Week 16 - Just Links
We are at the halfway point of this newsletter experiment. 15 issues done. 14 more to go! Today's issue is just a straight collection of links.
1. Mental Models for a Pandemic
A very nice collection of mental models to help navigate this time of change in our society. Some mental models featured in this post:
- Map is not the territory
- Compounding
- Probabilistic thinking
- Hanlon's Razor
- Inversion
- Second Order thinking
- Feedback Loops
- Ecosystems
- Redundancies
- Flows
2. Focus on the Inputs
We can focus and fret on productivity. We can hack our productivity all we want. However the adage "Garbage In, Garbage Out" has a truth to it. A great post on how focusing on our inputs - the quantity, quality, flavor of them might need to what we want in our outputs.
3. The parallel time ladder
You track your time. You also plan your time. How is your planning mapping to your execution? From a bullet journal keeper, "Parallel Time Ladder" is a beautiful visual way of planning your time, tracking and learning about how well you estimate your time. For more outtakes, check out #paralleltimeladderfaq
4. Random idea deck for when you are stuck
“I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing.” -John Cage
Random prompts have a rich history. Artists, writers have used this to break out of their stuck ways - Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies" being the most famous of these. Now people in all walks of life, in all kinds of professions use this to get unstuck. Why not make your own deck this week?
5. History of the Visa Credit Card
I was fascinated by how the Visa Credit Card came to be!
6. What does Saturn sound like?
We now know that Cassini also recorded a soundtrack of sorts—data that has now yielded a series of thrillingly eerie whooshes and warbles that represent the relationship between the ringed planet and Enceladus, one of its moons.
Written on May 31, 2020.
This was Issue #16 of the Year of the Turtle. You can see all the past newsletters on this website.
The fonts used here are from David Jonathan Ross' Font of the Month Club
- Gimlet XRay - January 2020
- Dattilo DJR - March 2020.