Trying a new format—hope you like it 🙏

My five favourite product and tech finds from around the web this week.

Let's get stuck in:

#1 Is Your Smartphone Killing You? 🤳

We know that the blue light emitted from our smartphones and other digital devices disrupts our sleep, but have any of us considered how bad it could really be for us?

Staying just the right side of scaremongering, this lengthy article digs into some of the research and data behind the health impact of LEDs.

Scary stuff 😱

https://www.sevarg.net/2023/02/11/how-your-leds-are-killing-you/

#2 A Solo Developer's Tribute to the 5th Element 🚕

Remember Sega’s 1990s arcade classic Crazy Taxi? What about Luc Besson’s bonkers sci-fi masterpiece The Fifth Element? Ever thought about what a video game that mixed the two could be like?

Canadian computer programmer Cassius John-Adams has. In fact, he’s spend so much time thinking about it that he’s spent the last three years single-handedly coding Mile High Taxi, a high-octane homage to the two cult classics.

Can’t wait to play this one 🎮

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/feb/21/it-took-over-my-life-how-one-man-made-his-dream-90s-video-game-on-his-own

#3 What Dogs In Bags Can Teach You About Metrics 🐶

When the New York City Metro decreed that only dogs that would fit in bags could ride on trains all sorts of chaos ensued.

Like the Cobra Effect, the perfectly-good-dog-in-an-Ikea-bag-phenomenon is a second order effect that the people making the rule should have thought about.

When you’re choosing metrics, don’t just think about what you’re measuring; think about why you’re measuring it. And make sure you’ve got enough checks and balances to mitigate any unforeseen circumstances 📈

https://twitter.com/rhein_wein/status/1628768017894227968?s=61&t=el7u57yGQKU5_SI1sM3-fw

#4 Google Doesn't Innovate, It Just Sells Ads 🤑

For all its lofty vision, Google no longer innovates.

For its 190,000-plus employees, Google has a huge amount of process and bureaucracy designed to do one thing—ensure the status quo is maintained and the company continues to make lots of money from ads in search.

AppSheet co-founder and former Googler Praveen Seshadri digs deep into what’s wrong with Google and what it’ll take to put it right 🌎

https://medium.com/@pravse/the-maze-is-in-the-mouse-980c57cfd61a

#5 Roblox and Minecraft Have Done More for Coding than University 💡

Participating in virtual environments like Roblox and Minecraft has done more for the next generation of entrepreneurs and product people than anything taught in university CS classes.

Games and hobby projects can open your eyes the power of technology and what it takes to build software people want to use.

Instead of complaining about the amount our kids are hanging out online, maybe we should be helping them explore how digital environments can reveal a whole new world of future possibilities 🔮 

https://hunterwalk.com/2023/02/20/virtual-worlds-are-trade-schools-in-disguise/

That’s it!

See you next week (probably).

Toby

The Punk PM

P.S. Feel free to share this with anyone else you think would find it interesting.

I’m still playing around with ideas for content and format for this newsletter, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this new structure. Go ahead and shoot me an email with ways you think I can make it better.