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on creative practices & how i work today I want to share two modes of working that have formed the backbone of my creative, digital, and business practices: working in ongoing rituals vs. in intensive, focused sprints. I describe this as the difference between the daily (sometimes tedious) practice of tending to a garden — versus the focused (often adrenaline-infused high) of riding an energy wave to complete a creative …

When I announced my intention to join Microsoft Research in 2008, my friends set up a betting pool over how long I would “last” there. No one thought that I’d be at MSR more than 7 years. And here we are, almost 16 years later. I still love MSR. I love my colleagues. I am forever grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to learn and grow and have impact. And …

We recently rebuilt our merchant-facing help and documentation site to make it easier to update, and easier to use.User-facing documentation is an important element of good software. Sure, good software should always be as easy to use as possible, but making software perfectly intuitive is challenging when building something as powerful as the Corso app.Our software offers a highly-customizable experience for customers and merchants alike across returns, exchanges, warranties, registrations, …

Japanese otaku artist Mr. to open debut solo exhibition in LondonExhibition Details

So many hours of our lives are wasted worrying about what other people think. How many times have you had an interaction with someone and immediately wondered, “Did I do something wrong? Are they upset at me? If I do this thing for this person, will it bother this other person?” These worry cycles are counter-productive. Still, our brains can’t resist. They’re happy to keep us awake at night spinning …

Sorry for using some French here, but FUCK this. I have been using Omnivore since June this year as alternative for Pocket and have been loving it. I normally don't love (web)applications, but this one ticked a lot of boxes: it looked good while keeping out of the way, is great at what it does (read it later with great highlighting), has solid integrations like with my Obsidian stuff, their …

A disclaimer first: we were involved in a little background work (figuring out e.g. dates of parties) for this documentary, so what you are about to read is a little biased. I had been looking forward to Aaron Trinder’s documentary for a long time, and even though I had heard plenty of positive feedback from others, nothing could replace experiencing it for myself. It was well worth the wait. This …

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Life has been busy and Mia has been recovering from her journey over the summer. Today marks 10 years of Mia Rabbit and to celebrate, I have one… The post Down the Canals of Amsterdam appeared first on Mia Rabbit.

With this work by Alexis Levitin, we continue to highlight original fiction and poetry from writers who either published their first book of poetry or fiction at 40 or after, or who have yet to publish one. Writers interested in submitting work should see our guidelines. It was decades before he ran into her again. By then, he was bald and twenty pounds overweight. He was dining alone in the …

Hello again! Here’s some recent writing of mine that you may have missed: Just Add “Just”: The Four-Letter Word That’s All Over Supermarket Shelves and Advertising Copy (Medium gift link) Skippin’ Like a Dipshit: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz brings a “folksy” profanity into the spotlight (Strong Language blog) Mavis Beacon: How the Betty Crocker of software got her name (Substack) Some notable words of the week: Felon Goon Croissant Reviews …

There are so many translations that I’ll start with a quick overall impression of each, then get into specifics. This is all based only on chapter 10 (I could read that 18 times, but not the whole novel). Overall impressions of each translationHow Bazarov and Pavel Kirsanov talkDialogue as theaterOther voicesThe metasociolinguistic eftim passage1860s key wordsThe painting everyone agrees is badMicro choices that reveal their/affect our understanding of the charactersA …

British film critic David Thomson interviews Greil Marcus on the occasion of his recent book, Why I Write. Courtesy of Yale University Press.

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As part of wrapping up the work I’m doing toward a PhD, I realized the other day that I’d never actually compiled anything like a comprehensive bibliography, and that it’s well past time I fixed that. Here, then, is a reasonably complete roundup of things I’ve published in all the years since I was SPIN‘s worst and most teenaged staff writer, back at the tail end of the foul Eighties. …

In today’s attention economy, authors and publishers are competing not only with each other, but also with the many distractions of life 一 from streaming platforms to social feeds. Book covers have long played a vital role in driving sales by appealing to the book’s target audience. Yet now more than ever, they’re an author and publisher’s best chance to compel people to stop what they’re doing and find out …