Paper books and Epubs are made by “publish and forget” principle, while web books, figuratively speaking, consume electricity on the server, even when nobody reads them. Of course, there is an advantage: a web book can be fixed, updated, supplemented. But if paper book can lie in the attic for several centuries and be read at any time, web book... See more
You can't make a movie and say, "It was all a big accident." No, it has to be a conspiracy, people plotting together, because a story is about intention. A story is not about spontaneous order or complex human institutions which are the product of human action but not of human design. No, a story is about evil people plotting together. So you hear... See more
Now imagine: how many programs and services make us wait more than 100ms? I’d say more or less all of them, starting with almost every website, with a few exceptions. You don’t think about “requesting” Google when you type your search query and it auto-completes after each letter. But you do think about rebooting your computer. Or booting up your... See more
I’ve been fascinated with how the Internet can be used to form beautiful ephemeral moments of connection with the most unexpected kinds of people. This doc outlines an inquiry into how we create the conditions for those moments, how to cultivate and sustainably grow the intimate tiny internets we explore that protect us from the wide, scary,... See more
I believe the common prevailing metaphor—the internet as cloud—is problematic. The internet is not one all-encompassing, mysterious, and untouchable thing. (In early patent drawings depicting the internet, it appears as related shapes: a blob, brain, or explosion.) These metaphors obfuscate the reality that the internet is made up of individual... See more
Disruptions upend the competitive landscape. Atmospheres change. Successful companies choke. New companies emerge. Technologies are lost. Ecosystems collapse. Value networks are dissolved and reformed.
Information will not be pushed to the user unless they intentionally ask for it. Mercury’s intention-as-context architecture vaccinates the user against the unintentional consumption of information.