Weeknote 11/2024
Work accounts for a poem of genius about as much as plumbing accounts for the fountains of Rome.
Verbs
Writing: It’s Manipulation All the Way Down and As Little Design as Possible.
Last week I said that I wanted to try to write at least one or two new blog posts or articles every week and *enormous fanfare* for this week I’ve managed it. The first post - It’s Manipulation All the Way Down - is a look at our fears surrounding generative AI. With the nonsensical speculation surrounding the recently published photo of Kate Middleton and her children, I wanted to take some time to think through a few important ideas that this, and other closely related discussion surrounding AI images, have brought to light. Namely, that there’s no such thing as a real photo, that we’re fools if we’re hunting for the truth of the matter, and that the real danger of AI isn’t when it takes big swings, but when it floods the everyday.
The second article, As Little Design As Possible, was a way for me to put into practice my firm conviction that, whatever field we’re working in, we should always be looking over the fence to see what other people are doing. As a learning experience designer other design fields are always going to be ripe with ideas, techniques, and approaches that can help me be better at what I do. In this instance I take Dieter Ram’s 10 Principles of Design and see how they might work in learning design and, no spoilers, it turns out they’re pretty great for LXD.
Watching: Tetris (2023) and American Fiction (2023)
I think I vaguely remember when Tetris was released, back in March of last year, but it didn’t particularly register on my radar. This week, though, we gave it a shot and I’m very pleased we did. It’s based on a true story, but the film makes it pretty clear from the very start that the truth will only serve as a jumping-off point for the film. The rough (and true) bones of the thing concern the bizarre battle that erupted in an attempt to secure the rights to publish and sell Tetris in 1988. Designed by Russian computer programmer Alexey Pajitnov, the Soviet government became entangled in extraordinary wrangling over sales of the rights for Tetris which even involved notorious media mogul Robert Maxwell (played with tremendous villainy by Roger Allam). It’s hugely entertaining, very funny, and has a great story that almost beggars belief.
In more celebrated territory we also watched American Fiction this week, which very deservedly scored a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar win for Cord Jefferson whose script was based on the book Erasure by Percival Everett. The film is much more touching and tender than I had anticipated, though just as sharp and funny as you would hope. Jeffrey Wright holds the whole piece together with angst and gravitas and I massively enjoyed John Oritz as his literary agent Arthur. For some reason, I see this as most closely of a kind with The Holdovers which, if it came down to it, I think I enjoyed more but they’re both fantastic films.
Learning: Can I learn to draw in 100 hours - Nerdforge
I love Nerdforge. I love the exuberant ingenuity and extraordinary willingness of Martina and Hansi, the Norwegian couple that run this YouTube Channel, and I’ve been a subscriber now for a good few years. This pair are some of the most industrious, creative, and feel-good YouTubers on the platform and they continue to produce brilliantly inventive and original work. This recent video was particularly great in that, although it didn’t have the usual dazzle and surprise of their build-focused videos, it really demonstrated a powerful and important lesson. Ability, at least to a reasonable degree, and in most fields, is far more strongly related to time and practice than it is to talent. Hansi, often the member of the duo that leads on technical aspects, has often said he cannot draw and is no artist, so here he puts himself to the test. Can he learn to draw in 100 hours? Of course, the answer is yes, and going with him on the journey is incredibly affirming.
Listening: The Rest is Entertainment
I started listening to this podcast only in the last week or two and I’ve powered through quite a stack of past episodes already. Richard Osman (mega-selling author, TV personality, and former TV producer) and Marina Hyde (journalist, writer, and TV and film exec) sit down and talk about the big stories in entertainment each week and (and here’s the juicy fun bit) give you all the behind the scenes info, knowledge, tips, and tricks. Even more than their regular episodes, I love their listener questions episodes where they hammer through all the kinds of bizarre, stupid, and amazing things you’d want to know about the entertainment industry. How do TV and film wreck so many cars? What happens when a guest goes off the rails on a chat show? How much are Goggleboxers paid? Just what is Romantasy fiction?
Words
It’s been a pretty quiet week, all told. Whilst I made that promise in writing last week in my weeknote that I would be trying to write at least one or two full articles or blog posts a week, I wasn’t sure whether that would pan out but I was pleased that for this week, at least, I hit that goal. The first article was something I had been chewing over for a while as I’ve often spoken and written about how important it is for people, whatever area, field, or discipline they’re in, to look at what is happening elsewhere and see what inspiration it might bring. There are new approaches, new techniques, new ideas, and all sorts of weird, brilliant, and extraordinary things happening in every area of work and life and we need to be open and receptive to that and think about how we might fold it into our own preoccupations. In that spirit, I wanted to see how Dieter Rams (legendary) work in product design might apply to a less concrete field like my own of learning design. Something I would like to do over time, is now slowly move further and further away from the design field and keep seeing what else there is, happening in other disciplines, that might feed into learning design work.
The second article was a product of absorbing a whole lot of posts, articles, videos, and other media in a short period of time that was swirling around 1) AI image generation and generative AI in general 2) the bizarre situation concerning the photo of Kate Middleton released for Mother’s day and 3) broader social and philosophical concerns around AI. I should particularly credit a recent Vlog Brother’s video by Hank Green, Edward Zitron’s incredible article Are We Watching the Internet Die? and my abiding love for The Truman Show for feeding into that article. It is the best philosophy film yet made.
Seeing as writing things in this weeknote seems to forge them into some sort of binding compact for me for the future - I’m going to say that I’m thinking about having a go at turning either one of my existing blog posts or an entirely new blog post, into a video of some kind. I don’t know what that will be like, and I definitely don’t really know how to do that. But, it seems like a pretty good excuse to learn. After all, if you can learn to draw in 100 hours you can definitely learn how to put together a video essay.