Kickoff For March 29, 2021
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Productivity
In Defense of Doing Nothing, wherein Apoorva Tadepalli posits that instead of jumping on the productivity treadmill, maybe we should take the time to experiment with nothingness, with a failure of productivity
How too much mindfulness can spike anxiety, wherein we learn how the highly-touted practice can actually have negative effects on our bodies and minds.
Stateless, wherein Leo Babauta looks at a way to reduce the overwhelm and help us to focus on the present.
Technology
The Melancholy of New Media, wherein Tung-Hui Hu muses upon the impermanence of digital media, which seems to fade faster than the physical media it’s supposed to replace.
The Code That Controls Your Money, wherein we learn how a programming language created in the 1960s still powers so many critical financial systems and why it hasn’t been replaced by more modern, flashier languages.
How Empathy and Creativity Can Re-humanise Videoconferencing, wherein Robert O’Toole ponders the current state (both technological and ethical) of videoconferencing tools and posits how they can be better.
Odds and Ends
What We Owe Our Whistleblowers, wherein Joseph Sorrentino looks at one of the factors that stops potential a whistleblower from taking action and that it’s not always fear of retaliation.
How a Nuclear Submarine Officer Learned to Live in Tight Quarters, wherein Steve Weiner explains how his experience as a nuclear submariner is helping him deal with COVID isolation in Turkey.
The Green Fuse in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, wherein Regan Good decides to finally explore the natural world around her New York City home, and we learn what she discovered.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.