Books — Mike Oustamanolakis, PhD

Clarity Series · Out in 2026

Compression vs Clarity

Hong Kong, Taiwan, and what happens when their products go west

Hong Kong compresses. Taiwan clarifies.

Dense screens that show everything at once, and calm ones that show one thing at a time, are both rational answers to the conditions they grew up in. Neither survives the journey to another market unchanged. The book follows products across borders, including one bank whose app behaves as two different regimes, and asks what each style costs the people who have to use it.

Inside Compression vs Clarity: The word for “MRT” in four layers: one word, four encodings, and who each one serves. — Inside: The word for “MRT” in four layers: one word, four encodings, and who each one serves.

Symptoms of Civilization · Out in 2026

Great Cities, Unique Fails

How London, Athens and Taipei treat their own failures

Every city writes one version of itself down, and lives in another.

London believes its paperwork. Athens does not believe its own. Taipei names its mess and puts a programme on it. Three essays, measured the same way in all three cities, and a chapter on what each could learn from the other two.

Inside Great Cities, Unique Fails: Two hundred and sixty metres: the Underground diagram against the ground it describes. — Inside: Two hundred and sixty metres: the Underground diagram against the ground it describes.