Alex Burns

Websites are the most expressive medium I know, but they’re used today in such a tiny narrow way.

The thing is, they could be like digital paper: back-of-napkin notes, moodboards, journaling, letters, toy apps, lists, sprawling canvases.

Also, I'm tired of the bland minimalist aesthetic that's polluted the contemporary Internet. If that's your shtick, I respect it, but it's not my vibe. I'm much more inspired by styles like Rococo, Baroque, and Art Nouveau; artists like Pissarro, Monet, and Cézanne; the interior design of châteaus in France and the exterior design of Disneyland.

“Madness, mayhem, erotic vandalism, devastation of innumerable souls—while we scream and perish, History licks a finger and turns the page.”

Neo-cities : When do people start new cities vs. reforming existing ones? Is Singapore an urbanist paradise or technofascist dystopia? What can the US learn from Special Economic Zones? Can you do urban renewal right? What’s the difference between Esmeralda and California Forever? Why do most charter cities fail? How might they succeed?

These habits help form what Hall and his co-author Andy Merolla, a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, call the social biome, a way of thinking about the entire range of your social interactions. A healthy social biome is one with variety — among the types of people we talk to and the kinds of conversations we have — as well as... See more

Forty hour work weeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes—train and sprint, then rest and reassess.