Sketchplanations publishes a weekly hand-drawn sketch explaining an idea, such as the Swiss cheese model or the bystander effect.
HN commenters link its sketches as short explainers of concepts like the fun scale and Stewart Brand's pace layers.
I am one of these people that think its overreach.
People find some value in this product. Enough so they're buying it even though its expensive and potentially hazardous to their health. All the problems associated with that problem should be managed. We should have technology to manage the waste. It's an engineering problem and I'd much rather prefer that we engineer technology to serve what people want than try to engineer humans to adapt to limitations of our technology.
The most absurd manifestation of this attitude is an image heating people vs heating spaces and tries to unironically argue that people should prefer to live in cold spaces and just adapt with things like cozy furniture, warm clothes, hot drinks and local heating. Real dystopian stuff to anyone who has lived like this.
https://sketchplanations.com/heating-people-heating-spaces
> standard unit of scientific knowledge: "the peer-reviewed publication"
I think part of the problem with shown with the replication crisis, even though it's less in physics, points to an issue with that being the "standard unit" although. Science, like a lot of the world today, "waste enormous potential, mainly in the causes of legibility and standardization" as the author said. A lot of science busywork is subject to goodharts law. When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
https://sketchplanations.com/goodharts-law
Quite enjoyed the writing and it’s a fun topic to think about.
Would doing a daily “submarine shower” [0] be the best strategy here for maximising cleanliness? This would be use fifteen seconds with water on to get as wet as possible all over, turn water off and apply soap and shampoo, then water on for the last 15 seconds. (Note I’ve never actually tried this so ymmv)
[0] https://sketchplanations.com/submarine-shower
I think Stewart Brand’s concept of Pace Layers fits well with the city metaphor of how software changes over time at different rates https://sketchplanations.com/pace-layers
Hey, it's Goodhart's Law! "When a measure becomes a good target, it ceases to be a good measure."
https://www.sketchplanations.com/image/167369765942
Some of exercise is type 2 fun - https://sketchplanations.com/the-fun-scale
And/or you feel better having done it.