The Friday Thing #669

Thanks for all the kind notes back via email and on LinkedIn about last week’s edition. Most of those thanks should go to Hannah for her resume which was a real hit.

The Friday Thing #669 begins much as last week’s did with a recommendation of one long read - and this one is from my own team. I will shamelessly plug Stories from inside Microsoft’s journey to design a more accessible world from our Story Labs site that takes you inside the journey of accessibility at Microsoft. The fact that our guide on that tour is Jenny Lay-Flurrie makes it even better. 

I would also encourage you to read Running While Black that leads with an essay from Kurt Streeter, a New York Times writer and runner from Seattle. It’s hard to find the words for how this story makes me feel about the privilege in our world….and in our neighbourhoods, including here in Seattle. It makes me mad. It makes me sad. Most of all, it makes me want to act and served as a reminder that there are small things I can do every day to change the imbalance.

Music is my next topic because I haven’t talked about it here for a bit….and because two musical moments happened for me in the last week. The first was the 40th anniversary of the death of Ian Curtis, and with it Joy Division. Much has been written over the years and added to this week about his death, his music, his epilepsy and more. One piece I enjoyed this week was reading the reflections of Peter Hook, bassist for Joy Division and New Order, in SPIN. It’s classic Hook and also a great insight in to the troubled genius of Curtis. Be sure to add Unknown Pleasures to your playlist this week. Seminal. 

…which links nicely to my next musical piece which comes from Rolling Stone where that old crooner Bono celebrated his 60th birthday by sharing 60 Songs That Saved My Life. It’s a solid playlist but what’s more interesting (to me) are the letters he penned to each of the musicians in the list. It spans The Beatles, Beyoncé and Billie Eilish and of course Joy Division and New Order. Nice symmetry there. 

I’ll finish with a fun, geeky website that seems appropriate for a week when I have been immersed in AI, machine learning and supercomputers. This Word Does Not Exist creates entirely new words never before seen or used before, along with definitions that are somewhat plausible. And it’s somewhat addictive. Though I feel like this one could have a better definition ??

That’s all for this week. I had a ton of other stuff I was going to share but saving that all for next week ??

Take care,

-Steve