I love music. However when I was a poor college student I couldn’t afford to pay for albums–digital or physical. So once I got a job I subscribed to Rdio and later Spotify. The value proposition seemed almost too good to be true. You can listen to pretty much everything anywhere for the price of an album every month? Unbelievable.

But when bought a new car about 10 years ago I did something strange. The car came with a very basic audio system, which meant no USB ports or bluetooth for streaming. I figured one day I’d get around to replacing it with something fancy, but there’s no rush. In the end I never did.

Instead I started buying CDs again like it was 1999. Even though I already paid for Spotify. Even though I’m into minimalism and dislike clutter. I do like some sweet cover art though.

As someone who usually listens to random songs on shuffle mode it was refreshing to get through an entire album from start to finish, as the artist intended. I also enjoy the ritual of picking an album for the ride and being constrained to what’s on there instead of being spoilt for choice in my digital Spotify library. Maybe it’s part nostalgia, part laziness but I see no reason to change for now. I realise it’s silly to spend money on albums I technically already have and I don’t plan on collecting a large amount CDs anytime soon–they all have to fit in the glove box, so curating is key.

Anyway, a while back I was pleasantly surprised when I came across this article about CDs, cassette tapes and VHS and I’m happy to see I’m not the only one still attached to discs.

I’ve been using the iOS app Raivo OTP for two-factor authentication ever since I saw Derek Sivers recommend it. (He has since updated his recommendation to 2FA Authenticator.)

Then one day a few weeks ago I opened the app to authenticate somewhere and was surprised to see all my keys were gone. At first I didn’t understand what happened and why everything was missing until a subscription modal interrupted me. It asked me to subscribe in order to restore my keys. Is this app trying to blackmail me all of a sudden?

I’d never seen this modal before so I figured something must’ve happened in a recent update. I quickly checked the release notes. It said to export your keys before updating which was wild. Of course. I never check release notes before updating an app because it happens automatically so whatever attempt at communication this was from the developer failed miserably.

I went looking to see if other people had a similar experience or found any workarounds. Turns out this whole thing was a mess mainly due to Raivo being acquired. Again, I don’t keep up with the news surrounding this app so I had no idea.

Fortunately I had backed up my keys using iCloud which allowed me to restore them. From there I chose a new 2FA app and updated all my keys so that I could safely uninstall Raivo. From what I’ve seen other users weren’t so lucky and have had to spend a lot of time trying to regain access to many sites just because of how poorly this app update was managed and communicated. Lesson learned.

The NBA draft was held last week over two days on June 26-27. I didn’t pay too much attention after Boston won the Finals, mainly because the Grizzlies didn’t even make the playoffs so the draft crept up on me this year. I randomly checked out Grizzlies news to see what they were doing in free agency only to find out they’d just made their first round pick–Purdue star Zach Edey. I knew nothing about the guy so I spent the next hour or so reading up on him and watching highlights from his college career. I chuckled when I saw that a Krysten Peek called this “one of the worst picks in draft history.” Surely this was no Hasheem Thabeet, right? Right?

From what I’ve seen so far Edey looks very promising, especially if you factor in his dominant game against Clingan who was drafted 2 picks higher and the fact that he doesn’t have an injury history which is a big deal for someone his size. Usually a rule of thumb in any draft is to pick the best player available instead of trying to address a specific need. With this pick the Grizzlies did both. Edey fills the Steven Adams-shaped hole on the roster better than any other prospect and he should fit right in from day 1 by setting screens for Ja, posting up smaller players and grabbing every single rebound.

While it’s a controversial pick, I’m on board with making a bit on a gifted center with terrific upside instead of playing it safe with a wing that wouldn’t have the same impact. In fact, the Grizzlies drafted two of the best shooters in this class in the second round which justifies taking Edey even more with their first round pick.

I can’t wait for the season to start as I’ll be closely watching Edey and Clingan during their rookie years to see which team got it right with their big man selection. In the meantime we’ve got the Summer League to look forward to which is not too far away.

I’ve neglected a few things in the past few months, including this blog. There’s a very good reason for that though–I became a father to a wonderful little boy. It’s been such an amazing experience that has turned my entire world upside down and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

One thing I’ll admit is that I severely underestimated how little sleep I would get from that point onward–people weren’t kidding–but equally I was surprised to see on how little sleep I could function. It’s incredible how quickly the human body can adapt.

Every day is quite different and I already notice how fast he’s changing. He went from not doing a whole lot to reaching for and grabbing objects and even rolling over. I’m excited to be on this new journey and watch him grow up.

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to attend the AGI Open in Aotearoa New Zealand. This was a big deal since apparently it’s the first time this international design conference is held in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s hosted by the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1952 whose focus is on connecting leaders of the global design industry. I thought I’ll share some takeaways of my favourite speakers before I forget all about it.

Taku Satoh

I wasn’t familiar with Taku Satoh or his work so this was a pleasant surprise. He talked about his design approach which is derived from an ancient Japanese philosophy–hodo hodo. It means just enough in Japanese and aims for design to serve its purpose and nothing more. He believes that doing more than enough is just the designer putting their ego in the way of the solution.

It’s about going back to the essence of objects and their function without any superfluous elements. A surfboard for example fulfils its purpose beautifully. It acts as an extension of the human body and allows you to do pretty remarkable things in the water. It does what it’s supposed to and is designed accordingly.

I was reminded of this lovely quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Stefan Sagmeister

I just love Sagmeister’s work and his latest is no exception. It’s unexpectedly brilliant combined with a great personal story. He’s re-used and modified antique artwork that he inherited from his ancestors to overlay various statistics in an abstract way. By doing so he demonstrates that we’re much better off now than 200 years ago when it comes to things like democracy, child mortality, hunger, homicide, etc.

All of this was captured in a book which unfortunately was sold out by the time I tried to buy one otherwise I would’ve loved a signed copy from the legend himself. But I was still able to get my hands on one online and it’s stunning.

I was reminded of the book Factfulness by Hans Rosling, which I enjoyed a lot so this was right up my alley.

Irene Pereyra

I first heard about Irene Pereyra when I was still on twitter ages ago and followed the other half of this duo–Anton so I was pleasantly surprised to see her in person. Her talk was focused on flipping some common user experience best practices on their head and arguing the opposite such as:

Good UX design

• is usable first beautiful first.
• minimises complexity relocates complexity.
• can be measured can’t be measured.
• doesn’t need to be learned takes effort to learn.

What stood out to me that they don’t do any user testing whatsoever before shipping products which is wild to me. But hey whatever works. She also left us with this gem that just made me nod my head in agreement:

To sell something new, make it familiar, to sell something familiar, make it surprising.