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This newsletter is called Cultural Patterns because culture sits at the core of my approach to planning. Why the name? Culture is constantly changing, but patterns emerge when similar changes happen across different spheres of culture, indicating a more profound change in the values, needs and systemic structures of society. Today I wanted to share with you simple steps to identify cultural patterns and show you how it helps my strategic thinking.

When I go for a walk with my little dog Cookie (who would rather be called “Brutus” or anything more macho than “Cookie”) and we meet a dog he hasn’t met before, he begins barking ferociously. But if I then dare to take him off the leash, so he is free to approach the other, his mood begins to change. He seems to alternate between an aggressive posture and the submissive play posture (called the play bow) that characterizes canids generally, in which he lowers his front end while arching his neck upward.

It’s wild garlic season!! The time when British woodlands are overgrown with these floppy green leaves. Even in London, you can find patches of it in some parks - my local spot to forage it is Crystal Palace Park, in the wooded area alongside Crystal Palace Park Road, heading down towards Penge. You can buy it from retailers like Natoora, available from sites like Ocado and Waitrose, but it can get pricey, and it is FREE when you go and pick it yourself.

When I think of who the most impressive person I know is, Sierra Lundy comes first to mind. There are so many points I could raise to back this up (like when she casually qualified for the Boston Marathon the other week after running her first marathon, entirely on her own), and I’ve actually been quite intimidated at the thought of writing this intro. How can I possibly convey just how wonderful, bright, strange, creative, and striking this person is?

🎧 Episode #24! I am joined by the Gen-Z programmer, shape rotator, shitpoaster, and memelord known as ‘Roon’. You can follow him @TSZZL on twitter dot com. Listen as we discuss the scarcity mindset, anonymous posting, wretched Economics, machine learning, bitcoin, billionaires, and much more. Roon answers questions like: How has COVID-19 altered the trajectory of your life? What is so dangerous about the study of Economics? What’s the best shape you’ve ever rotated?

Hi there! If you find the newsletter content valuable, I would really (really!) appreciate it if you could share the newsletter with your network. It’s easy - You can click here to tweet about it. If you stumbled across this directly, you can find the previous editions here and subscribe to receive a weekly copy in your mailbox! The website serves as a platform for users (mostly developers and programmers) to ask and answer questions, and, through membership and active participation, to vote questions and answers up or down and edit questions and answers in a fashion similar to a wiki or Reddit.

Welcome to the next episode of Unruly Figures—I’m really excited to be covering Yasuke, the first (known) Black samurai. His story tells us so much about feudal Japan and I think it’s a particularly fascinating story about how cultures collide and adapt to each other across time. Enjoy! Share Hey everyone, welcome to Unruly Figures, the podcast that celebrates history’s greatest rule-breakers. I’m your host, Valorie Clark, and today I’m going to be covering Yasuke, an African man who made his way to Japan and carved out a fascinating life for himself there.

Harvey Penick, quoted here, wrote a classic book about learning to play golf. Coaches from other sports tell their players the same thing. To “play within yourself” means to exert yourself only to the extent that you remain within your capabilities. In other words, know your limits and play right up to edge, but not over the edge. In 2017, we should have taken this advice. Very early, our advisor Ned (referred to first in Substack #7) warned us never to plant more than six acres of vines in any given year.

The Shop: The Word Is Change Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn: 368 Tompkins Avenue Fresh shop alert: The Word is Change is the newest bookstore in Brooklyn! Don’t let the awning for the space’s former tenants fool you, this spot is no longer selling real estate– unless you count real estate of the mind. The Word is Change features new and used books with a pretty wide selection that seems perfectly pitched for Bed-Stuy hipsters.