I was hurrying across the shopping centre this morning when a painting stopped me. It was a print. A generic composition of an urban scene. You’ve seen it. A street disappears into the horizon, lined with lovingly water-coloured buildings.

The easy, obvious heuristics are, often, just so bad. How many simple signals of what’s good or proper are actually just status quo bias rather than reliable indicators we should use to make decisions?

This is another gem from Pen and ink drawing: a simple guide.

Is it, though? Or, rather, is that why we consume and value art? This quote is from a brilliant Medium piece I've been thinking about the last few days.

From Bad Science. That marketing shapes our world and created affairs, like Mother's Day, isn't new. But something feels a bit different about "toxins".

I finally finished Steven Naifeh's insanely long biography of Vincent van Gogh. I'm now far less taken by the "genius" of Vincent. Rather, I'm enamoured with his brother.

Another from Bad Science.

Moderating on Facebook sounds like a nightmare. Casey Newton had an explosive story last year of panic attacks and high turnover. But the problem isn’t just for the moderators themselves, but in aggregate. As a philosophical problem.

What does it mean for something to be “natural”? The concept is all over the place. As branding it is something to aspire to. A state that must be protected. Something distinct from humans.

I’ve been sitting with the passing of Kobe Bryant for a few weeks now. I was a bit too young and removed to be aware of the rape allegations at the time. I wrote him off when I heard about it later.