TLDR 152

Too Long; Didn't Read Issue 152

Published: 2018-06-01 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Issue 152. The answer machine.

This week I posted the following:

• Identifying what we can control in our own lives - This post provides some guidance from Stoic philosophies about your locus of control.
• Blogging, small-b, Big B - This post digs into my thinking about why I blog, and is motivated by this post from Aaron Davis among others.

🔖 Key Takeaways

• Stoic Locus of Control: Examining what we can and cannot control in our lives provides framework for more intentional living—stoic philosophy distinguishes between factors within our influence (our thoughts, reactions, values, efforts) and those outside it (other people's opinions, external events, outcomes), reducing anxiety and frustration by focusing energy on what we can actually change rather than expending effort trying to control uncontrollable circumstances, particularly relevant in era of information overload and constant digital stimulation where distinguishing signal from noise requires clarity about where to direct attention.
• Small-b vs Big-B Blogging: Different modes of blogging serve different purposes—small-b blogging represents personal, reflective, experimental writing focused on thinking through ideas and connecting with niche audiences without concern for scale or polish, while Big-B Blogging aims for broader reach, professional presentation, and platform building, distinction matters because pressure to perform Big-B often prevents small-b practice that's more valuable for learning, sense-making, and authentic connection, reclaiming blogging as thinking tool rather than just publishing platform preserves space for exploratory writing and intellectual development.
• Internet Growth Plateau: Mary Meeker's 2018 internet trends report shows maturation of digital technologies with smartphone shipment growth fallen to effectively nil and internet user growth slowed to about 7 percent—roughly 50 percent of world (3.6 billion people) now has internet access with average adult spending about 6 hours per day with digital devices and approximately 450 million wifi networks globally, demonstrating shift from explosive growth phase to saturation in developed markets raising questions about next frontiers of digital expansion and what post-smartphone era looks like.
• Epistemic Responsibility for Beliefs: Philosopher Dan DeNicola argues we don't have unlimited right to believe whatever we want because beliefs carry ethical responsibilities—forming beliefs carelessly or maintaining them despite contrary evidence represents epistemic irresponsibility, distinction between being "true believer" and "believer in truth" captures how closed minds reject learning, particularly urgent in era of misinformation and filter bubbles where people construct belief systems resistant to evidence and reason, requiring recognition that how we form and maintain beliefs has moral dimensions affecting both personal integrity and collective knowledge.
• Talk to Books Semantic Search: Google's Talk to Books tool uses machine learning to answer questions by reading thousands of books from scanned repository—representing evolution beyond keyword matching toward natural language processing that understands semantic meaning, allowing queries like asking questions to be answered with relevant passages from literature even without exact phrase matches, demonstrates possibilities when massive digitized knowledge bases meet advanced AI creating new interfaces for engaging with written human knowledge beyond traditional search or browsing, though also raises questions about how algorithmic mediation shapes what knowledge we access.
• Critical Evaluation Beyond Checklists: Example webpage about technology's brain effects illustrates limitations of checklist approaches to credibility assessment—site appears reputable and would pass surface-level evaluation criteria, but deeper inquiry reveals questions about author authority, reference quality, and connections to broader discourse, demonstrating how critical evaluation requires moving beyond simple heuristics like checking for author credentials or publication date toward more sophisticated analysis of argumentation, evidence, and context, particularly important as misinformation becomes more sophisticated and surface indicators become less reliable.

📺 Watch

TANK short film by Stu Maschwitz (2:44)

This short film from Red Giant's Chief Creative Officer, Stu Maschwitz, is a visual homage to the vector arcade games of the 1980s. The aesthetic perfectly captures the glowing line graphics and geometric simplicity of classic games like Battlezone and Tempest while telling a complete narrative within just a few minutes.

What makes this particularly fascinating is the technical execution. Rather than simply applying filters to make footage look retro, the entire piece was constructed using custom code, mathematical algorithms, and painstaking animation work. The behind the scenes video reveals hundreds of hours of coding, math, and animation that went into creating this visual style.

This represents exactly the kind of content that might inspire future digital content creators—demonstrating how technical skills (coding, mathematics, animation) combine with artistic vision to create something unique. It's not just using existing tools but building new tools and techniques to realize a creative concept.

📚 Read

Mary Meeker's 2018 internet trends report: All the slides, plus analysis

Each year, Mary Meeker, former Morgan Stanley internet analyst and now partner at venture-capital fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, delivers her annual internet trends report. This comprehensive overview showcases emerging patterns and possible future trends in technology and internet usage.

Key takeaways from 2018:

• Global smartphone shipment growth has fallen to effectively nil, suggesting market saturation in developed countries
• Growth in the world's number of internet users has slowed to about 7% in 2017, down from 12% in 2016
• Roughly 50% of the world, about 3.6 billion people, now has some access to the internet
• The average adult spends about 6 hours per day with a digital device
• Wifi is everywhere: There are around 450 million wifi networks in the world, up from about 100 million five years ago

These trends reveal a shift from explosive growth to maturation, raising questions about what comes next as we move toward saturation of current technologies and platforms. You can review all of her slides here.

You don't have a right to believe whatever you want to

This long read from philosophy professor Dan DeNicola in Aeon challenges the common assumption that we have an unlimited right to believe whatever we want. DeNicola argues that beliefs carry ethical responsibilities—we have obligations to form beliefs carefully and revise them when presented with contrary evidence.

The key insight: "The mind is closed, not open for learning. They might be 'true believers', but they are not believers in the truth."

This distinction matters especially in our current information environment where filter bubbles and echo chambers allow people to construct self-reinforcing belief systems. Epistemic responsibility requires remaining open to evidence and reason rather than treating beliefs as personal property immune to scrutiny.

The argument has particular relevance for digital literacy—part of navigating online information responsibly means recognizing our obligations to truth-seeking rather than just belief-maintaining. It challenges the relativistic notion that all beliefs are equally valid or that holding beliefs is purely a personal choice without broader implications.

Google's astounding new search tool will answer any question by reading thousands of books

For a long period of time, we heard about Google's ambitious project to scan all of the world's books. This began back in 2007 and encountered numerous legal battles and challenges along the way. The story went quiet for several years, leading many to wonder what happened to this massive undertaking.

Amazing things happen when you combine that repository of scanned literature with advanced machine learning engines. Talk to Books represents a new kind of search interface—instead of keyword matching, it uses natural language processing to understand the semantic meaning of questions and find relevant passages from thousands of books that address those questions.

You can ask conversational questions and receive responses pulled from literature, even when the exact words of your question don't appear in the text. This demonstrates evolution toward more sophisticated ways of accessing written knowledge, moving beyond traditional search toward something more like conversation with accumulated human wisdom captured in books.

How technology affects the way our brain works

This webpage serves as an excellent case study for critical evaluation of online information. At first glance, the site looks reputable and would pass most "checklist approaches" for evaluating online content—it has an author name, appears on a psychology website, and covers a topic with scientific framing.

But if you dig deeper, questions emerge: What are the author's credentials and expertise? Where are the references supporting these claims? How does this piece connect to broader scholarly discourse on technology's cognitive effects?

The subject matter itself represents a frequent topic of technopanic as we're still trying to understand what devices and digital media do to our brains. Claims about technology "rewiring" brains or causing various deficits often lack nuanced understanding of neuroplasticity and conflate correlation with causation.

This example illustrates why critical evaluation can't rely solely on surface indicators but requires deeper inquiry into authority, evidence, and context. As misinformation becomes more sophisticated, our evaluation strategies must evolve beyond simple checklists.

What's in a food truck?

A delightful piece of interactive journalism from the Washington Post that details all the parts and pieces that make up a food truck. Beyond the inherent interest for foodies, this represents excellent example of how digital platforms enable new forms of storytelling.

The interactive content allows readers to explore the truck's components, understanding the complexity and ingenuity required to fit a complete commercial kitchen into a mobile vehicle. This kind of visual, interactive explanation would be impossible in print and demonstrates how digital media creates opportunities for richer, more engaging information presentation.

Food trucks themselves represent interesting case study in innovation, constraints, and entrepreneurship—how do you deliver restaurant-quality food from a vehicle with limited space, power, and resources? The solutions reveal creative problem-solving that might inspire thinking about constraints in other contexts.

Over 20 easy to copy Bullet Journal weekly spread ideas

Bullet Journaling represents analog productivity system in increasingly digital world. The challenge for many is actually maintaining an offline tool and following through with the practice when digital alternatives are always available.

The appeal of bullet journaling lies in its flexibility and tangibility—unlike prescriptive apps or systems, it adapts to your needs and provides physical act of writing and designing spreads. For some, this tactile engagement aids memory and reflection in ways digital tools don't replicate.

The ongoing search for better productivity systems reflects larger questions about how we organize our lives and work, what tools serve us best, and whether analog or digital approaches (or hybrid combinations) work for different people and contexts.

Thanks to Todd Finley and the great Inside Todd's Brain newsletter for this link.

🤔 Consider

"The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions." — Claude Levi-Strauss

For this issue themed "the answer machine," Levi-Strauss's observation about wisdom and questioning provides essential counterpoint. In era of Google, Talk to Books, and AI systems that promise to deliver answers on demand, we risk forgetting that asking good questions matters more than finding quick answers. The anthropologist's insight reminds us that wisdom lies not in accumulating correct responses but in developing capacity to inquire meaningfully—to identify what's worth asking about, to frame questions productively, to recognize when our questions themselves need questioning. Mary Meeker's trends give us answers about internet statistics, but deeper questions emerge: what does saturation mean for digital equity? DeNicola tells us we must be believers in truth not just true believers, raising question of how we cultivate epistemic responsibility. Stoic philosophy helps us ask which aspects of life we can control and which we must accept. The answer machine promises efficiency and access, but the wise approach recognizes that wrestling with questions—sitting with uncertainty, exploring multiple perspectives, refining our inquiries—often matters more than arriving at tidy conclusions.

🔗 Navigation

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🌱 Connected Concepts:

• Stoic Locus Control — Stoic philosophy distinguishes between factors within our influence (thoughts, reactions, values, efforts) and those outside it (other people's opinions, external events, outcomes)—focusing energy on what we can actually change rather than trying to control uncontrollable circumstances reduces anxiety and frustration, particularly relevant in era of information overload and constant digital stimulation where distinguishing signal from noise requires clarity about where to direct attention, ancient wisdom offering practical framework for navigating modern overwhelm through intentional focus on sphere of agency.
• Small B Big B Blogging — Different modes of blogging serve different purposes with small-b representing personal, reflective, experimental writing focused on thinking through ideas and connecting with niche audiences without concern for scale or polish, while Big-B aims for broader reach, professional presentation, and platform building—distinction matters because pressure to perform Big-B often prevents small-b practice that's more valuable for learning, sense-making, and authentic connection, reclaiming blogging as thinking tool rather than just publishing platform preserves space for exploratory writing and intellectual development without performance anxiety.
• Internet Trends Meeker — Mary Meeker's 2018 report shows maturation of digital technologies with smartphone shipment growth fallen to effectively nil and internet user growth slowed to about 7 percent—roughly 50 percent of world now has internet access with average adult spending about 6 hours per day with digital devices and approximately 450 million wifi networks globally, demonstrating shift from explosive growth phase to saturation in developed markets raising questions about next frontiers of digital expansion, digital divides between connected and unconnected populations, and what post-smartphone era looks like as current technologies mature.
• Epistemic Responsibility Belief — Dan DeNicola argues we don't have unlimited right to believe whatever we want because beliefs carry ethical responsibilities—forming beliefs carelessly or maintaining them despite contrary evidence represents epistemic irresponsibility, with distinction between being "true believer" and "believer in truth" capturing how closed minds reject learning, particularly urgent in era of misinformation and filter bubbles where people construct belief systems resistant to evidence requiring recognition that how we form and maintain beliefs has moral dimensions affecting personal integrity and collective knowledge.
• Talk to Books Google — Google's Talk to Books tool uses machine learning to answer questions by reading thousands of books from scanned repository—representing evolution beyond keyword matching toward natural language processing that understands semantic meaning, allowing conversational queries to be answered with relevant passages from literature even without exact phrase matches, demonstrates possibilities when massive digitized knowledge bases meet advanced AI creating new interfaces for engaging with written human knowledge beyond traditional search or browsing while raising questions about algorithmic mediation of knowledge access.
• Critical Source Evaluation — Example webpage about technology's brain effects illustrates limitations of checklist approaches to credibility assessment—site appears reputable and passes surface-level evaluation criteria, but deeper inquiry reveals questions about author authority, reference quality, and connections to broader discourse, demonstrating how critical evaluation requires moving beyond simple heuristics toward more sophisticated analysis of argumentation, evidence, and context, particularly important as misinformation becomes more sophisticated and surface indicators like professional design or academic-sounding language become less reliable guides to quality.
• Analog Digital Productivity — Bullet journaling represents analog productivity system in increasingly digital world—appeal lies in flexibility and tangibility where physical act of writing and designing spreads aids memory and reflection in ways digital tools may not replicate, ongoing search for better productivity systems reflects larger questions about how we organize lives and work, what tools serve us best, and whether analog or digital approaches or hybrid combinations work for different people and contexts, recognizing no universal solution exists for personal organization and knowledge management.

Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.