I love a good Google hack: this tool creates a Wiki-like interface for presenting a bunch of Google Docs in a more elegant, connected way.

ZipMessage provides a space where you and your client can exchange video, audio or screenshare messages asynchronously, making it easier to work collaboratively. The app integrates with email, too, so there is always a fallback to the old tech. (Thanks Herbert!)

Confused by the laundry labels in your clothes? “Just point your camera at a care label and you will be presented [with] the proper instructions on how to take care of your clothes and garments.” iOS only, as far as I can see.

The internet at its best: if you’re interested in birds, the Merlin Bird ID app helps you identify thousands of local birds – either through a mini questionnaire or by matching your photo with their database. Alternatively, use the cool ‘sound ID’ feature which “listens to the birds around you and shows real-time suggestions for who’s singing.”

Visualizing Complexity →

Modular information design handbook

The field of data visualisation is booming. From design to coding, journalism and research, more and more jobs involve visualising increasingly complex sets of data. Initially funded through Kickstarter, this brand-new handbook is an illustrated guide to visualising abstract data and offers a modular design system comprised of 80 elements. Available in both English and German.

The Lissome →

Regenerative (fashion) futures

Another small, independent title exploring and expanding the boundaries of an industry: ‘fashion futures’. “The Lissome is an award-winning independent fashion magazine envisioning holistic (fashion) futures, by bringing forward a culture of regeneration, compassion and cooperation and placing human and non-human wellbeing first. The magazine provides a nourishing space for conversations and contemplation within the interdisciplinary framework of design (ranging from fashion, arts and crafts, architecture, farming, ecology and Indigenous wisdom).” Friends of DD enjoy a 20% discount. Become a Friend to access specials like this.

This brief interview with journalist and author Jessie Singer, whose best friend died when a drunk driver struck him on his bike, will make you re-examine the notion of ‘accidents’ as the media reports them – traffic-related or otherwise. Great perspective shift. “If accidents were random, then injury-related death would fall randomly across the country. It does not. Black people die in fires at twice the rate of white people. Indigenous people are struck by cars at twice the rate of white people. People in West Virginia die by accident at twice the rate of people in Virginia. Policy decisions, unregulated corporate power, and the differential distribution of resources lead to risk unequally distributed across the US. These are not accidents. These are predictable, preventable events – the results of how we allocate safety across the country.”

Can we make our engagement with social media less self-centred? Maria Popova suggests: make at least one in every three things that you share about others instead of yourself. “Algorithms prioritizing selfies over sunflowers, algorithms amplifying the word I, algorithms doping us on the dopamine of being noticed, seducing us into forgetting the art and joy of noticing – that crowning glory of consciousness. And somewhere, in the quiet core of our being, this frantic hunt for likes is making us like ourselves less.” (via)

Joelle Gergis is one of the more outspoken Australian IPCC climate scientists and I have a lot of time for her introspective writing. She’s got a brand new book coming out this month, too. In this edited extract, she talks about the pain and grief involved in her work and why we collectively need to use those emotions and turn them into action. “As more psychologists begin engaging with this topic, they are telling us that being willing to acknowledge our personal and collective grief might be our only way out of the planetary mess we are in. When we are finally willing to accept feelings of intense loss – for ourselves, the planet, and every child’s future – we can use the intensity of our emotional response to finally propel us into action. We must have the heart and the courage to be moved by what we see.”