Archives for January 2024

I spent almost two hours on the phone today waiting to speak with a customer service representative.

I got passed between three departments, each of which were only capable of solving a pre-defined set of issues. Each time I was transferred, I had to restart the waiting process.

I don’t want to call out the company, or spend too much time complaining about their customer service issues, that’s not the point of this post.

I’d rather highlight that when we design products and experiences we’ll inevitably get to make decisions about someone else’s time; someone that has chosen to trust us with their business.

How we handle that time says a lot about our priorities, how much we care, and how we’ll treat future customers.

I love this store I found in Oxford. They have a rule: every item sold must be useful, and it must be a high quality product sourced from a reputable producer.

Walking through their shop is a journey of discovery in and of itself.

Being useful rarely goes out of style.

Tetris has been famous for 34 years as “the unbeatable game”.

For >99% of players, the pieces simply end up descending too quickly, resulting in a tower of pieces that reach the top of the screen and end the game.

However, for the top players, the speed of descent maxes out at level 29, and a world of other challenges open up to them.

Recently a player called Blue Scuti reached the “kill screen”, which is when the game’s code stops working as intended and the game crashes. This was considered an almost impossible feat and the Holy Grail of Tetris achievements.

The journey of the Tetris community over three decades to eventually reach this point is filled with twists and turns. But what surprised me is how the community is immensely positive and supportive of each others and the game’s development. It’s a collective of people vs. the unbeatable game.

For my fellow video game nerds, I recommend checking out this great short YouTube documentary covering Blue Scuti’s achievement, and what may be next for Tetris.

A microlife is a “unit of risk representing a half an hour change in life expectancy”. It’s a “simple way of communicating the impact of lifestyle or environmental risk factors”.

For example, smoking 15-20 cigarettes is -10 microlives; equating to 1 hour for every 3-4 cigarettes.

Eating your 5 fruits and vegetables in a day is equal to +4 microlives, or +2 hours.

The first 20 minutes of exercise (+2 microlives), 2-3 cups of coffee is a day (+1 microlife). However, one 85g portion of red meat (-1 microlife), and two hours of sedentary TV watching (-1 microlife).

Of course, all of these are calculated based on population averages, but they’re a fascinating insight into the impacts of micro decisions and habits that compound over time.

There have been a number of news articles over the years where I’ve been close enough to the action to assess the accuracy of the reporting. And I caveat this post by saying these news outlets were typically smaller, regional players.

One thing I noticed was that despite the overarching story being correct, the reporting often had multiple mistakes and inaccuracies. Descriptions. Details about what things happened when. Names and places.

Seeing this first hand changed the way I read the news. I still believe the headline and the big picture, but I take the detail with a pinch of salt—especially on the big news items—because errors will always find their way in.

Asking thoughtful questions is like pulling at a stray thread.

It sticks out, so you grab it, and you keep tugging until the insight unravels itself.

It doesn’t require force, nor a specific technique. It just needs someone to pull at a thread that others may shy away from.

Alchemy was the medieval philosophy that had the aim of turning base metals, such as lead and copper, into gold.

It doesn’t matter the time period, there’ll always be someone willing to sell their blend of alchemy.

The physics don’t change though. Gold will always be rare, and require hard work and a bit of luck to find it.

Footage has been circulating this week of a Boeing plane that was forced to make an emergency landing due to a gaping hole in its fuselage. Hundreds of Boeing 737 Max 9 planes have now been grounded whilst safety checks are performed.

Despite the terrifying footage, it’s an example of the exception proving the rule. For context, there were more than 32 million flights taken during 2022, with only 39 aviation accidents recorded. In fact, the likelihood of something going catastrophically wrong whilst flying is so small,that the risk of dying in a car crash on a per mile basis is 100x higher.

The videos are sensational and will cause many people anxiety, but the data doesn’t lie; we shouldn’t be afraid of flying Boeing.

Most people are about one week into their New Year’s resolutions, and it got me thinking.

I started this daily blog on July 21st. It was about as far from Jan 1st that you can get. Yet it didn’t stop the habit forming.

Jan 1st is a great motivator to build a new habit or set new goals. But don’t let it hinder or halt you.

Progress can happen at any time.

This weekend was a serendipitous crossover of family and close friends in Singapore.

There was a group of 10 of us, a few based in Singapore, and the rest of us travelling for the holidays.

The default hang-out idea is to find a place with good food, but this time I decided to make an occasion of the crossover.

A number in the group enjoy go-karting, so I organised for us to head to Karting Jurong, a well-maintained track on the western side of Singapore.

8 of us participated, with a short qualifying followed by a 10 lap race.

There was banter, and competition, and a whole bunch of laughs; all of which added something special to the day. Of course, we followed up the karting with Hawker Centre food.

Grabbing a bite or a coffee is easy, but doing something a bit different, sometimes just because you can, is a great way to build shared experiences.

I was recently in the market for short term luggage storage—I had a day in Singapore before my late evening flight.

I found the service from usebounce.com to be excellent.

They provide the front-end booking and payment system, and then partner with hotels who provide luggage storage. I had options across the city, and booked my slot within minutes.

In the past, I had to deal with finding individual providers in Google Maps, and navigating to awkward locations. By using the infrastructure provided by hotels, Bounce has significantly increased the range and convenience of storage options for consumers.

A great example of a super simple service made more efficient with technology.

Here is a great Quartz post for the music nerds on how the pop music landscape has changed due to digital music production tools.

What was once a complicated and expensive process to capture audio to tape and produce it at scale, software such as Pro Tools, Logic, and Ableton have democratised the making of music.

Today anyone can make a record in their bedroom and have a million people listen to it the following day.

I’m also convinced AI will change music production forever. Think about prompts for film scores such as: look at the following action sequence, now create a 2 minute orchestral score in the style of Hans Zimmer; include a gradual build from 00:00 to 01:00, and reach a crescendo at 01:30.

I can see this AI being built into music production software too, allowing for immense flexibility in adjusting an AI generated piece of music.

Human musicians augmented by AI will create amazing things!

It needs time and space to work.

No trying, no straining, no forcing it.

There’s a reason why people have breakthroughs whilst walking, taking a shower, or doing chores.

The subconscious mind just needs a little room to breathe.

Everyone’s attention is on the ball. They watch players on both sides attack and defend; ferociously competing for possession.

They largely ignore the rest of the players. After all, that isn’t where the action is.

Yet most opportunities come from good positional play. From territorial control, from moving into open space, and from pouncing quickly on a counter attack.

When everyone’s eye is on the ball, there’s opportunity to create options and space across the rest of the field.

This works in football, and in many other situations too.

Back when files were saved locally on laptops, I lost a few university assignments due to forgetting to save my work.

Despite the frustration of needing to redo the work, the second time round was always faster.

I could avoid the obvious errors made during the first attempt, my muscle memory kicked in, and I already had a clear goal in mind.

It’s a healthy mindset to have when facing any setback. We’ve likely seen some flavour of this problem before. So if we treat it like it’s the second time round, we’ll get to the outcome faster, and with fewer headaches.