Things that outlive their makers

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Parasites, Symbionts, and the Scabs

Parasitism, or a way of thinking about products that will hopefully prevent you from unleashing something evil.

6 min

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Systems Decay When Shared

We're terrible at adopting the systems of others. A "defined" system should always be approached with skepticism and curiosity — and systems of the self most of all. Some of these might be in your life: Productivity has everything from GTD…

9 min

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Skill Spalling

The skills we develop aren’t permanent. They’re things that develop within a particular context — education, a workspace, a team, etc. — that accrete and slough off over time unless continuously reinforced. The now aged youth who studied…

5 min

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The Decay of Digital Things

A book chapter I wrote on how internet connected objects decay

8 min

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Diverge Weekly Issue 9 The Dependencies Issue

First, thank you and welcome to all the new subscribers, and to Hillary Predko for sharing Diverge in The Prepared. This is a weird newsletter that aspires to be about design and global affairs — but I take some latitudes. The pattern of…

6 min