I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

– Jorge Luis Borges

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Featured illustrator: Marianna Tomaselli

Dense Discovery
Dense Discovery
 

Welcome to Issue 56!

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“I think it’s great to see that people with a platform take a stand.” It’s a common piece of feedback I get from readers. And yes, I agree. More people who have a platform – an audience – should speak up about the issues they care about. But laying bare your values for the world to see isn’t restricted to people working in publishing.

You know who else has an audience? Every. Single. Business. Nothing (but greed) prevents companies from telling us where they stand on ethical issues that affect us all. Yet, the common attitude is to ‘keep the politics out of it’. I always found that odd. I mean corporations are perhaps the single biggest influencer of politics, and yet we treat them like a holy sanctuary of neutrality.

Kai

Dense Discovery is currently read by over 36,000 subscribers. Support us by (1) Sponsoring an issue, (2) Booking a classified ad, or (3) Sharing this issue with friends and colleagues.

 

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Apps & Sites

Commento →

Fast, privacy-focused commenting

I miss the comment section – back when it wasn’t a cesspool of spammers and trolls. Commento looks like a promising, easy-to-embed tool that can bring back civil conversations on your own site.

Stack →

Website multitasker & organiser

Stack is a native Mac app that lets you create groups of websites and web apps you can arrange in different ways. It’s essentially just a browser, but offers smarter ways to categorise and arrange tabs.

Canopy →

Daily personalised reads

A privacy-focused recommendation engine for good content on the web: “Every day, we comb the internet for the best content and deliver a personalised set of recommendations from diverse sources for a delightful and unique experience. We won’t recommend breaking news or hot takes – the rest of the internet has that covered.”

Hyperfocus →

Distraction blocker

A Mac menu bar app that lets you turn on ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode for selected apps for a chosen amount of time.

 

Indie Mag of the Week

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Disegno →

Disegno provides a platform for discussion around culture and design. It examines the work of designers; the systems surrounding cultural production; and design’s impact on the world at large.

– Latest Issue: 24
– Frequency: 4 issues/year
– Formats: print & digital
– Origin: United Kingdom

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!

 

Goods & Accessories CONSUME RESPONSIBLY

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Spectrum →

Poster-sized wall planner

Love those colours! If you have the space, I’m sure they’d look amazing all in one row. “The Spectrum Wall Planner is open-dated so you can start using it at any time. Display page by page or all at once for a powerful long-term planning tool.” Use their Geometric Sticky Notes to add even more colour!

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Jura Anchor →

A carabiner for your AirPods

I kinda regret buying AirPods. Not just because they are overpriced and designed to be disposable. As with most Apple products, aesthetics trump practicality. This means I constantly fumble for my AirPods at the bottom of my backpack. How nice would it be to be able to attach a strap or hook to them?

 

Overheard on Twitter

Inclusion is not about everyone feeling comfortable; it is more accurate to think of it as the redistribution of discomfort.

@catehstn

 

Food For Thought

For the sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth →

Read

A thought-provoking read (especially the second half) that introduced me to a new term I hadn’t heard of before: limitarianism. “Just as we recognise a poverty line, below which no one should fall, we should recognise a riches line, above which no one should rise. (...) There is neither the physical nor ecological space for everyone to pursue private luxury. Instead we should strive for private sufficiency, public luxury. Life on Earth depends on moderation.”

A Like Can’t Go Anywhere, But a Compliment Can Go a Long Way →

Read

Some great thoughts by Frank Chimero on how social media inherently amplifies negativity and silences positivity: “Liking stays attached to the original tweet and makes most positive interactions static. Negative reactions must be written as tweets, creating more material for the machine. These negative tweets can spread through retweets and further replies. This means negativity grows in number and presence, because most positivity on the service is silent and immobilized.”

It’s Okay to Be Good and Not Great →

Read

We’re all caught in an unhealthy obsession with ‘giving our best’ to achieve success. Perhaps the secret to a happy life lies in ‘good enough’: “(...) Progress, in everything from diet to fitness to creativity, isn’t about being consistently great; it’s about being great at being consistent. It’s about being good enough over and over again.”

 

Aesthetically Pleasing

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Enjoying the calm appeal of stationery compositions.

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Studio EightyOne designed a fun stamp series that celebrates Kiwi innovations.

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Chap seeks a timeless, functional aesthetic by drawing letters that can work together in readable passages of text in all sizes and lengths.

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Dillon Marsh captured the tangled web of ad-hoc power cables that crisscross the streets of Kathmandu.

 

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The Week in a GIF

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Email us the URL to your favourite GIF and we might feature it here in a future issue.

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