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Kia Ora! I’m currently doing some hikes all over New Zealand’s South Island, taking a day off today to finalise this issue of the newsletter from the public library in Wanaka.
It’s been great to (mostly) get away from work, walking around mountains and lakes during the day and reading more than I have in years at night. I’m currently re-reading one of my favourites – a historical novel called The Physician. Up next is Yancey Strickler’s This Could Be Our Future.
The internet is slow and the weather too good to be stuck in here, so haere rā for now. See you next week!
– Kai (which is the Māori word for food)
Dense Discovery is currently read by around 37,000 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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Hi, We’re Antidote SPONSOR
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End-to-end email & SMS marketing that sells more
Did you know the average ROI for email marketing is 4300%!? What we do (and say) everyday counts more. Elevate your brand to a higher state through beautiful and effective email & SMS marketing. We handle it all: strategy, copywriting, design and reporting. Delivering world class results without breaking the bank.
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Apps & Sites
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Shared to-dos, timeline, and project planner
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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.
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Bite-sized knowledge in an app
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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.
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A dedicated app for newsletters
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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.
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Open source JS ecommerce platform
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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.
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Indie Mag of the Week
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Elementum is a journal of new writing and visual arts that explores our connection to the natural world.
– Latest Issue: 5
– Frequency: 1 issue/year
– Formats: print
– Origin: UK
Every week 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!
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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.”
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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.”
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Overheard on Twitter
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Every mega-viral tweet has an exhausted follow-up right beneath it saying “Yes, I’m aware an earth year is technically 365.2422 days, please stop threatening the child in my avatar.”
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Food For Thought
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‘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.”
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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]
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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]
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Aesthetically Pleasing
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Russian artist Nastasya Shuljak makes super cute little creatures from felted wool.
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Loving these illustrated dragon stamps by studio Invisible Creatures.
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Flecha is a sharp and streamlined old-style typeface made for editorial design.
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Photographer Rob MacInnis probably thought ‘Why not let farm animals pose like fashion models?’
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Classifieds
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Knowsi manages consent for user research. Send and track participant consent with custom forms and GDPR-focused tools. Join Knowsi today for free!
Recruit test users for user interviews and user tests with PingPong
Try Movavi Screen Recorder to record video tutorials for colleagues and clients, review code or design, capture screenshots or recordings – even if you’re not at your desk.
Hex Digital is a creative agency that helps founders turn great ideas into successful businesses
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Classifieds are paid ads that support DD and are seen by our 37,000 subscribers each week.
Book yours →
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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.
[email protected]
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