Ribbonfarm A Blog by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com AngkorwatificationPremium MediocreDomestic Cozy
Domestic Cozy An Article from Ribbonfarm by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com Millennials and Gen. ZA squeezable nugget of comfortPremium Mediocre vs. Domestic Cozy A Brief History of the Digital Garden
Fermi Estimates and Dyson Designs An Article by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com A Fermi estimate is a quick-and-dirty solution to an arbitrary scientific or engineering analysis problem. Fermi estimation uses widely known numbers, readily observable phenomenology, basic physics equations, and a bunch of approximation techniques to arrive at rough answers that tend to be correct within an order of magnitude or so. The term is named for Enrico Fermi, who was famously good at this sort of thing. …It struck me that there is counterpart to this kind of thinking on the synthesis side, where you use similar techniques to arrive at a very rough design for a complex engineered artifact. I call such a design approach Dyson design, after the physicist Freeman Dyson, who was one of the best practitioners of it (not to be confused with inventor James Dyson, whose designs, ironically, are not Dyson designs). designphysics
One Tenth of a Second An Article by Venkatesh Rao studio.ribbonfarm.com The details are fascinating, but the central argument — that the birth of modernity can be traced to a meta-crisis spawned by the 0.1s problem — is worth understanding and appreciating whether or not you’re a time nerd like me. There is no convenient leitmotif, comparable to the 0.1s problem, for our contemporary version of the rhyming conditions, but something very similar to the “tenth of a second crisis” is going on today. I suspect our Great Weirding too involves some sort of limiting factor on human cognition that we haven’t yet properly wrapped our minds around. It isn’t reaction time, but something analogous. timeanalogyprogresscognition
Mediocratopia An Article by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com I once read a good definition of aptitude. Aptitude is how long it takes you to learn something. The idea is that everybody can learn anything, but if it takes you 200 years, you essentially have no aptitude for it. Useful aptitudes are in the <10 years range. Leveling up aptitude You need to make the step forward skill
Premium Mediocre An Article from Ribbonfarm by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com Cupcakes and froyoMaya MillennialWhat premium mediocre is not societyculture
What is this static modernism? Why can't office buildings use doorknobs that are truly knob-like in shape? What is this static modernism that architects of the second tier have imposed on us: steel half-U handles or lathed objects shaped like superdomes, instead of brass, porcelain, or glass knobs? The upstairs doorknobs in the house I grew up in were made of faceted glass. As you extended your fingers to open a door, a cloud of flesh-color would diffuse into the glass from the opposite direction. The knobs were loosely seated in their latch mechanism, and heavy, and the combination of solidity and laxness made for a multiply staged experience as you turned the knob: a smoothness that held intermediary tumbleral fallings-into-position. Few American products recently have been able to capture that same knuckly, orthopedic quality. Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine The door handle is the handshake of a building modernismdoorstouchobjects