As countries move ahead despite limited knowledge, whole societies are becoming unwitting test subjects of what works and what they’re willing to give up 🏡
Edition #007
A poster at the Old Masters Picture Gallery, which reopened in Dresden, Germany, this week, reminded visitors to remain two meters apart. © Filip Singer / EPA
Hope and worry arising at the same time while countries reopen. At least 12 countries, including Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and US began easing restrictions.
In Germany, some children returned to schools. Spain kicked off a plan to reach normalcy by June, starting by reopening small stores and hair salons. France is preparing to slowly lift restrictions. And Italians seized on semantics after the prime minister said people could visit their relatives. Israel has reversed restrictions more liberally. “You can leave the house, wherever you want,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelis.
Here are the latest updates and maps of the outbreak.
Remote jobs
Companies with distributed teams and 💯remote jobs without geo-restrictions.
Artwork by Dogie
Bejamas is looking for;
Universe is looking for;
GraphCMS is looking for;
GitBook is looking for;
Process Street is looking for;
💡 Notion Tip: Stay on top of job applications with this template. (Also great for tracking internship apps!) If you don’t have an account, sign up here and get $10 in credits to get started.
Tools
📈 Apple Maps Mobility Trends offering Apple Maps data that may provide insights to health authorities looking for ways to slow the spread of COVID-19. You can use the online tool and search by country, region, or city to see specifics trends for an area.
For example, you can search for “Texas” and see that driving is down by 18% compared to the baseline. You can even see the increase over the last week as states and regions have started implementing their reopening plans.
👩💻 Design Resources For Developers is a curated list of free design & UI resources including stock photos, templates, frameworks, UI Kits, online tools, and much more.
🎬 How to Brand You is a quick and fun quiz that helps you define your brand voice, whether you’re just starting out or refreshing your image.
📲 Remix by Buffer lets you easily and beautifully share your content across every channel. Bring tweets to Instagram. Put your products into Stories. And much more.
💬 Tribe is a powerful, cloud-based community platform, integrated into your product to increase user engagement, drive retention, and boost customer lifetime value.
📊 Datawrapper enriches your stories with interactive & responsive chars, maps, and tables without any code or design skills required. It's free & no sign-up needed.
Articles
Creativity in times of crisis
Adobe Create
Why is great art so often born of suffering? Here’s what the lives of creative luminaries - and the new psychology of post-traumatic growth - can teach us about transforming loss into creative gain.
How to beat loneliness
Ideas TED
We’ve all felt lonely from time to time. But sometimes, things can get out of hand. Psychologist Guy Winch lays out some straightforward tips to deal with the pain of deep loneliness.
Why CO2 isn’t falling more during a global lockdown
E&E News
About 4 billion people around the world are under lockdown to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. Given that huge number, the drop in global greenhouse gases seems almost paltry by comparison.
How to build a second brain for distributed teams
Taskade Blog
According to Yerkes-Dodson Law, productivity is dependant on the level of anxiety we experience during the day. Complex, demanding tasks that require focus are best performed under optimal, stress-free conditions. That means every time you try to multitask, tackle 100-point-long to-do lists or just have too much on your plate, work performance takes a big hit.
We chat, they watch
The Citizen Lab
WeChat is the most popular social media platform in China and third in the world. While the platform dominates the market in China, it also has made efforts to internationalize and attract users globally. Like any other Internet platform operating in China, WeChat is expected to follow rules and regulations from Chinese authorities around prohibited content.
Confirmation bias: believing what you see, seeing what you believe
Ness Labs
A person who thinks women are bad drivers is more likely to notice driving mistakes made by women. A detective who is convinced a suspect is guilty is more likely to pay attention to evidence corroborating their intuition.
Tetris: The Soviet 'mind game' that took over the world
CNN
Like many of history's greatest ideas, Tetris came about quite unintentionally.
COVID-19 on Economy
The biggest hit to the global economy since WW II, the outbreak of pandemic Covid-19 all over the world has disturbed the political, social, economic, religious and financial structures of the whole world.
Map: USA Today
May marks a new phase of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Across the country, retail stores, restaurants, and other businesses are beginning to reopen. According to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, just over half of states had eased their public-health restrictions in one way or another as of the start of this week, with more states to follow soon. The Atlantic reports.
The world is entering a period of high-stakes experimentation, with cities and countries serving as open-air laboratories for how to most safely and effectively reopen amid the coronavirus.
Despite spotty signs that the coronavirus pandemic is easing, the European Commission projected that Europe’s economy will shrink by 7.4 percent this year, the deepest recession in its history.
The economies of Italy and Spain, two of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus, will most likely contract by over 9 percent this year, while Greece, which had started turning a corner after a decade of economic calamity, is expected to be worst hit, shrinking 9.7 percent. Poland would suffer the least, with a 4.5 percent contraction.
Turkey setting shops and malls to reopen, urging to use thermometers, disinfectants, and continued social distancing to keep the public safe.
Seoul, South Korea, closed 2,100+ bars and nightclubs following a new cluster of coronavirus cases.
Norwegian Cruise Line said it might seek bankruptcy protection and warned there is “substantial doubt” about its future as a company.
Google's sister firm Sidewalk Labs has ended its plan to build a smart city in Canada, citing complications caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Airbnb is laying off a quarter of its employees as it braces for a revenue drop to 50% of 2019 levels.
Starbucks expects to open 85% of its U.S. stores by the end of this week.
Neiman Marcus Group filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday, marking one of the highest-profile collapses yet among retailers forced to temporarily close stores in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gap Inc. is planning to reopen up to 800 of its stores by the end of the month.
Apple will reopen a handful of US stores next week.
This week rocks!
Do something special this week.
Artwork by SoozayQ
There are many ways to prepare an egg but the omelette remains a standard. Many chefs have a variant and there are different styles too. The French variant seems especially popular.
The maintainer of this project has especially fond memories of Delia Smith's cookbook and it has a small chapter on how to prepare eggs. There's a video on her omelette as well now though.
Open-source, feel free to collaborate. If you want to commit to this idea, consider reminding yourself via dearme.email.
Useless facts
For looking smart at dinner parties.
🏅 Gold medals haven’t been pure gold in 96 years. The 1912 Olympics was the last time that gold medals were solid gold. Ever since, they’ve been silver with gold plating.
🗣 More people speak English in China than in the United States.
📖 The first novel ever written on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer.
🦇 Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
😑 There used to be a street named after Chuck Norris, but it was changed because nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives.
Let’s play a game
The Evolution of Trust - an interactive guide to the game theory of why & how we trust each other. not one of your usual games, pure brain candy.
What else
Apple to host Worldwide Developers Conference beginning June 22, for the first time virtually in 31 years of its history.
Moderna received FDA approval for a phase 2 trial of its coronavirus vaccine. The company is hoping to start phase 3 this summer.
Dribbble acquires Creative Market, grows to 12M users.
GitHub gets a built-in IDE with Codespaces, discussion forums, and more.
Intel confirmed it's buying Israeli mobility startup Moovit for $900 million.
Google unifies all of its messaging and communication apps into a single team.
Samsung Pay is launching a debit card and new 'mobile money management platform' with SoFi.
Lyft will require face masks for riders and drivers.
So what happens now?
A new Banksy artwork has appeared at Southampton General Hospital.
Our fight with the pandemic will continue. We’ll adapt to the new normal, we always did greatly. That’s it for this edition. Here is some brain music to help you focus on work. See you next week.
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