Archive • Ultra Magic • Buttondown

Without Reservation

August 31, 2021

I've been noodling on the question of why it feels like reservations are needed for so many things now, and what it means for the future. Here's what I...

The V&A Dundee Museum is an £80 Million Mistake

It's hard to express how disappointed I am with the V&A Dundee museum – how incredulous I was at its tiny permanent gallery when I first visited, and how...

Last week, I delivered the first draft of “Untitled Gamification Book” to my editor. I think it’s going to be a good book! It should have something new for...

If You Can’t Win, Cheat

September 27, 2020

Hello! A longer piece today on people cheating at what I call "coercive gamification". Before that, a quick roundup of my recent appearances: Clive Thompson...

Theme Park of the Glen + VR Will Break Museums

September 1, 2020

Hello new subscribers from my Digital Sight Management and QAnon pieces! This is a very off-the-cuff email today. I’m keeping some newsletters more informal...

Digital Sight Management, and the Mystery of the Missing Amazon Receipts

August 16, 2020

Hello new subscribers! Thank you for joining my newsletter, which as promised, will be updated very infrequently. And hello old subscribers! If you haven’t...

Apple Rules*, Flat vs. Threaded Discussions

I spotted this ad on the tube recently, and it made me think about Apple's unappreciated dominance over the lives of hundreds of millions of people: 600 free...

The Once and Future MetaFilter

Metafilter is a weblog that anyone can contribute a link or a comment to. A typical weblog is one person posting their thoughts on the unique things they...

The Beatles, Unanticipated Uses of AR

Despite growing up near Liverpool, I never visited any Beatles attractions other than popping into the Cavern a couple of times. It’s like living in London...

Reading More = Reading Better

It's hard to shake the feeling you’re having the same thoughts and ideas as everyone else if you just watch and read and listen to the same content – which...

Telling Tall Tales on Twitter

When you listen to a stand-up comedian, you probably know their stories are being exaggerated for comic effect. That’s fine! Everyone understands they aren’t...

Money Illiteracy, Apple Arcade

Since buying a house a couple of years ago, I’ve noticed more and more people talking about overpaying their mortgages, and I find the whole idea mystifying....

British Servility, Gamification of Jobs Inside the API

The rise of Conservative MP Rory Stewart has sparked an intense frustration in me. Many people who would never vote for a right-wing party have confessed...

90s Hagiography and Half Marathons

Now that millennials are ageing into their status as Prime Consumers of culture, it’s no surprise that our childhood era of the 90s is being mined for...

#3: How to Read The New Yorker, my new TV, and the Playdate

The New Yorker is the most consistently well-written longform magazine I've read, and it's been the source of so many of my ideas over the years. It's also...

#2: The Mapping Problem

There's the book I'd like to write. And there's the book I ought to write. Last year, someone from Samsung's strategy team asked to talk to me about whether...

#1: Wandering through Designed Storytelling Environments, aka Exhibitions

Hello everyone – thank you for subscribing! This is my first newsletter so please forgive any formatting oddities. I have friends who can't imagine a worse...