What does and doesn't change in the future (Spam Mail #40)

💩 Cool shit

DiscoverNFT - Everyday there seems to be another NFT drop. This site helps you stay on top of new NFT projects.

Museum of Other Realities - A collection of virtual reality worlds. It’s kind of like looking at possible future realities from the past.

Accessibility Maze - Use your keyboard to navigate through this maze. Another great interactive way of showing what it’s like to navigate through the web as a keyboard-only user.

Forvo - It’s a wonderful pronunciation dictionary, for all those times you need to settle an argument about the correct way to say a word.

Shark Attacks Explorer - This link is as much about the site as it is the data. There’s been a plethora of apps trying to transform spreadsheets (like Notion, Coda). This is another with an interesting concept - aiming to turn spreadsheet data into “a powerful search & insights engine.”

Bad Movie Index - A movie streaming platform with a novel idea to change its price based on the quality of its movies. The more bad movies people watch on the platform, the lower the price.

Neural Networks from Scratch - A wonderful interactive tool to learn - and build - a  neural network. And it comes with a sandbox mode too.

After Dark Screensavers in CSS - Do you remember those old screensavers like the flying toasters, the warp stars, and the spinning globe? Relive them with this site.

💎 Word gems

Futurists have their heads in the clouds (The Intrinsic Perspective / Erik Hoel)

It feels as though the amount of talk about the future has increased, particularly about web3, metaverses, post-COVID, and the climate catastrophe. This piece presents are somewhat pragmatic look at the future by taking the angle of incrementalism. It’s that William Gibson quote, “The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

To see what I mean more specifically: 2050, that super futuristic year, is only 29 years out, so it is exactly the same as predicting what the world would look like today back in 1992. How would one proceed in such a prediction? Many of the most famous futurists would proceed by imagining a sci-fi technology that doesn’t exist (like brain uploading, magnetic floating cars, etc), with the assumption that these nonexistent technologies will be the most impactful. Yet what was most impactful from 1992 were technologies or trends already in their nascent phases, and it was simply a matter of choosing what to extrapolate.

Charts That Don’t Change (BBH Labs / Harry Guild, Dean Matthewson)

Taking a different angle of incrementalism, BBH Labs shared this fascinating collection of charts that have stayed the same. Whilst many of the attitudes and opinions shared might not feel insightful (who likes being in debt?), the takeaway that “74% of topics saw opinion change by fewer than 10 percentage points” is a great reminder that some things about humans don’t change.

Flat charts don’t sell. They instil no urgency. But they are bankers. They indicate an unchanging truth about the consumer or market. And that is something you can build a brand upon.

So what about this metaverses future? Everyone is talking about it now, even Microsoft. Shaan Puri has a crystal-ball level take on what that future actually means. Be sure to read the whole thread on twitter.

How to Fix Social Media (The Wall Street Journal)

I’ve always believed there’s no point entirely rejecting new technology because like it or not, it’s potentially the future. That isn’t to say we don’t have any agency to shape it. We should be critical of it. Following the increased scrutiny of Facebook (ahem, now Meta), the WSJ shared a collection of great takes on how to fix social media. I particularly like the quote below because it points to social media’s amplification problem, and draws an analogy with radio to show precedent that regulation doesn’t encroach on free speech.

These laws [Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934] defined broadcasting as a privilege, not a right. They required radio stations (and, later, television stations) to operate in ways that furthered not just their own private interests but also “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” Broadcasters that ignored the strictures risked losing their licenses.

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