Unrequired Reading, 003

Tools over problems I've been thinking this week about how addictive it is with these new tools to be able to build things without so much of the friction. The danger of that is falling in love with the effort and interactions over solving the problem. This is partly because of Karl Koch's piece on falling in love with the build, which is about the dangerous little pleasure of making something nice and then trying to find a reason for it afterwards. It is aimed at design engineers, but it applies neatly to almost anything creative. Just look at this website, it's exactly that level of over-engineered. Reading I read the comedic Sir Ernest Shackleton's Journal Entriesfrom the Week He Stayed Home with His Sick Kids, which is exactly as stupid and well-aimed as the title suggests. It takes the language of heroic polar endurance and points it at the much greater trial of being trapped indoors with ill children. Hands bandaged, arse bedeviled, writing difficult... I write this from the…