Kagi is a privacy-focused, ad-free search engine based on its own web indexing system. I love how they make a case for paid search by asking Google’s Bard AI about the disadvantages of ad-based search engines. Touché!

Add your trip details, select your activities and PackPoint will compile a pack list that takes variables like the weather into account. You can then customise your pack list and save it for future trips.

Dotcal is a more advanced Calendly alternative that makes finding available meeting times within and outside a team more effortless. You can set up availability rules and customise the look of your booking page.

Browse close to a hundred webcams from around the world that live-stream animals in their natural environments.

Mad World →

The politics of mental health

A bold new title by writer Micha Frazer-Carroll that criticises today’s conceptualisation of mental health, encouraging us to move beyond campaigns to ‘raise awareness’ and start tackling the problem at the root. “Mental health is a political issue, but we often discuss it as a personal one. How is the current mental health crisis connected to capitalism, racism and other social issues? In a different world, how might we transform the ways that we think about mental health, diagnosis and treatment?”

The Design of Childhood →

How the material world shapes children

I’ve written before about how we design cities that are largely hostile to children. Architecture and design critic Alexandra Lange captures these observations in a much better and more elaborate way in this eye-opening exploration of how children’s playthings and physical surroundings affect their development. “Seen through Lange’s eyes, everything from the sandbox to the street becomes vibrant with buried meaning. The Design of Childhood will change the way you view your children’s world – and your own.”

Biologist and writer Spencer R. Scott presents a framework for transitioning from an industrial to an ecological civilisation which operates with strong ecological principles at its core. “The industrial civilization ushered in a new high-productivity era that inevitably affected peoples’ values, lifestyles, beliefs, and the institutions that governed them. An ecological civilization will similarly necessitate a major paradigm shift. As Jeremy Lent asserts in ‘What Does An Ecological Civilization Look Like?’, we need ‘a transformation in the way we make sense of the world, and a concomitant revolution in our values, goals, and collective behavior.’”

Another insightful Noema piece, highlighting the many ways in which China is driving development and influence in many parts of the world, exporting essential infrastructure that elevates countries out of their ‘developing’ status. “For better or worse, it’s San Francisco or Shenzhen. For many countries in the Global South, the model of development exemplified by Shenzhen seems more plausible and attainable. Nobody thinks they can replicate Silicon Valley, but many seem to think they can replicate Chinese infrastructure-driven middle-class consumerism. ... If every apartment decorated with IKEA furniture looks the same, prepare for every city in booming Asia to start looking like Shenzhen. If you like clean streets, bullet trains, public safety and fast Wi-Fi, this may not be a bad thing.”

I learned quite a bit about airline milage programs from this short piece. The fact that many airlines now make more money from their loyalty schemes than from actually flying planes, explains the drop in quality/service, too. “A 2020 analysis by the Financial Times found that Wall Street lenders valued the major airlines’ mileage programs more highly than the airlines themselves. United’s MileagePlus program, for example, was valued at $22 billion, while the company’s market cap at the time was only $10.6 billion.” (Possible paywall – free archived view)