Another Sunday, Another Naive Weekly — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
Dear reader,
Maybe you remember that Uno was practicing standing up. Guess what. This week he stood up without our help. His whole face was glowing as he turned to share his excitement while clasping to the chair he was using to get up. In all honesty, our faces were gleaming too.
Other than that we caught a family-cold this week. Nothing to worry about and hopefully it doesn’t influence the planned launch of PPC next Sunday. Ana also compiled a folder with our drawings, notes, and photos of her pregnancy and first months as a family. It is deeply personal, but also very touching. I’ll make sure to let you know if we find the right form and frame to publish it.
With care,
Kristoffer
EYE CANDY
READER INTERVIEW
Sascha Mombartz can keep his breath for longer than it takes to read this newsletter. He grew up in Ethiopia, Thailand, Egypt and Germany, and is now located in New York where works as artist, designer and community builder.
K: How would you like to be remembered online?
Sascha: Not. Nobody needs to remember me.
K: Who would you like to provide a website for that can’t make it themselves?
Sascha: The ocean. As powerful as mother nature is, we’re not listening or hearing her. I’ve also come to realize how fundamentally important the ocean is to our ecosystem. It's where life began and still is the foundation of all current life. It influences almost every aspect of our lives on land. Just think about where the rain comes from. And did you know that more than half of our oxygen is created by plankton in our oceans?
K: What is the strangest being you have encountered while surfing?
Sascha: I’m not a great surfer, but I’m a better free-diver. The most amazing beings were whales and cuttlefish on both ends of the size spectrum. The whales are graceful giants, thinking back that memory feels so unreal. When I looked them in the eyes I felt a sense of calm and wisdom that I’d never felt before.
K: What is the deepest ocean you went diving in?
Sacha: The deepest I ever dove was in the mediterranean, but the deepest ocean was the Pacific. It's quite an incredible feeling when you’re surrounded by the deep deep blue, it feels endless and you know that there is so much space underneath you and you’re only a spec on the surface. When I’m on land and I think of the vastness and force of the ocean, it scares me. But once I’m in the water, far from land, nothing in sight except the blue sky and the blue depths, I’m calm and without fear.
K: What webs are you woven into?
Sascha: I feel tangled up mostly.
K: What is the most touching you’ve experienced online?
Sascha: I honestly can’t wait for the online touching to be over and we can go back to to the real touching, shaking hands, hugging, rubbing shoulders and patting backs with our friends and loved ones.
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
Poetic times — make poems out of today’s NYT headlines.
Snow white — A story about the genesis of love and snow.
FIELD NOTES
Is It Time to Move on From Corporate Memphis?
The early web design imitated their physical counterparts. Over the last decade, technology companies have moved towards a more minimalist and scalable design called flat design. But now the “Corporate Memphis”, the mascot of flat design, is being ridiculed on the internet, indicating another design shift.
Dispo is a photography app popular among teenagers in the US. Its promise is simple: you have to wait until 9 am the next day before you can see the photos you take. Nathan Jurgenson reflects on why this is the least interesting about the app, which could find the right place for every photo.
The World's First Programmable Organism
Xenobots are living creatures whose evolution occurred inside a computer. It sounds like sci-fi, but in many ways, it proposes a return to a more holistic understanding of intelligence where the mind can’t be separated from the body. In this fascinating article, Claire L. Evans concludes: “Xenobots point to a future in which life itself is harnessed to heal, build, and regenerate.” Mind-bending!
INTERNETMEZZO
Wonderful thread by Aaron Lewis on why using social media is like wandering around an unfamiliar dark forest without a map.
“What if our maps of social media are as primitive as medieval maps of earth? For now only a select few have the tools and technical skills to get a bird’s eye view of the networks we’re embedded in, but I bet network cartography will soon be more evenly distributed.” — Aaron Lewis
GUEST GARDEN
Plant a seed in the Naive Weekly guest garden. I’ll share a few each week in the newsletter.
“Thanks for making my Sunday's hyper-Sundays!” — Andres on March 21, 2021
“Just wanted to thank you for this awesome newsletter every week. I really enjoying it to take time and try all the links in it & read it! Greetings from Vienna” — Max on March 22, 2021
“Hi there! I'm sending you this short hello from France. Hope you're all fine and ok.” — Benoît on March 22, 2021
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
Last week this letter was sent to 749 people. Thirtyfour are crazy enough to chip in every month/year to support me making time to write. Logo by Studio Hollywood. Print by Luka. Photograph by Ana Santl.