Ora sells itself as a ‘command centre’ that helps your team get stuff done through a range of productivity-focused tools such as task managements, resource planning, time tracking and reporting, and more.

I really like the idea behind this: “You deserve more than mindless Instagram and Facebook feeds. Put those spare minutes to use and learn something meaningful.” Every week you receive a beautifully animated, 60-seconds crash course on a specific topic.

Slick (like Stoop) gives you a unique email address to use for all your newsletter subscriptions. Once subscribed, read your newsletters in the Slick app and keep them separate from your everyday inbox; unsubscribe with a single click.

For the technically savvy among you: Beluga is a basic open source ecommerce tool that’s fairly easy to customise, built with React and Node.js, and using Stripe for payment processing.

Cross-Cultural Design →

Designing for diverse audiences

A great addition to your A Book Apart stack coming out on Feb 25th: “The modern web is inherently global – and if we want to design successfully for it, we must be ready to meet the needs, perspectives, and expectations of multifaceted, multicultural audiences. With utmost timeliness, Senongo Akpem shares a clear and accessible methodology for designing across cultures: from performing socially conscious research, to building culturally responsive experiences, to developing meaningful internationalization and localization approaches.”

Mark One →

Minimal, durable retractable pen

One more ‘forever pen’ suggestion: “Mark One is a custom machined, all-metal, retractable pen with a ceramic based exterior coating for long lasting durability. It’s built for [any Parker-style] rollerball refill, and has a satisfying-as-heck custom click mechanism.”

‘Zone flooding’ is a very good description for how the spread of outrage and misinformation is polluting our democratic systems: “We’re in an age of manufactured nihilism. The issue for many people isn’t exactly a denial of truth as such. It’s more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable.”

Wow, what a powerful opinion piece about the portrayal and role of women on screen: “What we really mean when we say we want strong female leads is: ‘Give me a man but in the body of a woman I still want to see naked.’ (...) I don’t believe the feminine is sublime and the masculine is horrifying. I believe both are valuable, essential, powerful. But we have maligned one, venerated the other, and fallen into exaggerated performances of both that cause harm to all.” [Paywalled, but you can read it through Pocket or Reader mode]

This is a summary and review of Anna Wiener’s new book Uncanny Valley, a memoir of her five years working in San Francisco’s “reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power”. I know several friends who have told me similar stories from their time working in the Bay area. As such, Anna’s story is not surprising or unique, which, of course, doesn’t make it any less unnerving. [Paywalled, but you can read it through Pocket or Reader mode]