Things I’m Digging: Fall 2014

Posted: November 11th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Things I’m Digging: Fall 2014

1.) I’m incredibly late to the party on this one, but huge amounts of fun and inspiration when I got turned on to Humans of New York this week.  When you look at several days worth of updates at a glance, you get an appreciation for the full spectrum of the human condition. (Some folks are telling a love story or chatting about their latest argument while two days ago someone else was talking about their struggle to conquer addiction and provide for their children.

Malcolm Gladwell (photo courtesy of HONY)

 

“If you could give one piece of advice to a large group of people, what would it be?”
“Change your mind about something significant every day.”

 

2.) This 540 square-foot “All I Own House“. While admittedly impractical for any household of more than 1 person, it’s still a great design and responsible use of space.

3.) Just got around to starting Outliers (written by that guy above) in earnest this month. About 100 pages in and it’s awesome, typical Gladwell mix of narrative and statistical insights. I may view it more favorably because I think it reinforces some of the “it takes aptitude AND opportunity” philosophy I’ve had brewing for a long time.

4.) Rogue Pepper, our recently-launched blog about food (eating better, Phoenix food culture, difficulties, etc) is picking up readership.  I really need to redouble my commitment to that project and schedule my blog posts in advance though, so I don’t get slammed like I did these last few weeks with exams and travel eliminating my writing time.

5.) Another study confirms the trend towards living in reinvigorated urban cores is continuing. I know this comes with some concerns about the ethics of potentially displacing the working class (such as the protests against tech companies busing employees from San Francisco’s Mission District), but as a long-time urban resident, I have to say that the benefits of propinquity are too huge to keep trying to force all the money to the outer fringes of our cities.