Noah Iliinsky – most-esteemed information visualization expert, speaker and author – joins us to discuss Maureen F. McHugh's China Mountain Zhang. We talk about what matters, heavy furniture, sensible defaults, the burdens created by unnecessarily "innovative" design, pace layering, humans as instruments, and the double diamond bike.

Show notes:

• Buy Noah's books!
• Noah's very excellent Guaranteed Successful Design presentation: 5-minute version, 45-minute version
• Noah's unassailable guidance on using a dishwasher
• Pace Layers from Stuart Brand
• The Double Diamond bike frame
• Work on Stuff That Matters by Tim O'Reilly
• Jared Rusten – my woodworker of choice

Next month, Matt Price will be on to talk about Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

New Secret School album! Enough? Remixes on Apple Music and Spotify.

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Produced by Jed Sundwall. Write to jed at techsontexts.net with feedback and suggestions for books or guests.

Intro music by Secret School.

Outro music is "3/10th of the Population" by WE™.

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