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Curiosity in Practice · Issue 02 · Essay
Making things nobody asked for might be one of the most human things we do. On creativity without permission, the strange economics of useless things, and why not everything we make needs a reason to exist.
By Michael · 4 min read
Writing
Curiosity in Practice • Issue 03
We haven’t solved boredom. We’ve simply eliminated the moments when it could occur; and perhaps something else with them.
The Art of Taste • Issue 02
Bitterness isn't a flaw in our taste buds, it's a warning system we've learned to override for pleasure. On the biology of poison detection, why sweetness feels shallow by comparison, and how a flavour we're built to reject becomes one we can't live without.
Making things nobody asked for might be one of the most human things we do. On creativity without permission, the strange economics of useless things, and why not everything we make needs a reason to exist.
Trying to make something yourself changes the way you experience it. On struggle, attention, and how learning a craft teaches us to appreciate the work behind what we love.
A route may look like a simple blue line, but underneath it lies a graph. On Dijkstra’s algorithm and the invisible infrastructure behind finding our way.
Thinking Computationally • Issue 02
A look at how the humble 404 page evolved from a technical error into one of the web's most recognisable design conventions.
A journey through tea’s history, culture, and rituals, and what they can teach us about slowing down, paying attention, and making time feel meaningful.
Nobody ranks it, nobody inserts engagement bait, nobody decides what deserves your attention. RSS gave me back a front page that's actually mine.
Great food isn't just what's on the plate. These are six apps that shaped how I cook, eat out, brew coffee, and build better habits along the way.
The Shortlist · Three for…
Three apps that help you to curate your digital life.
Read the featureNewsletter
An unhurried letter about design, technology, and the ideas shaping how we live online.
Supply
Tools
A MacBook connected to a monitor can spend most of its life plugged in. AlDente lets you decide how much charge it should hold while it sits there. Set a battery percentage, and charging stops at that limit. The free version covers this central task, while Pro adds temperature protection, charging ranges and battery statistics. A small utility for looking after the hardware you already own.
Caps Lock takes up a generous amount of keyboard space for something many of us rarely use. Hyperkey gives it another purpose. It turns the key into Command, Control, Option and Shift pressed together, opening up room for your own shortcuts. A small, free macOS utility by Ryan Hanson that makes an existing key more useful.
Clicking the green window button when you only wanted a larger window. Opening Finder to create a file and finding no obvious way to do it. Supercharge collects these small macOS frustrations and gives you ways around them. Sindre Sorhus’s utility adds practical adjustments to Finder, the Dock, Mission Control and more. Every feature is opt-in. You decide which habits your Mac should accommodate.
Make your Mac folders feel like they actually belong to you. Tintd 2 lets you customize them with colors, icons, emojis, and your own artwork; going far beyond what macOS offers out of the box.
