Dense Discovery – Issue 70 Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. – William S. Burroughs graphic ❏ Featured illustrator: link Denny Saurio link graphic Dense Discovery table with 42 rows and 1 columns row 1 column 1 link graphic Dense Discovery row 2 row 3 heading level 1 Welcome to Issue 70! link View slash share online right arrow row 4 I’m writing this from a café near my home and the two minutes it took me to walk here made my throat hurt. Smoke levels in Melbourne are link hazardous today. While Australia has mostly disappeared from international front pages, hundreds of fires continue to burn. (12 hours ago, there were still link 105 active fires in one state alone.) However, milder conditions have slowed the fires, enough to get a better picture of the extent of the destruction. It’s been widely reported that over a billion animals were killed in these fires, and as scientists get a grasp of the situation, the outlook is dire: Australia’s unique biodiversity is link under threat , several species could have been pushed to (the brink of) extinction. And just like that, the link Extinction Rebellion movement doesn’t seem so alarmist anymore. I apologise for opening DD with such dark thoughts, but I think me and many of my friends are slowly coming out of a state of shock, experiencing link ecological grief and of course anger about our link cowardly government dot As mentioned in my previous intro, if you’d like to help I think the best things to do is to speak up and stand up, and to focus on climate change action in your own country. Make sure link your local link climate advocacy groups have the resources they need to spread the message that urgent action is crucial and business as usual’ is over. – link Kai (The subject line of today’s issue refers to the first article in the Food for Thought’ section below which I highly recommend you read.) Dense Discovery is currently read by over 20,000 subscribers. Support us by (1) link Sponsoring an issue , (2) link Booking a classified ad , or (3) link Sharing this issue with friends and colleagues. row 5 row 6 heading level 1 Journal for Mindfulness heading level 1 link SPONSOR row 7 graphic ❏ heading level 2 link Cactus right arrow heading level 3 Guided self reflection to improve mind and health Sharpen your memory, boost your mood, and strengthen your emotional and physical health. Cactus guides you through self reflection and provides a private journal for your thoughts. And it’s free. row 8 row 9 heading level 1 Apps and Sites row 10 heading level 2 link Habit right arrow heading level 3 Simple Habit and Goal Tracker A beautiful, simple habit and goal tracker for your i Phone. What I like: black and white design, fancy statistics and visualisations, but best of all: no in app purchases’. row 11 heading level 2 link Library Extension right arrow heading level 3 Instantly check your library’s catalogue A fantastic Chrome slash Firefox extension: as you browse books and e books online, the Library Extension can check your library’s online catalogue and display the availability of that item on the same page. (Works with lots of international libraries, including my local one here in Melbourne.) row 12 heading level 2 link Topicbox right arrow heading level 3 Shared email inbox Topicbox makes it possible to share one email address between many team members, which might come in handy for low volume customer support comms or projects with internal and external stakeholders. row 13 heading level 2 link Easy Data Transform right arrow heading level 3 Automate data processing Do you frequently wrangle large amounts of data? This Mac slash Windows app gives you powerful data processing features that require little to no technical knowledge: merge, clean, dedupe, and reformat data with a few clicks. row 14 row 15 heading level 1 Indie Mag of the Week row 16 graphic ❏ heading level 2 link Market Cafe Magazine right arrow Market Cafe Magazine is the world’s first independent magazine about data visualisation, founded in 2017 by information designers Tiziana Alocci and Piero Zagami. – Latest Issue: link 5 – Frequency: 2 issues slash year – Formats: print – Origin: UK Every week we’re giving away five copies to randomly selected DD readers. Keep an eye on your inbox to find out if you’re among them! row 17 row 18 heading level 1 Goods and Accessories heading level 1 link CONSUME RESPONSIBLY row 19 graphic ❏ heading level 2 link Ethical Design Handbook right arrow heading level 3 Practical ethics for digital design A book with practical guidelines on how to make ethical decisions to influence positive change without hurting the bottom line. People are increasingly getting fed up with being tracked, manipulated and downright tricked. There is a growing expectation of transparency, fairness and respect. And the failure to meet these expectations is punished by the law, the press and the people. So now is a good time to shift to ethical design. Pre Release row 20 graphic ❏ heading level 2 link 2020 Type Diary right arrow heading level 3 Elegant flatlay diary A flatlay diary with bold sans typography, made in the Netherlands. The binding is supreme, and the layout includes a unique hour by hour breakdown of each day. There is also a substantial notes section. row 21 row 22 heading level 1 Overheard on Twitter row 23 Don’t ask me to back up my opinions with data, this is Twitter. I didn’t even read the article we’re talking about. heading level 2 – link at Su Mastodon row 24 row 25 heading level 1 Food For Thought row 26 heading level 2 link The great paradox of our time: everything is both better and worse than ever before right arrow heading level 3 Read Excellent read on how far we’ve come as a species and why that is a problem for our continued survival. Some mildly optimistic’ thoughts towards the end. The source of our progress has become the source of our downfall. Things are too good for us to change it all, yet too bad for us to leave anything as it is. row 27 heading level 2 link Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed right arrow heading level 3 Read Must read. I’m really interested in what shapes my slash our consumer mentality. This article speaks to many of the well paid tech workers that spend because they can. As technologies and methods advanced, workers in all industries became able to produce much more value in a shorter amount of time. You’d think this would lead to shorter workdays. But the 8 hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (...) but because it makes for such a purchase happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work. row 28 heading level 2 link Google and Amazon are now in the oil business right arrow heading level 3 Watch Big tech’s machine learning capabilities help make oil exploration and extraction more efficient, potentially so much that fossil fuels may be able to compete with quickly falling renewable energy prices. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have been very vocal about their efforts to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. But as The Wall Street Journal and Gizmodo have reported, these same companies are currently teaming up with fossil fuel industry to help them squeeze as much oil and gas out of the ground as possible. row 29 row 30 heading level 1 Aesthetically Pleasing row 31 graphic ❏ graphic ❏ link rkrkrk’s photography of Asian landscapes and urban structures is rich in contrast and expressive in colours. row 32 graphic ❏ graphic ❏ Author and artist link José Naranja meticulously documents every detail of his year round travels across the globe in his travel journals. row 33 graphic ❏ graphic ❏ The use of loops’ in the design of some letters, together with the contrast and humanist style, give (the variable font) link TT Trailers a slight retro touch and remind us of the cinema posters of the 60s. row 34 graphic ❏ graphic ❏ The photo and print series link Interior Design reveals the structural exquisiteness and the subtle and passionate arrays of colours’ hiding inside golf balls. row 35 row 36 heading level 1 Classifieds row 37 Knowsi manages consent for user research. Send and track participant consent with custom forms and GDPR focused tools. link Join Knowsi today for free! link Ping Pong makes user interviews and user tests as simple as this classified ad. Over 80,000 developers stay up to date link with Frontend Focus dot A once weekly roundup of the best frontend news, tutorials and resources. HTML, CSS, browser tech, and more. link Try Freedom for free! Block apps and websites that distract you – hit your New Year productivity goals every day. Syncs across all your devices – Mac, Windows, i OS and Android. Classifieds are paid ads that support DD and are seen by over 20,000 subscribers each week. link Book yours right arrow row 38 row 39 heading level 1 The Week in a GIF row 40 graphic ❏ Email us the URL to your favourite GIF and we might feature it here in a future issue. link new at densediscovery dot com row 41 row 42 out of table heading level 1 Enjoyed this issue? Share it: link www dot densediscovery dot com slash issues slash 70 link Share on Twitter right arrow link Forward via email right arrow Dense Discovery recognises that we’re in a link climate emergency dot Besides encouraging individual action to link fight climate change and to link consume more responsibly , we’re proudly supporting the work of environmental advocacy and action groups like the link Rainforest Trust , a link four star charity that directs 100 percent of their donations to conservation action. Make a tax deductible donation: link US , link UK , link AU , link CA Our office is located in Fitzroy, Melbourne, the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people. We acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. link Unsubscribe link Browse older issues link Sponsor an issue link Book a classified ad Published by: link Kai Brach Offscreen Media 149a Brunswick St Fitzroy VIC 3065 Australia graphic t