Hello and welcome back to another edition of THE POSTCARD, Unregistered’s fortnightly roundup of recommendations.
Thoughts, tools, and treats
In one way or another, this week’s links question the overly catchy.
Aperitivo
Working too late or dining too early? Tertium datur! L’aperitivo, Tomàs Aguir argues, „is an art and one that deserves to be studied, but most importantly, practiced.“
Testing thoroughly
Carl Barenburg on quality: „The patience to test thoroughly, the pride in details, the discipline to say ‚not yet‘ or even ask ‚is this better than it was?‘—these values are hard to find in a field of slop. The result is a landscape where even the biggest players can’t be trusted to release a stable product. In a culture obsessed with speed, the real challenge isn’t how fast you can ship, but whether you can still ship with care and stay relevant.“
Using alternatives
If you’re looking for alternatives to popular digital products and services and are interested in a more diverse digital ecosystem that offers choice, control, and resilience, here’s a place to start.
Keeping politics in place
„For me, politics, identity politics, was only necessary to get past it. The point of politics was to be free of politics (...). After a point of some basic equal norms, we’re done. We have some compromises to make over practical questions that come up and the world changes, but we’re done. And in fact, the goal is to have a politics that doesn’t matter that much. In other words, the goal is, for me anyway, the expansion as much as possible of the spaces in which people can be fully themselves, flourish as themselves, which is not a political. Politics distorts everyone (...) You have to have it, but you have to keep it in its place. That’s, I guess, my liberal position (...) and it may not be the most inspiring common cause, because it isn’t. Liberalism is not as exciting as making a whole new world. It’s not as exciting as making everyone moral. It’s not as exciting as making everyone noble.“ —Andrew Sullivan talking to Johann Hari.
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
Dave Ball, „who as one half of Soft Cell brought dark, cutting-edge synth-pop to the masses, has died aged 66,“ The Guardian reports. „We were a weird couple,“ Ball once remembered, „Marc, this gay bloke in makeup; and me, a big guy who looked like a minder.”
Noteworthy
“In a way, the big mistake was when the algorithm became maximized engagement, which means maximized profits, of course. If maximized engagement is what you’re going for, then you end up with what we have now: an internet that flourishes on anger and nastiness. I’m not saying everything is like that on the internet, but what seems to have happened in the race for profits is we’ve managed to sidestep the friction that normally comes with things being born into the world. Friction is very important. Friction gives you a little time to see what’s happening. It makes something ease into your life more slowly so you can start to correct it as it’s easing in.“
—Brian Eno, talking to Ezra Klein
A mystery link leading into the unknown
Listen to the synth line...
As always,
Dirk
P.S.: Feel free to send me pointers to articles, books, sites, pods, tools, and treats that could be interesting for this roundup. While I cannot promise to link them, I read and appreciate every hint.