breaking badly organized spaces

I’m on my fourth rewatch of Breaking Bad, and for the first time, I’m not binging it like a lunatic. The last time I watched it, I had just finished college and embarked on a solo journey to South America. Now that I think about it, I only rewatch this tale of darkness and chemistry when profound change is approaching or already underway.

Today, those changes involve cities, Human Resources, and your creative flow.

Cities in Flux

The saying “the only constant is change” is, while accurate, a reductionist approach to the effects of change on people and places. In Los Angeles, the last of the significant wildfires was extinguished not more than a month ago, and yet it becomes easy to forget its destruction when the first beautiful whispers of spring are here.

It reminds me of a writer from my hometown of Falls Church, Virginia, who emphasizes the need for more membership in our cities, which may be another way to say that democracy requires active participation for (any?) things to get done. The toolkit is interesting, though as someone who is not a homeowner I wonder if this could 1) get the same level of enthusiasm from renters and 2) of it could foster a community beyond what is found in something like Nextdoor.

Here in LA, CicLAvia has been one way that a community is constantly in motion by closing down major roads to only pedestrians and cyclists. Held every month in a different neighborhood, I’d argue it's one of the best ways to spend a Sunday afternoon—seeing the city from a point of view you could never experience otherwise. The good news is that there seems to be progress with street safety enhancements after many delays.

Jobs to be Done

After watching this video on the experience of a LinkedIn catfish, coupled with the news of layoffs of colleagues and in the government, the job market seems to be getting weirder and weirder.

There remains a lot of blame to be put on ATS (applicant tracking system) automating certain processes and filtering out promising talent. Of course, AI making decisions that should be left to a human could also be a factor. One writer’s take from an HR Tech conference went on to observe how these played out in real-time. Beyond what you’d expect from the hiring process, more troubling technology was in place for monitoring and predicting employee performance, creating a management panopticon and further shifting power away from non-leadership roles.

All this to say, the future of Human Resources, is at risk of being… not so human.

Open the Source

The following sites have given me new ways to spark inspiration, which I hope can also help anyone stuck in a creative rut.

• TextFX (application) - idea generation for creative writing, poetry, and more. Call it an aesthetically pleasing version of your average LLM.

• Finding your Hook (podcast) - how to answer the question “What do you do?” at a party

• Xeno-Canto (resource) - a massive library of wildlife sounds! Similarly, there is also the Macaulay Library

• The People’s Graphic Design Archive (resource) - the coolest, most well-designed graphics in history

If you find yourself in Los Angeles on March 13, a colleague will be hosting a fantastic event on interactive avatars and AI. Details below