Articles

How ‘interesting’ is not a non-word and how there’s a geometry to things that feel right, those that don’t, and what you do in your life and work.  Keep reading →

Using some past thinking and ChatGPT, I tried to imagine a way of illustrating the importance of various fields of interest in relation to each other, a metaphor for the landscape of what I pay attention to.  Keep reading →

It’s been too long but, finally, let’s get back to writing some Dispatches! For the last few months in the weekly a couple of central topics have been futures and AI, mixed in with various best reads as I find them. However, I also have a few ongoing ‘dossiers’ in which I keep saving things. The reads are not necessarily fabulous, but they are various signals that help me ‘place’ the topic in the world and see where things are going.  Keep reading →

On the missed opportunity of digital gardens, a blurry gap in the tools we have online for knowledge sharing, and how having AIs write for us might be another step in the wrong direction.  Keep reading →

A lot of tv viewing and radio listening was ambient, now not only are they replaced by a lot more sources vying for our attention, they are replaced by platforms that require focus.  Keep reading →

I’ve largely stopped using Twitter. I don’t miss it and I don’t miss things I want to find, I’ve just rebalanced my ‘diet’ with feeds and newsletters coming first.  Keep reading →

How I’ve rediscovered that everyone learns from everyone and it’s conversations all the way down.  Keep reading →

A year or so ago, I gave a short talk at Speculative Futures MTL and have been meaning to flesh out the slides to make them readable without the talk. Finally managed to do it. I can’t remember what the exact brief was, but it ended up being something like my philosophy for scanning.  Keep reading →

It’s been a few months since my Thoughts on Web3. After reading too many posts about DAOs in a Discord (not Sentiers’), here’s a bit of an update on where I am right now.  Keep reading →

MRIs, feeds, streams, agents. How we might give algorithms instructions and pick what they search through.  Keep reading →

I’m a big reader and learner, so I’ve done several deep, years-long dives into various topics. I built my whole career(s) by showing I know what I’m talking about and drawing people’s attention to my work. That’s probably the quickest description of my playbook: read, think, learn, share. Here’s how that might look.  Keep reading →

The four interviews meant for my first issue are already done, and some of the editing has been done. I’d love to get those published, but ideally as part of ‘jumping on a different horse,‘ not just blog posts. So how should I do it? Here’s the format I’m considering.  Keep reading →

Over the last couple of months, there have been a few discussions and proposed ideas around fellowships, and indie research labs. For a few years, I’ve had the idea of a “consortium” where a few partners would support a yearlong research effort with some public outputs and some private reports, workshops, and the like.  Keep reading →

There are a lot of apps and settings in MacOS to manage notifications, timers, snooze, etc. However it would be a pain to setup everything, if even possible, to properly work by blocking-out hours. You can turn off all notifications and go to airplane mode but that’s pretty radical.  Keep reading →

How do you work? I think productivity gets somewhat of a bad rap, some people talk and write about it nonstop, for some it’s a way to optimize their workaholic tendencies, and sometimes it leads to too much focus on details, not enough on what you are actually trying to get done.  Keep reading →

Revue is joining Twitter. The news has been making waves in the "newsletter world," this being only the most recent acquisition or investment over the last few weeks.  Keep reading →

My friend and collaborator Peter Bihr wrote that he thinks fellowships are the way forward. Basically, he argues for a lighter / more agile form of research than what academia and big R&D labs can accomplish, and believes that fellowships are an interesting option to achieve understanding in these edgy topics.  Keep reading →

Last summer I wrote a proposal which included some of the structuring and medium-term thinking and plans for Sentiers. That included the idea of doing four publications a year, on top of the weekly and member Dispatches. The idea would be to produce something zine-ish twice and something report-ish twice.  Keep reading →

With the current pandemic, lots is being written about open offices, work from home, flexible conditions, shorter weeks, etc. One of my favourite theories in that "field," the Eudaimonia machine, has been around for a few years and I was surprised I never mentioned it in Sentiers, so here are a few bits around the topic as well as some speculations.  Keep reading →

Following a member’s Dispatch, further reading on the topic of the Metaverse.  Keep reading →