Issue #19 · August 8th, 2016 · View in your browser

Special announcement! I have returned to producing a blog. It is aptly named The Sundry Letter, over at sundryletter.com. This newsletter will be a relay of what I post on the blog. Thank you for reading!

Facebook’s new hardware lab

Over the next 10 years, we’re building everything from Oculus headsets to solar-powered planes. We’ve always had labs for each team, but our new lab will be a hub where engineers can work together to make even faster progress towards connecting the world (emphasis mine).

Mark is hungry!

Responding to a complex world with teamwork Yaneer Bar-Yam is a complex systems scientist and he has an idea about solving some of the world’s biggest woes.

But first, what are complex systems?

From the one and only Wikipedia: 

The study of complex systems represents a new approach to science that investigates how relationships between parts give rise to the collective behaviors of a system and how the system interacts and forms relationships with its environment.

Here’s the problem according to Yaneer’s post on Medium: 

Why should governments fail? Because leaders, wheth-er self-appointed dictators, or elected officials, are unable to identify what policies will be good for a complex society. The unintended consequences are beyond their comprehension. Regardless of values or objectives, the outcomes are far from what they intend.

And his solution?

There is a solution. It is not a form of government, no “ism” or “ocracy’’ will do. It begins with widespread individual action that transforms society — -a metamorphosis of social organization in which leadership no longer serves the role it has over millennia. A different type of existence will emerge, affecting all of us as individuals and enabling us to live in a complex world.

To be successful in high complexity challenges requires teamwork. Each team member performs one part of what needs to be done, contributing to the complexity and scale of what the team does while limiting the complexity each individual faces.

Web Design in 4 minutes Jeremy Thomas has an interactive way of teaching you how to design for the web in less than 4 minutes. 

Go play on his website!

Let’s say you have a product, a portfolio, or just an idea you want to share with everyone on your own website. Before you publish it on the internet, you want to make it look attractive, professional, or at least decent to look at.

What is the first thing you need to work on?

Unionizing the gig economy Geir Freysson on his Medium blog:

Workers in the gig economy don’t get paid holidays, minimum wage, health insurance, a pension, expenses, overtime or redundancy pay. And they certainly don’t organise into unions to bargain for pay.

And:

The gig economy is one of the greatest tech and business innovations of recent times and it promises to make the consumer’s life a whole lot easier. This shouldn’t be mutually exclusive to those who work in it getting a decent deal and having the benefits employees in other industries enjoy. The gig economy could be just as powerful for workers as it is for consumers.

I say this is a brilliant idea. 

Independent workers are entrepreneurs On Fast Company, an argument for independent workers not to call themselves freelancers. Instead, they ought to embrace the word “entrepreneur”.

Indeed, entrepreneurs are not necessarily venture-backed multi-million dollar boasting kids. Someone is an entrepreneur if they operate alone in the business world:

There’s no one else to blame if you fail or make a mistake. You’re in charge of all the business decisions. No one pays you to sit at a desk when the work has run dry. Operating a business alone is a huge risk, a bet we independents place squarely on ourselves.

The uncelebrated typographers of the road

From Kottke:

A lovely short video profile of Thomas Lilley, who is a roadliner in Glasgow. A roadliner is a person who paints the words and marks on roads with molten thermoplastic. Lilley does it quickly, freehand, and beautifully.

Thomas Lilley has the prime characteristic of a great designer (to my eyes, at least) and that is clarity.

*Thanks and have a nice week, 

Ulysse*