John Fechtel

203 posts

John Fechtel

John Fechtel

@john__fechtel

Architecture @UF @MIT Product/jack of all trades at @letsgenerate Writing at https://t.co/FpGWqHBIbP and elsewhere

Katılım Mayıs 2020
173 Takip Edilen45 Takipçiler
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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
You can now read my piece in @tnajournal on Apple's virtual reality goggles online and for free! In it, I discuss what the Vision Pro hints at for designers trying to solve the 'interface problem' and what it means for we clumsy humans. thenewatlantis.com/publications/i…
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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
It's hard to summarize things better than this.
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@ElizabethHolmes I might lose it all if I can't measure things.

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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
@adammabry Some recent books I've enjoyed: Non-fiction: Nature and Altering It (Verhey); 1776 (Wilson); Beauty (Scruton) Fiction: The Terror (Simmons); Cold Mountain (Frazier); Piranesi (Clarke)
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Adam Mabry
Adam Mabry@adammabry·
I’m taking a 16 hour drive and need audio book recommendations. Go!
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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
@1000yearhouse I shared this misconception of Gehry for a long time. But the more you read about him, the more you realize that his success was due to the fact that he (or, more accurately, the team and process he assembled) was so relentlessly good at figuring out how to build things.
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1000yearhouse
1000yearhouse@1000yearhouse·
Yes. That’s the distillation. You thing Frank Gehry had an inkling how to build all those twisted gravity defying tectonic messes? Wright was notorious for saying it outright—how-to-do-it was for the engineers.
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@530BruceRoss @1000yearhouse When I design something…..I know how to build it. When I draw a line on paper.….l actually know what that line means.

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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
@duncanreyburn Sometimes the knowledge that I am piloting tons of metal down the road at a high speed comes back to me with a vengeance while I am driving, and I feel a moment of existential terror: why does this exist? I also see cars as a social technology --fechtel.substack.com/p/the-other-sm…
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Duncan Reyburn
Duncan Reyburn@duncanreyburn·
Make of this what you will. None of the earliest inventors and makers of cars thought to themselves, “Here I am, making what’ll turn out to be one of the most deadly murder weapons and body maiming devices known to man.” All the justifications for what they were doing worked in favour of them sticking at it. Now, every day, we get from A to B with the same justifications, placing ideals of freedom, opportunity and convenience at the front of our minds, while suppressing darker possibilities. We refer to car crashes as ‘accidents’ as if making a metaphysical claim that these are peripheral to the ‘essence’ of the car, when they’re really not. A similar thing applies to so much of what we get up to, whether linked to some material invention or something more ideological or political or religious. We think we know what we’re doing most of the time, but all we know is what we intend, not how what we’re doing carries what we don’t intend along with it. We have in mind only a small aspect of what we understand about the any given thing, and we act according to that until chaos manifests and punches us in the face. And even then, when chaos arises, we are prone to fail to acknowledge that what happened was bound up in our own action in the world. The blame is so easily placed elsewhere. Truth is, we don’t know what we’re doing a lot of the time. We act on faith more than we know.
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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
@GShaneMorris It's possible. It's very hard to come away from primary-source accounts of contemporary American life in the 19th century without the thought, "Hey, maybe those Temperance folks had a point..."
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Shane Morris
Shane Morris@GShaneMorris·
It would be interesting to do a historical deep dive on what exactly went on in America that convinced so many people of this historically bizarre view. Rampant abuse of distilled spirits on the frontier, perhaps?
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John Fechtel retweetledi
Nabeel S. Qureshi
Nabeel S. Qureshi@nabeelqu·
You're not imagining things—the Greeks and Trojans really are at war. • The rage you're sensing? It's real. It belongs to Achilles, and honestly, it's going to be a problem for *everyone*. • Achilles's anger is not a metaphor—it's a body count. So yeah—sing, Muse. 👀
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Matthew Loftus
Matthew Loftus@matthew_loftus·
More than ever I wish a few dozen of us could defect en masse to a different site.
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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
Insider trading on war and mention markets is only beginning to be a problem. Critically, the activity also fails to contribute meaningfully to the "truth-discovery" mechanism of prediction markets, because the payday is higher if no one else knows the truth!
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Some war related insider trading? A brand new account in polymarket, only invested in US going to war with Venezuela and Maduro out by January 31. Up 13k so far, was spending thousands on Maduro out at bargain prices as recently as 4 hours ago. Now it’s at .50.

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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
Digitizing old newspapers is incredibly worthwhile, but if you've read any, you'll find that "fever dream hot takes, drive-by TLDR comments, single minded bifurcated polarized agendas" were commonplace, everyday, and one of the reasons these papers sold well.
Brian Roemmele@BrianRoemmele

Do you know that 1000s of local newspapers have NEVER been digitized? Do you know there are 100s and 1000s of extremely well written stories that have historic value, that have never been digitally saved? Do you know that these stories, these journalists and these editors built very High Protein data because IT COST MONEY to print each word and it cost INTEGRITY to get things wrong? Do you know that at one time there were 100s of 1000s of local journalists and editors all that had to face their families and communities when they wrote each word? Do you know that fever dream hot takes, drive-by TLDR comments, single minded bifurcated polarized agendas were mostly not tolerated by most local newspapers and thusly had a better insight into contemporaneous events? Do you know that our honest history, science and technology was in those newspapers? Do you know that sometimes the ONLY account of this past is a single microfilm or microfiche from a library archive? Do you know that from 1977-2003 millions of these microfilm or microfiche were sent to the dumpster? Do you know that in 2025 this curated data is not just absolutely relevant for AI training but for the ability for humanity to know the past and to not be doomed to… Repeating the past mistakes… Over and over again. This is what I knew for decades. Do you now know why this is vitally important to save now, as the last of these archives are gone—forever? Do you now know ONE reason I say that it is vital that AI be trained on the can-do era of do-it-yourself mindset of the 1870s-1970s and not in “it cost me nothing to post” Internet Sewage by basement dwellers of Reddit and Wikipedia hidden behind screens with no code and no one to face for what they type? I am now very sorry because knowing this, what I have known for so many decades… It weighs heavy.

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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
@emlwaters This language around IVF is very coercive: "Am I doing everything as a parent to give my child the best start in life?" and "the patient needs to choose," not to mention the description of this as preventative. It foregrounds a future when not using this service is unthinkable:
John Fechtel tweet media
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Emma Waters
Emma Waters@emlwaters·
I didn’t go to business school, but it seems to me that a company that taps into a parents’ deepest fears and sells them a product of PREDICTED health outcomes that can’t be validated for 1-85 years is a rather lucrative gig. 🤨 Warning: many human embryos will be discarded.
Kian Sadeghi@KianSadeghi5

IVF+ is reimagining what IVF can be — combining the highest quality clinical care, empathy, and advanced genetic insights into a unified experience. Through partners like CdelaF, Nucleus is bringing this IVF care to families around the world.

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John Fechtel
John Fechtel@john__fechtel·
@nwilliams030 I'm excited to read along with this. I called it the third act of work (oikos is cooler), but I've been thinking a lot about the promise (and peril) of the return of production to the home, most recently in @Plough: plough.com/en/topics/life…
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nicole ruiz
nicole ruiz@nwilliams030·
What do Starlink, the trad wife, and Marshall Mcluhan have in common? Introducing the Third Oikos, a new series about how technology is reshaping the household. thethirdoikos.substack.com
nicole ruiz tweet media
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