sparks
What’s Missing Says More: The Semiotics of Omission
We spend our lives surrounded by signals. Most of them are obvious—what someone says, what they wear, the metrics a company puts in a slide deck. But some of the most telling information comes not from what’s there, but from what’s missing.
A woman on a dating app with only headshots is probably... See more
We spend our lives surrounded by signals. Most of them are obvious—what someone says, what they wear, the metrics a company puts in a slide deck. But some of the most telling information comes not from what’s there, but from what’s missing.
A woman on a dating app with only headshots is probably... See more
What’s Missing Says More

from Mr Beast
When all artists are confined to the same handful of platforms to promote their work, only the top 1% get a fair slice of them. And when all listeners are dispersed over an infinite array of small-scale, pop-up, artist-first solutions, no one gets a pleasant digital music experience. The only solution is stratification at scale.
Article
aggregation is convenient for consumers, bad for the long tail of creators.
first time I hear the term “stratification at scale” - seems to suggest we can avoid flattening by building platforms that cater to different segments and preferences. (ie Sublime can be the platform for creative thinkers)
manage your energy > manage your time
H/t Jim Loehr
In 1984, every sneaker brand was competing to sign 21-year-old Michael Jordan. The front-runners were Converse and Adidas. Jordan wore Converse in college and during the 1984 Olympics. And in high school, he said, “My favorite shoes were Adidas.” George Raveling, an assistant coach for the 1984 U.S. Olympic basketball team, had a long-standing... See more
Billy Oppenheimer • SIX at 6: A Qualitative Phenomenon, Madame Butterfly, Focusing on the Wrong Things, Training Differently, Seeing Beyond the Numbers, and the Secret of Everyone Who Has Ever Excelled
great anecdote
Today, I can barely tell anyone apart. Many of the Substacks I follow use these big, figurative words that don’t really make sense in an attempt to go viral, which on this platform means getting subscribers and notes and comments. It’s like there’s this internet language that “works” for engagement (literal language, but also sense of style, and a... See more
Emily Sundberg • The Machine in the Garden. - By Emily Sundberg - Feed Me
everyone is boring

you can rest assured that whatever kaleidoscope of stimulation (or even intoxication) AI conjures, you will get bored of it; getting bored is what we do, and it turns out to be a rather profound feature of our consciousness