Life

via Jules she/her (@afewbugs@social.coop): I did this through https://ivsgb.org/ who are still going by the way, and I highly recommend the experience - spend a few weeks to a few months living and working with a bunch of other young people from all over the world, doing something useful. I probably learned more about being a human in a diverse world from this experience than I did from my subsequent four years as an undergrad.

International Voluntary Service is a UK charity, founded in 1931 as the British branch of Service Civil International, that places volunteers on community projects worldwide. Its listings range from short-term workcamps of a few weeks to long-term placements of up to a year, with a solidarity fund to help volunteers who couldn’t otherwise afford to participate.

via Assaf 🌴 (@assaf@mas.to): Ephemeral is fine. We used the sleep app for about four months. Our son sleeps through the night now, so we retired it. If the app had taken me months to build, that might sting. Because it took a week, I’m just glad it worked when we needed it.

Adam Waxman picks up Robin Sloan’s “an app can be a home-cooked meal” thread and shows what it looks like in 2026: a sleep tracker built from his consultant’s PDF, a fitness app that sizes his morning smoothie to that day’s run, a marathon plan derived from his actual race data. With AI assistance, software written for an audience of one (or four) is now a weekend project instead of a career.

This rings very true for me.

via Nando161 (@nando161@partyon.xyz): Attached: 1 video

A short Mastodon post riffing on the Dunning-Kruger effect from the other direction: the more expertise you accumulate, the more acutely you notice everyone else’s gaps. A pithy reminder to stay humble about what you think you know — and charitable about what others don’t.

Also, a rather hilarious video about shoe sizes and how they differ across the world

via JA Westenberg (@Daojoan@mastodon.social): Stop trying to build for “the algorithm.”

JA Westenberg lays out five rules for making work that actually lands with people instead of blending into the noise. It’s a short, opinionated read about caring enough to be specific, taking a real position, and accepting that work worth remembering won’t please everyone.

InsureMyTrip is a comparison marketplace for travel insurance, letting you quote and compare comprehensive, medical, cruise, and annual plans from multiple providers side by side. Recommended by Serán and Wanda as a good starting point when figuring out coverage for an upcoming trip.

Washington State made transit fare-free for everyone 18 and under in 2021, and the results are striking: nearly 15 million youth trips in 2023, plus another 1.5 million on the ferries. Agencies paired the free fares with outreach — classroom visits, field trips, and bus-riding lessons — so kids actually knew how to use the system.

via Matt Weagle (@mweagle@hachyderm.io): “Mmmmmmmm, others. The ones who have always stood a little bit outside the system. Who could never quite adjust themselves to the right configuration to fit into the workings. Who have always felt a bit out of place. Who look at the systems, all of them, and wonder, Is this really the best we can do? “

Annie Mueller on how the systems we build to serve a goal eventually grow into mutant beasts whose only real purpose is their own survival — until the people no longer serve the goal, they serve the system. The sharpest part is her taxonomy of how people react when a system is threatened: those who can’t see the system as a system fight for it as if reality itself were crumbling, while those who recognize it as a structure imposed on reality are the only ones with the power to change it.

A short segment near the end of Tim Ferriss’s conversation with Craig Foster (of My Octopus Teacher) about how to approach debates on contentious political issues. The advice — lead with genuine curiosity rather than the intent to win — applies just as well to technical disagreements as political ones.

An episode of Adam Grant’s ReThinking (via the WorkLife feed) featuring Denise Hamilton on revising the stories we hold dear — the narratives we tell ourselves about our work, our teams, and each other. A good reminder that the beliefs we’re most attached to are often the ones most worth re-examining.

via Andrew Lokenauth (@FluentInFinance@mastodon.social): The wealthy avoid taxes using the “Buy-Borrow-Die” strategy:

Andrew Lokenauth walks through the “Buy-Borrow-Die” strategy: the wealthy hold appreciating assets, borrow against them at low rates instead of selling (avoiding capital gains), and pass the assets on with a stepped-up basis so the gains are never taxed. A concise explanation of a tax loophole that’s hiding in plain sight.

Rainn Wilson on WorkLife with Adam Grant: The Office’s Rainn Wilson on meaning and happiness

via mako: A great read to start the Monday with.

This.

via Tim Ferriss podcast (shoot, can’t find the episode link now):

Great episode in general, but I especially loved the part in which Kornfield quotes from an Indian master named Atisha:

JB Pritzker’s recent commencement speech at Northwestern says a lot of beautiful things I wish I had said so succinctly.

Shawn Blanc: Two types of overwhelm …

“Valerie Kaur is a Sikh religious leader, civil rights lawyer, activist, damn near prophet of our times … A core message of her book is that a stranger is a part of myself that I do not yet know.” (emphasis mine)

Mic drop quote: “We will choose belonging at the expense of our values — our stated values — in many circumstances.”

Shawn Blanc: You have six areas of life