Material Ways

by Stefan on May 9, 2013

Once upon a time a few people decided that the world should make sense. Every day they studied the nature of things, and used their discoveries to make better machines and organizations. One day there were no more important things left to discover, so more and more people focused only on making things. Because of that, the world became rich and beautiful. Because of that, more and more people stopped making, and focused on taking instead. Until finally the takers outnumbered the makers and the world became poor again.

{ 0 comments }

Timeless Ideas Once in a Blue Moon

February 17, 2013

Ideas that shift your perspective and refine your observations are read either in books or on blogs. Your mind is a piece of wax that morphs with the statistical facts of your physical and social world, and under the pressure of timeless ideas, its form can follow function. But unlike a good book, which limits [...]

Read the full article →

Negative Capability in Lifestyle Design

December 1, 2012

I finished reading Robert Greene’s new book, , in which he shows the road from apprenticeship to mastery. It has those fine Greenian discussions of the masters, both from the past, such as Charles Darwin, and of the present, such as Paul Graham. But if you are up to speed on cognitive- and evolutionary psychology, such [...]

Read the full article →

Wanted: Diet Advice for Elastic Omnivores

October 24, 2012

The kind of damage that unhealthy food does to you depends on amounts eaten, over the long term. Some of the outcomes of some habits are well-known. Such as the risk factors of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Or that athletes need more protein than non-athletes. Nutritional science might tell you where your intuition and [...]

Read the full article →

Book Review: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

January 27, 2012

 is a densely written historical novel set around 1700, when the Dutch East India Company had the sole right to trade with Japan. The business at hand is the thorough checking of the Company’s books, as the local manager on Dejima has been arrested for corruption, fraud, and creative bookkeeping. As the plot thickens, the action [...]

Read the full article →

Appraisals and the Profit Margin-Grayscale

October 15, 2011

When people are about to buy something, they make the ultimate decision based on the value they can see, at that moment. Those who later find their purchase to be less valuable then they expected, will feel buyer’s remorse. There are reasons that compel someone to see value in a thing, ranging from obvious to [...]

Read the full article →

Labor in The Lifestyle Triangle

May 14, 2011

This post is written for the readers of ribbonfarm, who might get here through my guest post there. I hope you like this model. It is inspired by Venkat’s writings about work, triangles and archetypes, expanding on his graphical ways of intellectual vandalism. If people like these lifestyle economics, I might further develop this model. Wealth [...]

Read the full article →

Virtual Stranger Mysterious Self

April 16, 2011

Meeting people face-to-face allows you to get to know them quickly. Listening to what others say about them, you get to know them slowly. Reading about them on a screen, an instinct-defying technology, makes you get to know them quickly but badly: a resume shows which organizations filtered them with proven methods to fathom character [...]

Read the full article →

Book Review: Evil Plans

February 25, 2011

On the last pages of Hugh MacLeod’s new book, , is a headline that says: Your Evil Plan Starts Here:, after which you are invited to scribble down some of its pieces. I myself didn’t start writing; it turns out I already had an Evil Plan. Likely, most of the people who buy Evil Plans [...]

Read the full article →

The Only Thing Commuters Want To Know

January 30, 2011

Clever designers of traffic lights have invented a new display that supports the familiar colors. Small white lights count down in a cycle or a column, informing the commuters on the waiting time for green, so they know when to get ready. The small white lights respond lively to the traffic sensors around the crossing. [...]

Read the full article →