Archive

Mindfulness promotes itself as value-neutral but it is loaded with (troubling) assumptions about the self and the cosmos

Essay on the benefits of speedy software, and how it affects user perception of engineering quality and overall usability

What's the number one prerequisite to building a high-quality wardrobe? Exactly: You need to be able to recognize a quality garment when you see one. You need to be able to tell the difference between a durable, well-crafted piece and one that looks pretty on the rack but won't last more than half a

Ten days after calling off her engagement, CJ Hauser travels to the Gulf Coast to live among scientists and whooping cranes.

When I became a manager, I realized I needed to listen a lot more. This is my journey with active listening, and the exercises that have helped me improve.

When Philip Poniz opened Box 105 at his local Wells Fargo, he discovered it was empty — and that he was totally unprotected by federal law.

Technical details, source code links, and AWS configuration for Generative.fm, a platform for generative music that plays the broswer. Learn the current state of a weird creative coding project.

Long after research contradicts common medical practices, patients continue to demand them and physicians continue to deliver. The result is an epidemic of unnecessary and unhelpful treatments.

★ On Bill Gates’s ‘Greatest Mistake Ever’:

Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.

"I'm a good judge" ... said by government employee and judge Gisele Pollack who, it seems, sentenced people to jail because of their drug use...while she, herself, was high on drugs. But, in her defense, "she's had some severe personal tragedy in her life". And that's why, it seems, she's being allowed to check herself

Before the robots take our jobs, can we please get them to help us do some good work?

The dark underbelly of ad-tech

Technology keeps us constantly stimulated. What do we lose when we no longer have nothing to do?

Traditionally, a major source of high-quality pirate releases has been retail discs, such as Blu-ray or DVD. Today, torrent and streaming sites are regularly fueled by content culled from streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. Known online as WEB releases, these files are the product of a decryption process using tools mostly not intended for public use. Recently, TF spoke with a person involved in the secretive WEB scene.

Voltaire was right.

Ever spent an agonizing amount of time mulling something over? This should help.

Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters

Professionalism has become a destructive myth. You don't have to leave your conscience behind when you head to work.

It's better to have a hole in your team than an asshole

Apple’s design chief helped create some of the world’s best-known products, but grew distant from leadership, as the company shifted its focus to operations under CEO Tim Cook.

Google’s internet freedom moonshot has gotten glowing attention for its ambitious projects. But current and former employees, leaked documents, and internal messages reveal a grim reality.

"Except in extreme cases, no single number gives a good idea of whether a person is functionally healthy or not. The common numbers are not directly or easily changeable. As these numbers continue to dominate health care, however, an emerging body of evidence is finding useful and cheap numbers that anyone can find and track. If these new numbers aren’t being taken seriously, it may be because they seem too obvious. "The speed at which you walk, for example, is eerily predictive of health status."

By David Robson. The research continues to prove that the subject of wisdom is worthy of rigorous experimental study.

The author of We Need to Talk reveals how she learned to help -- and not help -- a friend with loss.

What even is a data-obsessed, project-juggling digital ninja?

Matthias Ott is an independent user experience designer and developer from Stuttgart, Germany. Besides design practice he teaches Interface Prototyping at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Kiel.

Empathy is overrated. Empathy is full of assumptions, presumptions, and biases. I can be empathetic and still maintain a power imbalance. I can feel for you and still perpetuate a hierarchical, one-directional relationship. I can fake empathy. I can even outsource and mediate it to a virtual-reality headset.

[Frank Chimero](https://frankchimero.com/) has long been on our interview wish list. The Brooklyn-based designer, illustrator and author of The Shape ...