Design Tomorrow – Details, episodes & analysis

Can we really call it progress when it creates so much waste? What if your phone — the one you’re using right now — was your last phone? Take a good look at it and imagine using it for the rest of your life. Could it even last that long? Could you? Probably not. Today I want to think about what that means. What happens to a planet and its people when technological progress is measured in product cycles. And what happens when there's no balance sheet to account for the other side of that — when every new product leaves billions of products and accessories and packaging behind…

Show Notes

• My first cellphone
• My second cellphone
• This clip ended up on the cutting room floor, but here's Derek Zoolander's tiny phone
• You can learn more about the Agbogbloshie landfill by reading its Wikipedia page, looking at these photographs, or watching this documentary. Please watch it!
• You can learn more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch here.
• "The Victims of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a clip from 60 Minutes
• Project Ara Demo at Google IO 2015
• Google Cancels Project Ara
• The Fairphone
• Danny Boyle interviewed by Marc Maron

Music

All music used in this episode was independently produced by r beny and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Felt
• Fall Creek Unit
• Formation Process
• Novation Peak
• Mariposa
• Alluvial
• Natoma
• Spindle
• Illumination Ceremony

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC.

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every discussion of entrepreneurship is really a discussion about values. Today, we'll follow up on last week's episode, where we began a discussion of entrepreneurship by resetting that idea — by challenging the story of entrepreneurship. We contrasted the protagonist — the hero CEO — with the reality of who we are. And we contrasted the plot — the capitalistic, meritocratic variant of the hero's journey — with the meandering serendipity of our lives' paths. But dismantling one story doesn't write ours for us. And so that's where we'll pick up today — with how we begin — by identifying, examining, and ordering our values so that they may serve as a foundation for the creative and productive lives we build upon them…

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Di Breun, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Drip Hop Modular Beats, by r beny
• Oriel, by Blue Dot Sessions
• The Snowgard, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Crosswire, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Li Fonte, by Blue Dot Sessions
• E2 Ambient X, by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC.

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When so many problems of existence remain unsolved, we haven't earned the luxury of smartphones. So this is an intervention. A challenge to the status quo of waste and distraction and triviality and short-term pile-on that is our way of life here in 2019...

Links

• "Give it a second! It's going to space!"
• "not just actual attention but the promise of future, fictional, vaporous attention" - Dan Hon
• Flint, Michigan still doesn't have clean water
• Bill Gates made a machine that turns feces into drinkable water
• It’s In the Bag! Teenager Wins Science Fair, Solves Massive Environmental Problem

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Invicta, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Bloom, by r beny
• Electribe 2 Meets System 1, by r beny
• 4-Track Cassette Drone, by r beny
• Comma, by Blue Dot Sessions

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC.

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is it about robots that compels us to create them? And what does it say about a culture that makes machine surrogates despite not having reached a consensus about why to make them in the first place? In this episode, we'll explore the robots taking over our world, and the agenda behind them...

Links

• hitchBOT
• the definition of "robot" from Google and Wikipedia
• a drumming robot
• a spring-making robot
• oh, the many uses of springs
• Uber's first self-driven truck delivery was a beer run.
• Amazon's newest ambition: competing directly with UPS and FedEx
• The permanent transition
• The three laws of robotics
• The One Thing Real Quick Podcast
• "How to Keep Yourself Sane in Faketopia"

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Inside the Toy Submarine, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Rotary Cog, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Bloom, by r beny
• Novation Peak Ambient II, by r beny
• Her Caliber, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Exquisite Motion, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Rainy Day Drone, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Tiny Bottles, by Blue Dot Sessions
• The Dustbin, by Blue Dot Sessions

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are our ideas worth? Are they as valuable as we think they are? And what might change about how we act on our ideas once we start thinking differently about how we value them and how unique they really are? In this episode, we'll explore how simultaneous ideas and discoveries throughout history show that ideas and minds probably work differently than we think...

Links

• The Discovery of Endorphins
• Who invented Electricity?
• List of multiple discoveries
• The Theory of Multiples
• Dueling Movies are a real thing
• This episode is based upon an article I wrote in 2015 called "What is an idea worth?"

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Ultraviolet Clouds Clone, by by r beny
• Bloom, by r beny
• Flashing Runner, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Canopy, by r beny
• Passing Station, by Blue Dot Sessions
• E2 Ambient X , by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC.

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

They say that practice makes perfect. I'll settle for "practice makes good," thank you very much! In this episode of Design Tomorrow, we'll explore what it means to practice - what there is in repetition that can help us to get better. Not just at what we do, but also at who we are.

Links

• My drawing professor, Alfred Decredico.
• Balancing Data with Intuition, by Jon Yablonski
• The Way to Make Good Things is to Make Many Things, by Chris Butler

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Arctic Draba, by Blue Dot Sessions
• But Enough About Me Bill Paxton, by Chris Zabriskie
• Illumination Ritual, by r beny
• Drift & Divide, by r beny
• Cold Summers, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Volca FM Meets PO, by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC.

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are very few people left on Earth for whom the world isn't shaped by computers or seen through their screens. But does it have to be this way? In this episode, we'll explore how screens — and the images they reveal — are just as much a manifestation of the world from which they come as they are the raw materials of a story about the next one: the future...

Links

• The IBM Portable PC 5155
• Blade Runner - Opening Scene
• Human Progress Landscape, the not-so-good student animation I made in 2003, but for which I still retain some fondness
• The machine I used to make it: the Sony VAIO Digital Studio
• Jony Ive's magical voice for Apple marketing
• you may have noticed some sound from the Tron Lightbike Scene
• The Matrix "What is Real?" scene
• keen listeners and sci-fi aficionados will have noticed sounds from the Nostromo boot sequence in Alien
• you may have also noticed some sound from The Lawnmower Man's disconnecting scene
• What Technology Wants, by Kevin Kelly
• The last clip you heard came from WarGames - The WOPR introduction scene

Music

With the exception of a brief sample from a live performance of Kraftwerk in 1978, all music used in this episode was independently produced and shared with Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use by Able Parris of kamuter.

• Stratosfear, by kamuter
• Discovery, by kamuter
• the robots (live), by Kraftwerk
• Frequency, by kamuter
• Terraform, by kamuter
• Interrogation, by kamuter

Some of My Favorite Independent Media

• Robin Sloan is a writer and self-styled media inventor who constantly inspires me by independently producing short stories and "odd-shaped internet projects." His latest workspace is called Year of the Meteor, where he's writing a regular newsletter and producing some interesting zine-like media. Robin and his partner Kathryn Tomajan also independently produce California extra virgin olive oil under the label: Fat Gold
• Desert Oracle is a pocket-sized field guide (and radio show) to the fascinating American deserts: strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros! Independently produced by Ken Layne.
• Mysterious Universe is my favorite podcast about the weird, the strange, the paranormal, and the metaphysical independently produced for over a decade in Sydney, Australia. You can support them by listening and becoming a member of their Plus Club.
• Logic Magazine is a print magazine about technology that publishes three times per year and maintains an intentionally small digital footprint.
• Hurry Slowly is a podcast about how you can be more productive, creative, and resilient through the simple act of slowing down.
• Aquarium Drunkard is an eclectic audio journal focused on daily reviews, interviews, features, podcasts and sessions.

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As long as we've been self-aware, we've desired companionship. And yet, we are not enough for one another; we hunger for something more - something that folklore, imaginary friends, and now technology have attempted to satisfy. Today, we stand at a crossroads beyond which is a future full of artificial lives. What kinds of minds will we create for ourselves? And what kind of future will those minds make for us?

Links

• "The Measure of a Man," Season 2, Episode 9 of Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Her
• "Be Right Back," Season 2, Episode 1 of Black Mirror
• THX 1138
• The confession scene in THX 1138
• "When her best friend died, she rebuilt him using artificial intelligence."
• The tablets on Star Trek: The Next Generation were called PADDs
• ...and there were a lot of them

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• MD by r beny
• But Enough About Me, Bill Paxton, by Chris Zabriskie
• Cities Sleep Like Seeds by r beny
• The Sea's Sullen Green by r beny
• Empty Grinds by r beny
• Glisten by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC.

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The more time passes, the faster it feels it's moving. It's an illusion, of course, but does that really matter? If you feel like it's moving faster, it might as well be. The shrinkiness of time is part of the human condition. But the secret you may not know is that you can slow it down. You can get your time back. Here are eight ways...

Links

• "Life is Short," by Paul Graham
• The boiling frog phenomenon\
• My preferred notebook
• Deep Work, by Cal Newport

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Morning Colorwheel, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Machination, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Our Digital Compass, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Basin, by r beny
• Ecrins Eurorack Ambient, by r beny
• Cold Summers, by Blue Dot Sessions
• Full Blossom of the Evening, by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC.

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Progress is something we all try to work toward, but how do we really know if we're making any? And if progress isn’t permanent, is it progress at all? In this episode, we'll explore progress and the ways that certain forms of it actually trap us in the past...

Links

• Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress
• Interview with Ronald Wright, "What is Progress"

Music

All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.

• Early Renaissance Music, Shakespear's Time
• Western Sycamore, by r beny
• Our Digital Compass, by Blue Dot Sessions
• String Theory, by r beny
• Traditional Polynesian Music, The Culture Society
• Burl, by r beny
• June 12, 2014, by r beny
• Dulcinea Eurotrack Modular Ambient, by r beny

Credits

Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC.

You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.

Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.