consequences… honestly, that’s good – they should and that is PART of capitalism. HOWEVER, the government’s responsibility is to keep people safe, and omg is it terrible at that.

My feeling is that our deep sense of dis-ease, and the discomfort is knowing that everyone around us feels like this, and there is no reset in sight. In the past there were jubilees where debt would be reset, but my passwords are very important and I’m not sure how to have a password Jubilee. Or a jubilee on my streaming services, or any of the other things out there.

With more transparency and information we can start to understand our limited situations and realize that there are options for change, but how do we even push for change when we are all, personally and professionally, overextended?

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Evil (f)or good

We always think about things like botnets or malware or as bad, but they are just tools that can, with the right mindset, be used for social good.

It's just that our current setup is an extractive social construct: debt, which incentivizes zero sum, fear-based thinking. That's why the tools bad actors are using are typically used to extract value: these are bad actors thinking about themselves. That is what is incentivized.

Fortunately, all social dynamics exists on a spectrum / line (or plane, or cube somewhat).

What if we thought about the opposite of debt, jubilee? What if, instead of extracting value to the person who applied the botnet, botnets or ransomware were applied to giving ownership back to the people.

Files will be released once compensation is not extractive

DDOS will cease once Flint has clean water

Network will be back when there is housing for all

I'm not creative enough for this, but I bet ChatGPT is...

Or Margrethe…

(Pun footnote: is this AI-narchy? 💀 🏴‍☠️)

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AI's impact on education

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/openai-chatgpt-writing-high-school-english-essay/672412/

As a lapsed instructional designer, I wonder if this has something to do with grade leveling and Blooms Taxonomy of learning etc?

For example, a K-4 grader is more likely to need to learn to write and read, where a 4-7 grader needs to learn syntax and structure, and I wonder if, instead of keeping on with the “syntax and structure, but longer and denser” in the 8-12++ grades, we will see more emphasis placed on the synthesis of ideas and the generation of new novel ideas.

I am hopeful that this will improve our focus on critical thinking and constructive dialogic thinking, as opposed to “rote re-generation of known material in a new form,” which is how I recall a lot of stuff I did.

“Read this book and summarize it so I know you read it” becomes “synthesize the insights in this book and explain how the authors perspective on culture connects to your own” or some such...

IMO the latter has far more value to the individual, the society, and the future.

This is where we move from "banking education" to truly "dialogic education" and removing shackles of oppression.

Maybe society will collapse. UPWARD.

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Quantum computing unlocks thought

Is quantum computing REALLY limited? I'm not sure.

But one algorithm survived unscathed: a quantum twist on a niche mathematical approach for studying the “shape” of data, called topological data analysis (TDA). After a flurry of papers in September, researchers now believe that these TDA calculations lie beyond the grasp of classical computers, perhaps due to a hidden connection to quantum physics. But this quantum advantage may only occur under highly specific conditions, calling its practicality into question. via

I think "practicality" is really defined by our ability to understand how quantum computing works on terrifically intersectional datasets.

I would imagine that our need is to find a data-set that can be topologically mapped and latticed together similar to a memory palace, but that our inability to see the value is linked to our inability to create data that provides a sufficiently dense information set for quanta to act on it to "see" the data.

But our Data is just too limited

This is a consequence of our perspective, and the limited info we have. 🙈

What I would imagine is that it needs to start simply, in helping us map unforseen information topologies. ⛰️

And fortunately, information topology is the one thing it does well. Information topology is what you are interested in. 3d information topology is the next step in human thought. (lol, atmo, natch)

Our inability to see that this is the most valuable thing, is unsurprising. Quantum computing models the universe. The untapped opportunity is to see how the universe interacts with our terrible models so that we can improve them into big brain models that actually model of the universe our struggle is that the models we have are terrible.

Mapping useful information nets

When Matt Webb is mapping his thoughts on Web3, what he's likely hoping for is QC to map out the potential avenues of thought (he's modeling in 2d, but he might aspire to see those thoughts spatially linked and taxonomized in 3d, with a nudge).

Anyway, perhaps there is some interesting linkup between our gappy information sets and our limited ability to see the value in quantum computing. 🤷 How might intersectional data and data enrichment lead into this? Is this why more diverse teams are more effective? How might QC guide us through these complex data networks?

Intersectional "reflective" data sets

Our ability to start capturing these data sets requires more power, a power which is quickly becoming real. As mentioned earlier, intersectional data sets matrixes are a grail of information sorting, and with recent advances in Neural Radiance Fields and quantum computing, we will be able to work on this "informational reflection and diffraction" problem.

Maybe. IDK.

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IMO, "geospatial thinking" will unlock that next step in human cognition and perhaps consciousness if we can scale it equitably.

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Goodness it is hard to write consistently. Really I have had a lot of excitement going on in my life, but it is tough to write. Speaking with some folks last week really catalyzed me though. Or maybe it didn’t. Keep going…

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August 16, 2022

Design Methods by Amy J Ko

What a fantastic book – really clearly written, super cited, really on point on basically every level. What I wouldn’t give to send this back to my younger self. You’ll be drawn in by the clear thinking, and stay for the progressive articulations of important info. https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/books/design-methods/

Brown Recluse bite review – one week out

4/10, would avoid in the future. Fortunately <10% of people need to be hospitalized and it’s mostly just unpleasant.

Mine was a small bite, with very little venom injected. Immediately felt like a bee sting and swelled up very much like a bee sting. Minor cramping in my side and back.

Day 1: felt consistent pinching through the afternoon, felt very tired and worn down. Got a small bulls-eye mark with bruising around the site.

Day 2-present: basically just looked like a bruise and now it’s just a small red dot.

The 1619 Project thoughts related to protocol and product design

Thinking about how influential the US way of doing things is today (and the negative impacts of that), we should be really aware when designing protocols not to bake in the racism. Most of the historical systems have actively baked in racism or made it a given considering the tricky intersections of policy.

Server farms are to the digital world what castles used to be: the seat of power.

“This is a historic moment. Data has become the most valuable commodity in the world. We can’t leave it to a handful of tech giants. We must conceive of it as a public good and a critical public infrastructure, alongside roads, electricity, water, and clean air. To that end, we need what Niklas Maak calls a ‘Centre Pompidou for the digital age.’” — Francesca Bria I would like to read this, and we’ll see if it happens https://www.hatjecantz.de/server-manifesto-8010-1.html

Design of the Oppressed

This looks incredibly cool, and really valuable and I am also struggling to mentor and feel committed. I have signed up for async and we will see how it goes! https://www.designeopressao.org/designs-of-the-oppressed/

These rules for talk are excellent

Never talk about how you slept, nobody cares.

Never talk about your period, nobody cares.

Don’t talk about your health, nobody cares.

Your dreams, nobody cares about your dreams.

Never talk about money, which Americans do all the time.

Diet is a very big thing not to talk about.

[Route talk] is at the top of my list for what you don’t talk about. https://chriscoyier.net/2022/08/12/no-route-talk/

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August 12, 2022

Platform and protocol design toolkits

There are a bunch of interesting sources out there to design platforms and protocols. Writing the protocol DAOs seems like an interesting way to approach this in a playful manner. I don’t think dabbling in DAOs is ethical, given that it is, effectively, fiddling the keys of human motivation. Perhaps this is why everyone’s bummed about the cryponzi-winter going on rn...

Got access to Dall-E + Open.ai

A couple samples of the same prompts used to generate yesterday’s images. Gonna be honest, Midjourney is putting out results that I like more aesthetically, and interaction-wise. Really nice work and they are doing a great job of learning from their community by launching a Discord server. I see Discord servers as a great way for companies to collect user feedback in the future (as it’s already happening, duh).

Internet outages

One of the most frustrating things in my life for the past few weeks is intermittent internet outages. Losing connection really throws off my mindset, but has been a good opportunity to practice patience (typed through tightly gritted teeth). Hotspotting via mobile makes this tolerable, but oooooooomg my poor fraying patience 💆 🙏 🛰️

Cool source of demonic imagery 🤘

via https://www.openculture.com/2022/08/discover-the-key-of-hell-an-illustrated-18th-century-guide-to-black-magic-1775.html

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August 11, 2022

Writing speculative protocol fictions appears to be one of my interests

I like thinking about the future, but get frustrated with the “small thinking” that goes along with designing products. If I’d like to design the future, I need to think bigger than product, and think “protocol.” This is where ETH/BTC will go in the future – being the protocols that enable humans to incentivize wider social behaivors. The drawback is that with decentralized activities enabled by protocols, bad actors can cause good actors to do bad things (which is what we’re seeing with all the crypto ponzi rn, IMO).

https://interconnected.org/home/2022/08/11/casi

> If you do one little job, you build a widget in Saskatoon, and the next thing you know, it's two miles under the desert, the essential component of a death machine. – Holloway in the Cube

Excellent collection of out of print graphics ($800 book)

I love all the old band artwork, just so freakin' cool.

https://www.archivepdf.net/undercover-tgraphics-2014

Midjourney is going to take over commercial art

I made a tea monk picture inspired by Psalm for the Wild Born (Becky Chambers). Interesting.

https://www.midjourney.com/

Thinking razors from Sahil Bloom are great

I love reading these lists and thinking about how I can avoid mistakes by applying the razors. I will usually copy them into a long Things 3 list that repeats after all the items are checked. This helps me internalize the concepts with spaced repetition and work on applying them daily, tho success is admittedly variable.

https://www.sahilbloom.com/newsletter/the-most-powerful-decision-making-razors

https://culturedcode.com/things/

Decision analysis in VC is an excellent watch

It is totally unsurprising to me that talented VCs run the entire analysis, and less disciplined VCs get the first step, but miss or fumble the later ones.

https://youtu.be/Wi3PiZsIfBU

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August 10, 2022

Has the SaaSisization of the web ruined it's potentiality for normal ppl?

Webflow is to building on the web as Stripe is to accepting payments on the web. How does a normal person decide to publish a blog without learning all the basic information? Personally I'd love to go jekyll vs tumblr, but the ROI is just not there to learn it, and this means I'm in for Tumblr (over FB/IG/Tw etc cos Automattic)

via https://adactio.com/journal/19356

Chris also wrote about this in terms of scaffolding, but my question is: what does scaffolding for an online presence look like? What protocols are necessary to be a "whole person" online?

via https://chriscoyier.net/2022/08/10/scaffolding-as-a-good-way-to-get-started/

Benchmarking research operations covers a really important aspect of ReOps: how is it working?

What a great way to counteract corporate lobbying and misinformation in media: writing letters to the editor.

This is a problem for UX Research in addition to design...

Today's inspo:

The 1619 Project (Libby)

The Way of Kings (Kindle)

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We'll see how blogging goes... again.

Today's inspo:

The 1619 Project (Audiobook)

Half a King (Audiobook) finished

The Way of Kings (Kindle)