Join 📚 Jim's Highlights
A batch of the best highlights from what Jim's read, .
Single-task tools complement modern devices by combining technological capability with intentional constraints. From offline cameras to e-ink readers, these tools preserve human agency while embracing progress. How thoughtful friction and focused design create more meaningful engagement.
Borgmann's distinction between “things” and “devices” is crucial to understanding our relationship with technology. Traditional “things” demand engagement (like a fireplace), while modern “devices” promise effortless commodity delivery (like a smartphone).
Beyond Borgmann: Single-Task Tools and the Future of Meaningful Technology
Simone Salis
Cheap products, made poorly and thrown away quickly, are killing people and the planet.
Opinion | Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard On the High Stakes of Low Quality - The New York Times
Yvon Chouinard
When we are ‘selving,’ we are abandoning what we actually see, hear, and feel (which is always dissolving, always falling apart) in favor of concepts, which hold together nicely, but which are mere conventions. When we just look at experience; when we observe it closely, we do not discover any selves. In fact, when we observe experience carefully and non-selectively, it does slowly dawn on us that no one is home.
Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are
J Jennifer Matthews
...catch up on these, and many more highlights