With I Done This team members respond to a daily reminder to submit a brief summary of what they’ve worked on any given day, creating a progress log and performance overview for managers.

LICEcap (available for Windows and Mac) can capture an area of your screen and save it directly to either GIF or a lossless LCF format.

Add Noto to the long list of writing and note-taking apps for MacOS and iOS. It seems to work similarly to Apple’s own Notes app with a more visually appealing way to organise your notes.

A comprehensive guide with lots of tips for public speaking – from planning and designing your slides to practicing and delivering your talk.

Patagonia Black Hole 25L →

Reliable daily carry

This has been my daily backpack (and day hike pack) for the last five+ years: the Black Hole Pack 25L is made with a tough 100% recycled polyester fabric, 100% recycled polyester lining and 100% recycled nylon webbing. After such extensive usage, the waterproofing layer has started to come off on the top of my bag, but my local Patagonia shop already reassured me that they’ll fix it free of charge whenever I’m ready to spare it for a few weeks. 👌

The Art of Frugal Hedonism →

Spending less while enjoying everything more

I really enjoyed reading this book. It’s a fun, at times wacky, easy-to-read guide on how to escape the work-to-spend cycle and adjust your consumption habits to enjoy more free time. Best of all, it doesn’t read like a typical self-help book because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. (It’s written by Australian authors, after all.)

A very important message about public spaces and how social media has become a dangerous, private substitute: “I think we really need digital environments that we all actually have some real ownership of, environments that respect the diversity of human existence and that give us some say and some input into the process. (...) Facebook right now is like the 1970s New York: the public spaces are decaying, there’s trash in the streets, people are kind of mentally and emotionally warming themselves over burning garbage.”

This short essay really made me think about digital services, the disappearance of files, and our changing understanding of ownership: “So long as everything works, trading ownership for access is an attractive deal: everything under the hood just gets magic-ed away, and provided for us as a service. No files, no updates, no maintenance; just access. (...) Access feels like the real thing, until it’s taken away from you.”

The little optimism that’s left in the Western world often hinges on “technological progress [that] will allow us to address climate and ecological breakdown while also dramatically increasing production and consumption.” However, “the ways we work, travel, eat, and even think are all locked into systems that perpetuate the use of fossil fuels, encroach on the natural world, and exploit wealth and resources from the Global South.” Our only hope lies in unprecedented system change.