Dense Discovery – Issue 109 We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. – Charles Kingsley graphic ❏ Featured artist: link Jen Leembruggen link graphic Dense Discovery table with 46 rows and 1 columns row 1 column 1 link graphic Dense Discovery row 2 row 3 heading Welcome to Issue 109! link View slash share online right arrow row 4 At the peak of our city wide lockdown, the mornings felt unusually quiet. I woke not to the noise of commuter traffic or human interaction, but the sound of birds. For the first time in this apartment, I got woken up by the natural sound of sunrise. I thought of that experience when listening to link this audio portrait of Gordon Hempton , a professional sound recordist. (Listen to it with your headphones if you can.) For over thirty years, Gordon has travelled the world with a microphone in hand, building a vast archive of pristine sounds. More than anything, his work taught him how to listen. He dedicates his life to one particular sense, and so he has some interesting insights to share: Our natural state in the wild is to hear something, because you’re listening 360 degrees 24 slash 7. If it’s interesting, you look in that direction. And if it’s still interesting, you begin to approach it – increase the resolution – smell it, touch it, and the ultimate commitment, to taste it, as a way of sensory data acquisition. Gordon explains how human noise pollution increasingly forces us to filter what we hear. Our attention is no longer attuned to certain sounds, especially natural ones. In other words, we don’t spend much time thinking about what our ears take in. Towards the end of the audio essay he talks about our collapsing ecosystem as a result of this lack of attention: Yes, our planet is in trouble, but it’s not an environmental crisis. These are the symptoms of our spiritual crisis. In modern history, we have fallen out of love with planet earth. Now, we have an opportunity to fall back in love. It’s not about what’s wrong or broken out there. The problem is in here – within us. Who are we? Who are you? The best way to discover that is to be quiet and notice how you feel. (Slightly edited) I’ve often thought about how so many of us don’t have a relationship to the natural world anymore. We usually see nature as something we visit – a holiday destination, a sight seeing stop. But we don’t really consider us part of or dependent on it. I don’t know how to repair that disconnect, but I like Gordon Hempton’s idea of starting with listening. Really listening. – link Kai link Comment on this link issue right arrow row 5 row 6 link Become a Friend of DD right arrow With a modest yearly contribution you help keep Dense Discovery going and ensure that it remains accessible for everyone. You receive this email because you subscribed to link Dense Discovery , a weekly newsletter at the intersection of tech, design, sustainability, and culture read by over 28,000 subscribers. Do you have a product or service to promote? link Sponsor an issue or link book a classified dot row 7 row 8 heading Master Your Day link SPONSOR row 9 graphic ❏ heading link Sorted superscript 3 right arrow heading More Focus. Less Stress. Schedule your events, tasks and notes on a single timeline across all your Apple devices. I’ve tried too many productivity apps to count, and Sorted superscript 3 has to be among the very best. The more you use it, the more impressed you’ll be with its elegant design. – App Store review row 10 row 11 heading Apps and Sites row 12 heading link Letter dot wiki right arrow heading Thoughtful conversations Can two individuals with contrarian views still have a civilised conversation online? On Letter dot wiki they can: a beautifully simple platform where two people exchange their opposing views respectfully through long letters’ in an open forum. row 13 heading link Email This right arrow heading Email yourself links to revisit On my i Phone I use a shortcut (see link issue 90 ) to email myself things I want to revisit at a later point. Email This does the same, but as a desktop browser extension. With one click you can send open tabs to your inbox to check out again later, optionally with some personal notes or keywords. row 14 heading link Linear right arrow heading Bug and task tracker Linear is a web based progress tracking app that helps software teams keep an eye on projects, sprints, tasks, and bugs. row 15 heading link Ilo right arrow heading Twitter analytics For those wanting to understand their Twitter stats better: my friend Dan created an analytics tool that dissects your Twitter activity and gives insight into the performance of your tweets. row 16 row 17 heading Worthy Five: Daniel Benneworth Gray row 18 graphic ❏ Five recommendations by book designer link Daniel Benneworth Gray heading A book worth reading: Alistair Hall’s new book link London Street Signs is a fascinating look at the history of the city through its lettering. heading A recipe worth trying: Okay it’s not really a recipe as such, but a bagel filled with crunchy peanut butter and slices of apple is one of the highlights of existence. heading A newsletter worth subscribing to: link Happy Readings , a fortnightly assortment of literary loveliness from the makers of The Happy Reader magazine. heading An Instagram account worth following: link high dot school dot high is a collection of old yearbooks, a great source of inspiration for nostalgic, naive type and offbeat design. heading A phrase worth knowing: link Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo link buffalo Buffalo buffalo dot A reminder that language can be broken and ridiculous and magical. row 19 row 20 heading Books and Accessories link CONSUME RESPONSIBLY row 21 graphic ❏ heading link User Friendly right arrow heading The hidden rules of design We often talk about user experience (UX) design as if it’s solely a discipline practiced in the digital world. User Friendly tells stories of user experience design (challenges) in the real world such as what the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island reveals about the logic of the smartphone; how the pressures of the Great Depression and World War II created our faith in social progress through better product design; and how a failed vision for Disney World yielded a new paradigm for designed experience . row 22 graphic ❏ heading link Icarus Complex Magazine right arrow heading Exploring climate challenges While the main stream press refuses to cover the climate crisis in meaningful ways, independent publishers are getting more creative and audacious. Luxembourg based Icarus Complex (in print and online) wants to look at the issues and solutions around climate change in a holistic way, and inspire individuals and institutions to not only take, but also demand both institutional and governmental action. And they do so with some wonderful editorial design. row 23 row 24 heading Overheard on Twitter row 25 Our greatest risk is not our kids’ video games. It is our parents’ Facebook groups. heading – link at jwgoerlich row 26 row 27 heading Food For Thought row 28 heading link I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People right arrow heading Read I shared this short essay with lots of friends when I came across it in 2017 and now is as good a time as ever to resurface it: Personally, I’m happy to pay an extra 4.3 percent for my fast food burger if it means the person making it for me can afford to feed their own family. If you aren’t willing to fork over an extra 17 cents for a Big Mac, you’re a fundamentally different person than I am. row 29 heading link Make me think! right arrow heading Read A great thought piece on designing technology and why we need an approach that focuses on user empowerment, resilience, and empathy, rather than just hiding away complexity. Whenever we are about to substitute a laborious activity such as learning a language, cooking a meal, or tending to plants with a – deceptively – simple solution, we might always ask ourselves: Should the technology grow – or the person using it? I love the animated doodles, too. row 30 heading link Your Phone Wasn’t Built for the Apocalypse right arrow heading Read An unexpectedly interesting read about how camera sensors see the world in light, not colours, and how we built technology around them to fill in the gaps based on our perceived reality: Camera sensors are color blind – they see only brightness, and engineers had to trick them into reproducing color using algorithms. row 31 heading link Houses are becoming commodities to buy and sell and not homes. right arrow heading Read I migrated to Australia during an unparalleled real estate boom, witnessing how housing turned into a currency for investors. I like John’s take in this opinion piece: Housing policies and programs must be anchored in key principles; use value and not exchange value; building communities and neighbourhoods and social mixing and sharing. Society is more important than markets. Markets must be the means to serve society. row 32 row 33 heading Aesthetically Pleasing row 34 graphic ❏ graphic ❏ Honestly, who doesn’t like a well maintained, accessible public toilet? link The Tokyo Toilet project finally gives them the attention they deserve. Toilets are a symbol of Japan’s world renowned hospitality culture. Public toilets will be redesigned in 17 locations throughout Shibuya with the help of 16 creators invited from around the world. We invite you to take a look at the uniqueness of each of these facilities. row 35 graphic ❏ graphic ❏ My cursor is currently hovering over the purchase’ button of one of Angela’s (aka link Riso Chan ) artworks. row 36 graphic ❏ graphic ❏ Gosh, what a fairy tale world! Based in northern France, link Les Jardins D’Étretat is a garden laboratory that combines experimental topiaries with open air sculptures and UNESCO World Heritage listed views. row 37 graphic ❏ graphic ❏ link MADE Sunflower is a modern serif typeface with old style elements – free for personal use. row 38 row 39 heading Classifieds row 40 link Pixelswithin is a branding strategy and design agency. Hungry entrepreneurs only. The powerful interactions in Muse for i Pad were created over years in a research lab. Now that Muse is out in the App Store, you can learn about them in link The Muse Interface Handbook dot link Process Masterclass dot Increase your value as a UI slash UX designer. Taken by over 1000 designers from the likes of ueno, Huge, Apple, Slack etc. Grab our free resource and learn more. Structure fuels creativity. If you’re juggling a lot, learn how to choose the right tasks to work on to propel your business or creative project forward in link this free training dot Classifieds are paid ads that support DD and are seen by our 28,000 subscribers each week. link Book link yours right arrow row 41 row 42 heading The Week in a GIF row 43 graphic ❏ link Email or link tweet us the URL to your favourite GIF and we might feature it here in a future issue. row 44 row 45 link Comment on this issue right arrow row 46 out of table heading Enjoyed this issue? Share it: link www dot densediscovery dot com slash issues slash 109 link Share on Twitter right arrow link Forward via link email right arrow To offset the carbon emissions of this newsletter, we plant link one native Australian tree for every issue. We also proudly support the work of numerous environmental advocacy and action groups. We encourage you to do the same link in your country dot Our office is located in Fitzroy, Melbourne, the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people. We link acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this land and pay our respects to their Elders, past and present. Revisit: around this time last year, we published link issue 57 dot link Unsubscribe link Browse older issues link Sponsor an issue link Book a classified Published by: link Kai slash Offscreen Media 149A Brunswick St, Fitzroy, VIC, 3065, Australia