How to blog An Article by Tom MacWright macwright.com Own your domain and use simple technology Never change the technology Write something on a schedule Never change the technology Things Learned Blogging blogging
Hacking is the opposite of marketing An Article by Tom MacWright macwright.com One of my favorite definitions of “hacking” is the creative reuse of tools for new and unexpected purposes. Hacking is using your email account as a hard drive, using your bicycle seat to open a beer, using Minecraft’s red bricks to create a calculator in the game. The opposite of hacking is marketing. Marketing tells you that this particular non-stick pan is the pan you’ll use to make omelettes, and you’ll do it in the morning dressed in fashionable clothing in a nice kitchen. It includes a photo and inspirational copywriting to drive this home. Marketing dictates a style, context, and purpose for even the most general-purpose products. This narrative needs to be specific so that you can readily imagine it: it’s you, in an Airbnb, laughing with friends. All sorts of ways to use the machineIn ways you didn't anticipateStretching the product toolsadvertisingcreativityutility
The return of fancy tools An Article by Tom MacWright macwright.com Technology is seeing a little return to complexity. Dreamweaver gave way to hand-coding websites, which is now leading into Webflow, which is a lot like Dreamweaver. Evernote give way to minimal Markdown notes, which are now becoming Notion, Coda, or Craft. Visual Studio was “disrupted” by Sublime Text and TextMate, which are now getting replaced by Visual Studio Code. JIRA was replaced by GitHub issues, which is getting outmoded by Linear. The pendulum swings back and forth, which isn’t a bad thing complexitysimplicitytoolssoftwaretechnologynotetaking
Picking better names for variables, functions, and projects An Article by Tom MacWright macwright.com Avoid weasel words Follow patterns religiously Don’t cheap out on characters Call things the same thing Don’t name internal projects When things change, change their names namescode
Field Notes on Science and Nature A Book by Michael R. Canfield www.hup.harvard.edu An endless living worldWhy Sketch?Letters to the FutureOne and a Half Cheers for List-KeepingLinking Researchers Across Generations+8 More The Student, The Fish, and Agassiz
An endless living world If there is a heaven, and I am allowed entrance, I will ask for no more than an endless living world to walk through and explore. learningnaturereligionwalking
Why Sketch? An Essay by Jenny Keller What you have observed closelyA single imageParallel refinementColor reproductionThe negative spaces+4 More Conversational drawingThe Beauty of the Overlooked
Letters to the Future An Essay by John D. Perrine & James L. Patton The lapse of many yearsThe Grinnell SystemJim's systemJohn's systemRecord them all+3 More
One and a Half Cheers for List-Keeping An Essay by Kenn Kaufman I don't need that birdList-chasingThe maximization method
Linking Researchers Across Generations An Essay by Anna K. Behrensmeyer Future valueTime capsulesTools of the digital ageFive basic rulesBonewalks+1 More
Why Keep a Field Notebook? An Essay by Erick Greene Pick one thingLab notebooksHybrid journalsA fertile incubatorBest practices
The Spoken and the Unspoken An Essay by Karen L. Kramer What is unspokenResearch questionsQuantitative data collectionAnthropological rapportScan samples, focal follows+4 More The observer effect
Note-Taking for Pencilophobes An Essay by Piotr Naskrecki MantisAn extension of my brainRecordingsThe era of paper
The Evolution and Fate of Botanical Field Books An Essay by James L. Reveal To serve as a reminderSterile creaturesFurther and further away
The Pleasure of Observing An Essay by George B. Schaller AbbreviationBeyond dry factsA study should persistPrecious intangible valuesIndependent fragments of existence+1 More
In the Eye of the Beholder An Essay by Jonathan Kingdon Haven't you noticed?Wordless questioningOutlinesAgents of thought and experiment
Untangling the Bank An Essay by Bernd Heinrich Specific aimsMore than a witnessPeculiaritiesSecrecyIf it wasn't written down+1 More
A Reflection of the Truth An Essay by Roger Kitching The need to recordMental infrastructureScientific writingA three-layered process of documentationIncidental details+1 More