📚 To park or not to park? A history of the world in 6 glasses, GenZ slang cheat sheet, 50 Years of travel tips, How to ask the right questions
Prophet of parking, The Wild Robot, Use art to turn the world inside out
Hello, this is post #199.
Today's selection covers a rich mix of themes—business history, deep thinking, city planning, product design, history, books, culture, language, travel, movies, art, typography, and Japan. About 10 pieces of content, each offering something unique.
Format-wise, expect a couple of longform essays, a book recommendation, an interview, a project presentation, a picture gallery, a TED talk, and a deep dive into an archive with an expert. I didn’t have to go out of my way to make this interesting—I've simply been lucky to follow incredible writers, curators, and publishers who bring this variety to my feed every day.
My role? Picking the most intriguing, thought-provoking pieces and packaging them into Stay Curious. I couldn't have asked for a better passion project.
If something here sparks your interest, share it with someone who’d appreciate it too!
And with that out of the way, here’s a brief outline of today’s post:
And now to today's features…
☎️ How to Ask the Right Questions
I’ve been deep into exploratory ideas lately, and most days, I feel more like a researcher than anything else. I keep coming back to two big questions:
Am I focusing on the right problems?
How do I ensure my solutions get picked up by the right stakeholders so we can turn them into real results?
Figuring out the right questions has been a challenge, and I’m still working through it.
In this state of mind, “How did places like Bell Labs know how to ask the right questions?” felt like a godsend.
does a fantastic job exploring what made Bell Labs one of the most successful research organizations in modern science and technology.Their challenge was finding the perfect balance, the Goldilocks zone, between applied and basic research. Here’s how Gilliam describes the topic:
Applied research is meant to be research with immediate applications in mind. But, of course, applied research could stumble upon something that leads to a fundamental insight. Basic research is meant to be curiosity-driven research without immediate applications in mind. But, of course, it could quickly lead to a killer application.
In the universe of possible courses of research, there exist many questions that, in the end, will satisfy the spirit of both applied and basic research.
The natural follow-up question is: is finding this subset of golden problems really feasible?
Here’s a quick snapshot of Gilliam’s finding:
He shares plenty of useful snippets and examples to illustrate his points. While the discussion is rooted in a ‘lab research’ context, I found valuable ideas on how to apply them to my own work. If you're working on projects that demand long-term investment with a high risk of failure, this is definitely worth a read.
🅿️ To Park or Not to Park?
Nikki Sylianteng racked up more parking tickets than she could tolerate, and she blamed the confusing parking signs. But instead of just complaining, she took matters into her own hands. Using her design skills, she created a clearer solution and put it out into the world. Her idea took off, evolving and spreading through the power of collective problem-solving.
Her story is a great reminder that the best solutions often start with personal frustration. This presentation “To park or not to park” delivers a clear and engaging summary in just 15 minutes. Definitely worth your time!
(via Gapingvoid)
🚗 The Prophet of Parking
And if this topic of “Parking” piques your interest,
recently published a eulogy for the great Donald Shoup - The Prophet of Parking. A leading expert on parking policies, Prof. Shoup had a profound influence on the political economy of parking and urban planning.Here are a couple of standout snippets from the essay:
On problems with curb parking
The result was a classic ‘tragedy of the commons’ situation: When a good is unpriced, we naturally overconsume it. In pure economics terms, the demand for a good at a price of zero nearly always exceeds the supply, resulting in scarcity. Hence, the ‘tragedy.’ In the case of curb parking, unpriced curbs rapidly fill up with cars whose drivers have no incentive to free up space. Thus, the state of a typical residential street: a travel lane or two framed by two parking lanes lined with cars that rarely move.
The Idea of parking benefits district
His solution to this political problem would end up being his greatest contribution: parking benefits districts. If you take curb parking revenue and invest it in conspicuous local improvements, such as street trees, repaved sidewalks, or regular street sweeping, locals will not only support pricing curb parking—they will often demand it. Once a parking benefits district is established, the politics of pricing curb parking will be secure, and planners can remove minimum off-street parking requirements without fear of backlash.
☕ A History of the World in 6 Glasses
If you're hunting for your next nonfiction read, give “A history of the world in 6 glasses” by Tom Standage a shot. I picked it up last week and couldn’t put it down. He masterfully walks us through the history and impact of six game-changing beverages—beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Each has played a pivotal role in shaping human civilization, and Tom’s research and storytelling make their journey fascinating.
It’s a fresh take, brilliantly executed. I was hooked, excited by every new revelation. These drinks have influenced culture and society far more than we realize. Read or listen to the book—you’ll see what I mean.
Highly recommended (those around me already know I’ve been pushing this book on everyone since I picked it up).
Here’s a sample from the chapters on tea.
Tea also had a more visible economic impact. As the size and value of the Chinese trade in tea grew during the seventh century, the tea merchants of Fujian, who were required to handle large sums of money, pioneered the use of a new invention: paper money. Tea itself, in the form of bricks, also came into use as a currency. It was ideally suited to the purpose, providing a light and compact store of value that could also be consumed if necessary. Paper money had the drawback that its value diminished the farther it was taken from the imperial center, whereas tea actually increased in value in remote areas. Brick tea remained in use as a currency in some parts of central Asia into modern times.
(via Founding Fuel)
🤟 GenZ Slang Cheat Sheet
If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, chances are Gen Z and Gen Alpha feel like a mystery to you. Their world is different, and we only get glimpses of it. From their life choices to fashion to slang, most of it feels completely foreign. Here’s a cheat sheet to help decode some of their popular phrases. Most of them sound absurd to my so-called "mature" ears, but this list had a few that I could at least guess (relating to them is another story entirely).
Deadass: Seriously. Used like, "I am deadass not lying."
Delulu: Delusional.
Doomer: A person who is overly negative and/or cynical.
Drip: A fashionable or stylish look.
A couple of them really stood out and will probably stay etched in my memory for a while…
Fax, no printer: Telling the truth, since "fax and "facts" are pronounced the same. It's a colorful way of saying "facts, no cap."
"Press F for respect:" In 2014 video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfighter, the player attends a funeral and a prompt is given that reads "Press F to pay respects." Now, a singular "F" in a chat window indicates respect. It's usually ironic.
It’s a somewhat curated list that offers a glimpse into what this generation values and talks about. Fun read nonetheless. I’d file this under the "Good to Know" category.
(via Sunday Snippets)
🧳 50 Years of Travel Tips
Kevin Kelly shares the best advice from his 50 years of travel tips — simple, practical, and focused on the essentials rather than the fancy stuff. But the one thing I loved most? It wasn’t even listed as a tip.
There are two modes of travel; retreat or engage. People often travel to escape the routines of work, to recharge, relax, reinvigorate, and replenish themselves— R&R. In this mode you travel to remove yourself from your routines, or to get the pampering and attention you don’t ordinarily get, and ideally to do fun things instead of work things. So you travel to where it is easy. This is called a vacation, or R&R.
The other mode is engagement and experience, or E&E. In this mode you travel to discover new things, to have new experiences, to lean into an adventure whose outcome is not certain, to meet otherness. You move to find yourself by encountering pleasures and challenges you don’t encounter at home. This kind of travel is a type of learning, and of the two modes, it is the one I favor in these tips.
And here’s my favorite ‘tip’. It brings so much peace and comfort, no matter what surprises come your way.
The most significant criteria to use when selecting travel companions is: do they complain or not, even when complaints are justified? No complaining! Complaints are for the debriefing afterwards when travel is over.
🤖 The Wild Robot
The Wild Robot is easily one of the best movies I’ve watched in the past year. Lately, there’s been a real drought of great films—both for grown-ups and families. In that dry spell, this one was a refreshing surprise. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie with such a strong story, full of emotional depth that you truly feel. We watched it in 4DX, which added to the experience (though only slightly).
In a recent interview, director Chris Sanders breaks down what went into making this film a visual spectacle. He dives deep into the art, voiceovers, and storytelling, but what stands out the most is the sheer passion behind the project. Here’s how Kottke describes the magic of what Chris & team delivered…
At first the robot was computer-generated but gets more and more hand-painted throughout the film. "She literally begins to fuse with the island as she adapts and becomes a resident."
The interview also offers a peek into the process, and a few details genuinely shocked me. I never would have imagined them in my wildest dreams.
On how they optimize efforts in art department
I actually learned about this while we were making Aladdin. I was in the Ink & Paint department. Someone came in and said, “Okay, we’re going to have to lose three colors off of Jasmine!” They said, literally, “We will miss our deadline for the film by four weeks if we don’t take three colors off of Jasmine.” She had maybe 15 different-colored lines, and they had to maybe take it down to ten.
On voiceovers
There is this tired trope that actors like to do animated films because they can show up to recording sessions in their pajamas. And it’s a lot more work than that, both emotionally and physically. Lupita would go into a recording session and she would work four hours nonstop. And because of the number of takes, the number of iterations, by the end of the session she would be almost voiceless. So physically, it’s very demanding. And Lupita, in particular, had the largest task of any of our voices because Roz has no facial articulation save for her lenses. That was something that I insisted upon. I think that robots work best when they don’t have a lot of articulation on their faces. We, as an audience, tend to project emotions onto things, and I think the only robot with facial articulation that was truly effective was the robot from The Iron Giant.
A great movie and a great interview - just go for it.
(via Kottke)
✨ Everything else
Philipp Weber is a figurative oil painter with an uncanny ability to capture human faces and emotions in stunning detail. His work is so lifelike that, at first glance, you’d mistake it for a photograph. (via Dense Discovery)
Use art to turn the world inside out. I felt a warmth inside after watching this talk. I'm not usually into TED Talks, but this one definitely gets a big thumbs up from me! (via Dense Discovery again)
Designer and educator Angie Wang deciphers a collection of over 500 Chopstick Sleeves to tell us some beautiful stories about Japanese Typography and Culture. (via Arun Venkatesan)
ICYMI…
Home is a Cup of Tea is my favorite from last week. No piece of writing has given me such joy. If you have not read it yet, here’s a quick link to the post:
That's all for this week, folks!
I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.
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Definitely needed that Gen-Z slang cheat sheet 😅