Jots is a collection of bits from inspiring pieces.

It is certainly the mark of the internet: email, chat forums, social media and comment threads have all engendered a culture of multiple exclamation mark usage and abusage. It’s really interesting!!! The more you use them, the more you need to use them!!!!!! The more you need to use them, the more you increasingly make no sense!!!!!!!!!!!

Jot 292 : Philip Cowell in What overusing exclamation marks says about you, from BBC Culture.
Jotted on the 10th of Nov 2020, at 16:30.

(A.) The map could be incorrect without us realizing it; (B.) The map is, by necessity, a reduction of the actual thing, a process in which you lose certain important information; and (C.) A map needs interpretation, a process that can cause major errors.

Jot 291 : Shane Parrish in The Map Is Not the Territory, from Farnam Street.
Jotted on the 26th of Oct 2020, at 11:30.

We can’t be afraid of a tale if no one lives to tell it. More survivors can make something seem more dangerous rather than less dangerous because the volume of stories makes them more memorable.

Jot 290 : Shane Parrish in What Sharks Can Teach Us About Survivorship Bias, from Farnam Street.
Jotted on the 26th of Oct 2020, at 11:20.

Using a custom element from the directory often needs to be preceded by a ritual of npm flugelhorn, import clownshoes, build quux, all completely unapologetically because “here is my truckload of dependencies, yeah, what”. Many steps are even omitted, likely because they are “obvious”.

Jot 289 : Lea Verou in The failed promise of Web Components, from Lea Verou’s Site.
Jotted on the 20th of Oct 2020, at 12:30.

Ads are digital goods. What else are ads? Spiritual goods? They are the digital good. They are what is driving the digital economy in the first place! And, yes, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on do have direct transactions built into the apps. And, no, they do not pay any fees to Apple for these in-app transactions.

Jotted on the 3rd of Oct 2020, at 11:50.

An option is something you can do but don’t have to do. All our product ideas are exactly that: options we may exercise in some future cycle—or never.

Jot 287 : Ryan Singer in Options, Not Roadmaps, from Signal v. Noise.
Jotted on the 25th of Sep 2020, at 14:30.

[…] it’s concerning that the Hoover Institute will freely give you Richard Epstein’s infamous article downplaying the threat of coronavirus, but Isaac Chotiner’s interview demolishing Epstein requires a monthly subscription, meaning that the lie is more accessible than its refutation.

Jot 286 : Nathan J. Robinson in The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free, from Current Affairs.
Jotted on the 11th of Sep 2020, at 11:05.

The result would be an asynchronous retrospective spread across multiple days in order for the team to collaboratively build off each others ideas and eventually come to an action plan without requiring anyone to wake up in the middle of the night to participate.

Jot 285 : Danny Varner in Distributed Retrospectives with Slack, from Danny Varner’s Site.
Jotted on the 8th of Sep 2020, at 16:00.

While we all hold an opinion on almost everything, how many of us do the work required to have an opinion?

Jot 284 : Shane Parrish in The Work Required to Have an Opinion, from Farnam Street.
Jotted on the 4th of Sep 2020, at 00:00.

Instead, consider a hundred years as a minimum threshold for long-term thinking. This is the current length of a long human lifespan, taking us beyond the ego boundary of our own mortality, so we begin to imagine futures that we can influence but not participate in ourselves.

Jot 283 : Roman Krznaric in Six Ways to Think Long-term: A Cognitive Toolkit for Good Ancestors, from The Long Now Foundation’s Blog.
Jotted on the 1st of Sep 2020, at 12:00.

Can stories reproduce? Well, yeah, not spontaneously, obviously—they tend to need people as vectors; we are the media in which they reproduce; we are their petri dishes—but they can, and they do.

Jot 282 : Neil Gaiman in How Stories Last, from The Long Now Foundation.
Jotted on the 20th of Aug 2020, at 00:30.

It’s not that you can’t do something it’s that unless you have literally done everything, you’re choosing not to because the price is too high. Stop lying to yourself.

Jotted on the 10th of Aug 2020, at 11:15.

The key is that the “green path” isn’t set out as a predictable trajectory. It is hacked out of the jungle as you go. You know you are going, are confident you can get there, but aren’t sure of exactly what issues will be encountered along the way.

Jot 280 : Mark Rosenthal in What is Good Product Strategy?, from The Lean Thinker.
Jotted on the 30th of Jul 2020, at 13:50.

When we lock ourselves into planning to build a set of features (ehem, Roadmaps), we rarely stop to question if those features are the right things to build to reach our goals.

Jot 279 : Melissa Perri in What is Good Product Strategy?, from Medium.
Jotted on the 30th of Jul 2020, at 13:30.

[…] Angry Alice only sees feedback from extremists, so she doesn’t receive more nuanced signals that might actually cause her to reflect on her behavior. If no reasonable people give feedback, only the unreasonable people are left. From Alice’s perspective, the only people who disagree with her are jerks.

Jot 278 : Devon Zuegel in The silence is deafening, from Devon Zuegel’s Site.
Jotted on the 21st of Jul 2020, at 14:50.

Bruce Leslie: […] he said in most traditional kind of set up superhero comic books, you have to think of the hero as the antagonist and the villain is the protagonist because it‘s the hero who‘s trying to defend the status quo while the villains trying to come in and rock the boat so to speak.

Jot 277 : Eric Molinsky in My So Called Evil Plan, from Imaginary Worlds.
Jotted on the 2nd of Jul 2020, at 23:25.

When society cannot enforce prosocial human behavior, the antisocial primate may come back into power. And thus the troll is created.

Jot 276 : Adam Bell in Why People Become Internet Trolls, from Adam Bell’s Site.
Jotted on the 24th of Jun 2020, at 00:10.

Melanie Mitchell: And this is something that comes up again and again in natural language processing systems, is that they don’t have the kind of knowledge about the world that we humans have and so they make mistakes.

Jot 275 : 99% Invisible in The ELIZA Effect, from 99% Invisible.
Jotted on the 23rd of Jun 2020, at 23:45.

Roman Mars: So if you ever see someone wandering around Stratford, carrying a pug and looking confused at their phone, don’t worry. They’re probably just chasing a ghost geotag on the hunt for the most Instagrammable wall in the world.

Jot 274 : 99% Invisible in Instant Gramification, from 99% Invisible.
Jotted on the 23rd of Jun 2020, at 00:00.

By using testing to avoid design by committee and focus stakeholders on the right assessment criteria, it almost guarantees a better design in the end.

Jot 273 : Paul Boag in How To Test A Design Concept For Effectiveness, from Smashing Magazine.
Jotted on the 18th of Jun 2020, at 12:10.

This kind of invisible, hidden labor, outsourced or crowdsourced, hidden behind interfaces and camouflaged within algorithmic processes is now commonplace, particularly in the process of tagging and labeling thousands of hours of digital archives for the sake of feeding the neural networks.

Jot 272 : Kate Crawford, Vladan Joler in Anatomy of an AI System, from Anatomy of an AI System.
Jotted on the 29th of May 2020, at 11:45.

Because the format of job stories includes contextual details, they are portable. In other words, a job story should make sense without having to know the larger JTBD landscape or job map. As a result, job stories have a more “plug-and-play” versatility that is often required for Agile designs and development teams.

Jot 271 : Jim Kalbach in Jobs to Be Done, from A List Apart.
Jotted on the 6th of May 2020, at 11:35.

Product managers should have an equivalent peer for engineering. Product managers should be accountable for the prioritization of work. Engineering managers should be accountable for the engineers’ execution, which includes being able to negotiate speed and quality tradeoffs with the product manager.

Jot 270 : Jeremiah Lee in Failed #SquadGoals, from Jeremiah Lee’s Site.
Jotted on the 6th of May 2020, at 11:35.

Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short.

Jot 269 : Paul Graham in Life is Short, from YouTube.
Jotted on the 14th of Apr 2020, at 11:15.

If you’re struggling to come out with something new […], change the way you’re doing things and you’ll end up with a different result. Not only that, but have the courage to do so. I say courage, not confidence. Confidence comes from doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. It takes courage to change that.

Jot 268 : Mick Gordon in DOOM: Behind the Music, from YouTube.
Jotted on the 5th of Apr 2020, at 13:20.

We had this realization that basically, we had added a dimension, so the simplest strategy was take out a dimension, but take out different dimensions in some way.

Jot 267 : Andy Gavin, Ars Technica in How Crash Bandicoot Hacked The Original Playstation, from YouTube.
Jotted on the 31st of Mar 2020, at 11:10.

Howard Scott Warshaw: E.T. commits the ultimate video game sin: to disorient the user. And you have to understand the difference between frustration and disorientation, right? Frustration in a video game is essential. Right? A video game must frustrate a user, but you should never disorient them.

Jot 266 : 99% Invisible in The Worst Video Game Ever, from 99% Invisible.
Jotted on the 12th of Mar 2020, at 12:05.

Howard Scott Warshaw: I thought, you know, what I need to do is turn sleep into an asset. I would work until I ran into a problem. And then I would go to sleep.

Jot 265 : 99% Invisible in The Worst Video Game Ever, from 99% Invisible.
Jotted on the 12th of Mar 2020, at 12:00.

But the point of these phrases is to fill space. No matter where I’ve worked, it has always been obvious that if everyone agreed to use language in the way that it is normally used, which is to communicate, the workday would be two hours shorter.

Jotted on the 12th of Mar 2020, at 10:55.

The wider trend is known as the “privatisation of auditory space”, says Dr Tom Rice, a lecturer in sonic anthropology at Exeter University. “It’s often said in sound studies that we don’t have earlids. We don’t have any control over what drips into our ears and collects in them. Earphones are the closest we have to that.”

Jotted on the 3rd of Mar 2020, at 10:40.

Whether or not you immediately know its history, run away from any typeface that purports to represent an entire culture.

Jot 262 : Senongo Akpem in Cross-Cultural Design, from A List Apart.
Jotted on the 2nd of Mar 2020, at 10:40.

There’s this idea that output randomness essentially becomes input randomness for the next turn, because you’ll be dealing with the consequences of whatever just happened.

Jot 261 : Mark Brown in The Two Types of Random, from Game Maker’s Toolkit.
Jotted on the 20th of Jan 2020, at 23:20.

Modern society loves multi-tasking. The myth of multi-tasking is that being busy is synonymous with being better. The exact opposite is true. Having fewer priorities leads to better work. […] The reason is simple. You can’t be great at one task if you’re constantly dividing your time ten different ways.

Jotted on the 20th of Jan 2020, at 10:40.

When you don’t want to do something, you often build it up in your mind to be worse than it really is. But once you get started, you get to realistically appraise how long and hard the task is going to be.

Jot 259 : Anne-Laure Le Cunff in The ten minute rule of productivity, from Ness Labs.
Jotted on the 20th of Jan 2020, at 10:25.

A design manager’s energy is better spent overseeing the decisions behind the work setup and managing the teams themselves, unblocking members and bridging gaps across teams, not managing or owning the design output and strategy.

Jot 258 : Tanner Christensen in Where do IC designers go once they peak?, from Tanner Christensen’s Site.
Jotted on the 12th of Jan 2020, at 22:50.

Speaking only helps who’s in the room, writing helps everyone. This includes people who’s couldn’t make it, or future employees who join years from now.

Jot 257 : Basecamp’s Team in The Basecamp Guide to Internal Communication, from Basecamp.
Jotted on the 6th of Jan 2020, at 10:20.

It’s now minute 55 of the 60 minute meeting, you finally have time to ask the two questions you came here initially to discuss. Before you do, however, someone else raises their hand and asks a different question. This takes up the remaining time in the meeting.

Jotted on the 13th of Dec 2019, at 10:05.

When we unbundle a physical retail store, for example, the pleasant nuances of shopping in person and interacting with other people falls through the cracks. […] And while such feelings could be dismissed as mere misremembering of the inconveniences of the past, they also reflect the loss of something that was too subtle to preserve.

Jot 255 : Drew Austin in Bundling and Unbundling, from Real Life.
Jotted on the 4th of Dec 2019, at 10:30.

I routinely skip past pages that are mostly big pictures with short captions. If you’re showcasing professional photography or artwork that’s fine, but for most things, I’m looking for well-written copy with images to complement or expand on the text. A well-chosen image can certainly improve a web page, but it’s the written word that draws me in.

Jot 254 : Barry Rueger in Creating Online Environments That Work Well For Older Users, from Smashing Magazine.
Jotted on the 5th of Nov 2019, at 10:30.

“The longer the loop is, the harder it is for the player to understand the consequences of their actions”, he explains.

Jot 253 : James Batchelor in Learn, reset, repeat: The intricacy of time loop games, from GamesIndustry.biz.
Jotted on the 23rd of Oct 2019, at 11:20.

Although writing code once sounds like a great bargain, the associated overhead made the cost of this approach outweigh the benefits (which turned out to be smaller than expected anyway).

Jotted on the 24th of Sep 2019, at 12:45.

The exploration needs to happen anyway. Asking for visible progress will only push it underground. It’s better to empower the team to explictly say “I’m still figuring out how to start” so they don’t have to hide or disguise this legitimate work.

Jot 251 : Ryan Singer in Hand Over Responsibility, from Shape Up.
Jotted on the 24th of Sep 2019, at 12:40.

Those technologies may seem boring, but boring is fast. Boring is usable. Boring is resilient and fault tolerant. Boring is accessible.

Jot 250 : Jeremy Wagner in Make it Boring, from Jeremy Wagner’s Site.
Jotted on the 13th of Sep 2019, at 11:45.

Are you arbitrarily setting targets to create an artificial sense of “urgency” or “accountability”? Or are you trying to create a supportive environment that is truly helpful for a person getting to where they need to be?

Jot 249 : Claire Lew in How to motivate employees? Don’t., from Signal v. Noise.
Jotted on the 13th of Sep 2019, at 11:30.

Bluetooth headphones are likely the future. But I still have more love for a set of standard headphone with a regular cable and headphone jack that has been working reliably for decades.

Jot 248 : Bastian Allgeier in Simplicity (II), from Bastian Allgeier’s Site.
Jotted on the 13th of Sep 2019, at 11:20.

The basic idea is that verbal communication in a group setting only allows for one line of conversation at a time. You have a speaker, and a bunch of listeners. By not relying on speaking, a “Silent Meeting” can instead offer multiple conversation threads simultaneously, allowing for a greater volume of feedback to be received in a shorter period of time.

Jot 247 : Noah Levin in Design critiques at Figma, from Figma.
Jotted on the 10th of Sep 2019, at 12:00.

There’s no absolute definition of “the best” solution. The best is relative to your constraints. Without a time limit, there’s always a better version. The ultimate meal might be a ten course dinner. But when you’re hungry and in a hurry, a hot dog is perfect.

Jot 246 : Ryan Singer in Principles of Shaping, from Shape Up.
Jotted on the 24th of Jul 2019, at 12:20.

When the scope isn’t variable, the team can’t reconsider a design decision that is turning out to cost more than it’s worth.

Jot 245 : Ryan Singer in Principles of Shaping, from Shape Up.
Jotted on the 23rd of Jul 2019, at 11:10.