Oliver Reichenstein

I wanted to quickly explain why school kids should learn markdown instead of MS Office, and ended up writing a major Epos on Markdown vs obsolete writing formats:

https://ia.net/topics/markdown-and-the-slow-fade-of-the-formatting-fetish

This is, I kid you not, about 1/6th of what I wrote. I'll publish the rest later.

I wanted to quickly explain why school kids should learn markdown instead of MS Office, and ended up writing a major Epos on Markdown vs obsolete writing formats:

https://ia.net/topics/markdown-and-the-slow-fade-of-the-formatting-fetish

This is, I kid you not, about 1/6th of what I wrote. I'll publish the rest later.

Had a great time giving the talk on Madness and Imagination this morning at Beyond Tellerrand #btconf. Here are the slides (raw unedited). I'm on the way to Berlin right now. Will be back tomorrow. https://sharing.ia.net/presenter/b541d9ee82f24318a025b3a1a2f97d67/view

Madness and Imagination

We all have reason to get mad about how universally ugly, dumb, and badly made things are around us. And while many of us are angry enough to take things into our own hands, unfortunately, making things better is not for everyone. It takes more than frustration, anger, and rage against the machine, it more than money, skill, and brains, to do things differently. It takes imagination.

My topic for this year's Beyond Tellerrand in Düsseldorf. https://beyondtellerrand.com/events/dusseldorf-2026

Back at my favorite topic: "We can fully attend to only one thing at a time. Multitasking is an illusion. Task switching is expensive. To write well, you need to protect your focus. You either write, structure, or format. Avoid doing everything at once. You’ll write better, and enjoy it more." I wrote this almost a year ago. Not sure why I didn't press publish. https://ia.net/topics/separate-writing-and-formatting

Went to check out our pop up in Roppongi.