I grudgingly accept perceived obsolescence as a consumer choice, but planned obsolescence feels morally wrong. My dad was always loyal to Craftsman tools expressly because of their lifetime guarantee--no haggling, no receipt; just a promise to build high-quality products that work for as long as you own them. My Philips alarm clock is from 1993, my Krups toaster oven is from 1998, and my 2005 first-generation iPod nano still bumps "My Humps". From both a financial and environmental perspective, I love to support brands that build heritage products with planned permanence, and look for opportunities to incorporate that ethic in my own work.

It's easy to see the influence of thick description methods on modern UX, design strategy, and systems thinking work. In Clifford Geertz's most famous essay, “Deep Play: Notes On The Balinese Cockfight” he describes “deep” vs. “shallow” cockfighting matches. “Shallow matches” are fought for money and amusement, while “deep matches” are fought for honor and glory.

Geertz's expansion on the nuances of “deep matches” is particularly applicable to human-centered design research. In a nutshell: 
 * The more evenly stacked a match is between human rivals of equal excellence, the deeper the match between their cocks.
 * And the deeper the match, the more excellent and also equally matched are the cocks that the human rivals choose to send into battle
 * But when emotion and general stakes begin to run too high, money matters less, honor matters more--and the match can slip from a state of Deep Play to meta-social commentary with actual (occasionally murderous) consequences.

That’s a pretty good analogy for “picking your battles” in any setting. If all participants are assumed to be excellent equals, then all ideas are also equally excellent and there is a greater flurry of discussion and perceived importance (”honor”) in the winning idea (“cock”). But it’s important to stay in the realm of Deep Play and not get too carried away. The Balinese usually just eat the losers. No big deal.

There are too many conflicting opinions on the benefits, dangers, and potential pretentiousness of standing desks to recommend them for everybody, but I switched in 2012 and haven't looked back. It suits my preference for movement, and lets me pretend I'm getting some passive exercise. When I was first searching, there weren’t many commercial options, and I went down quite a rabbit hole before remembering something from my Midwestern childhood: every garage & basement puttering space in The Flyover States has a horizontal surface on which to work-while-standing: we called them workbenches. I love mine, and paired it with a classic shop stool with adjustable legs for lazy days.

Frida y Diego's complex and fertile partnership was beautifully expressed in the home that they shared. Built by Juan O'Gorman in 1931, the compound consisted of two independent live/work spaces, joined at the very highest level by a small bridge.

Vamos a construir dos casas de lado a lado:
una casa de fuego para sus preguntas;
una casa de agua para mi paciencia.
El puente siempre está extendido:
al salida del sol, buscarás por mi calma;
al puesta del sol, voy a buscar por tu sensación.
Vamos a compartir el puente, y el jardín, y todo el aire.

We got off to a bad start with hatchbacks in the U.S., but Americans are starting to move past that bias. I've always been a fan--and probably for the same reason older generations weren't keen on them. For Boomers and early Gen X, hatchbacks represented the required thrift and efficiency of the 70s-era energy crisis and the 80s-era recession. For later Gen X and Millennials, hatchbacks represent agility and efficiency as a positive reflection of new social attitudes about environmental responsibility.

Maybe we should go back to calling them Kammbacks.