Colin Wright's Blog, page 16

Background Issues

Human beings are drawn to the unusual and sensational.

It’s baked into how we process the world: something that seems to have changed, and which is new and dramatic in some way, will almost always capture our attention and concern more than something expected, ordinary, and casually foreseeable.

This is part of why we’re often negligent when it comes to the maintenance of existing, fundamental, immensely valuable infrastructure, but willing to throw limitless time and money at untested, ne...

Habit, Ritual, Performance

The word “ritual” is derived from the word “rite,” which refers to a religious ceremony of some kind.

Which makes sense, if you consider that a ritual is typically a somewhat dogmatic undertaking: it’s the precise, step-by-step process of making coffee in the morning, or the way we cycle through a particular workout regimen.

There’s often something quite pleasant about performing a ritual, in that it’s familiar, unchanging, and leads to a known, consistent outcome.

In a world that is of...

Specification Gaming

Within the world of software development, the term “specification gaming” refers to a behavior that literally fulfills the requirements of a task without achieving the underlying intended purpose.

In practice, this might mean that a piece of software is told to figure out how to get the high-score in a video game, and decides to utilize a flaw in the game’s code to put its name at the top of the high-score list, rather the figuring out how to get better at the game.

This is a real example,...

Obvious

What’s obvious to me isn’t necessarily obvious to you, and the same is true in reverse.

After four years of design school and over a decade working as a design professional, the kerning of typography—especially very bad kerning—stands out to me like a bright yellow warning sign.

Similarly, there are countless knowledge- and experience-based lenses through which you view the world that I lack. Thus, while it may be blindingly obvious to you what species a particular tree is, or whether the ...

Now & Then

Ive been trying to maintain a focal balance between whats going on today, right now, in this moment, and whatll happen next: where Id like to be, what Id prefer to be doing, where Ill go and what that will be like.

Theres value to be had in forecasting potential futures. Doing so helps us plan, helps us muscle through momentary difficulties, and can remind us to plant seeds that will benefit later versions of ourselves.

Its easy to get stuck in that future-facing mode, though, which limits...

Inward Travel

Ive been thinking about what it means to be a traveler during a period in which travel is not just ill-advised, but also less possible.

To be clear: travel is a very bad idea during a pandemic if you can avoid it. Not only is it risky for you, its risky for everyone you come into contact with. And even if you feel fine, and are willing to take the associated risks, yourself, theres a chance that youre asymptomatic but still contagious, or that youre carrying contagious bits of material on...

Long-Term Thinking

Theres an organization called The Long Now Foundation that focuses on planting seeds for long-term thinking.

Their most well-known project is the 10,000 Year Clock, which is a mechanical clock conceived back in 1986, a full-scale version of which is being built on private land in Texasat a cost of about $42 millionleading up to the final version which will be built in rural Nevada. The clock will tick exactly once per year, for ten-thousand years.

The difficulty of building something...

Knowns & Unknowns

One of the most disconcerting aspects of living through a pandemic is the assortment of unknowns we face on a daily basis.

How many infected? How many dead? Transmission rate? Spikes, plateaus, curves?

How many actually infected and killed by this disease, in true numbers, rather than what were able to measure with our imperfect systems and data?

When will we be able to go out in public on a regular basis again, without first wrapping ourselves in protective layers?

When will be able to shake...

Meaningful

The other day I received an email from a student who attended a talk I gave at her school a few years ago.

I remember chatting with her after the presentation because she was passionate about a specific artistic movement, and had focused her studies on that period, the artists involved, and so on. I didnt know much about the topic myself, but her enthusiasm for it was contagious, so I looked it up and did a little reading about it after the event.

In this message she sent me, though, she...

All The Other Things

The loss of peripheral perceptionoften called tunnel visionis a common affliction faced by people in the midst of a disaster.

It makes sense that if your home is torn apart by a tornado and youre searching for loved ones in the rubble, that your brain and body might help you achieve a state of ultra-focus, literally reducing your range of perception to eliminate possible distractions.

This can sometimes be a helpful superpower, especially in short bursts.

But like anything that intense and...