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

Also, I failed to mention it in the podcast, but China Mountain Zhang pairs nicely with A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin which I discussed with Mark Coatney last year. Both are non-hero stories, which is interesting.

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.