Things I Like
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More than anything else, my break from social media reinforced my belief in the importance of traditional journalism, where (ideally) facts are verified and follow-up questions are asked before a story is published. Without social media focusing me on the news of the instant, I consumed news in a slower, less frantic fashion. I read second-day stories and deep dives that put news in context, and I came away feeling better informed.
This was an interesting read because it's from the perspective of a journalist, but she echoed a lot of what I've really come to hate about social media and the way it handles news. Often, on Twitter the story isn't the whole story or it's half baked or something else about it is off. The next day when I read an article I get the entire story, which she points to with a few particular incidents. And that's the reason I'm following very few people on Twitter and I read news in a more deliberate way, RSS is still my go to.
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A nice collection of quotes compiled by Kleon about how much drawing can be a cure, and in fact can be a way to survive.
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I took a harder look around my home and answered. Boxes of novel manuscripts that were never published did not spark joy. Designer shoes I bought at sample sales but never wore because they pinched my feet did not spark joy. My husband confessed that his inheritance of Greek doilies and paintings of fishing boats from his grandmother did not spark joy. So out it all went.
A funny look at marriage, clutter, and habits. I laughed several times out loud as I read this.
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Because for me, the real value of a device lab isn’t in testing, as such: a device lab is a design tool. It’s a great way to remind myself that some of the assumptions I might be making about the design need to be tested on something other than my laptop or my phone. While I’m designing, I might assume web fonts will always render flawlessly, that JavaScript will download and execute perfectly every time, or that the user’s got enough bandwidth to download the art on the page. But all of those assumptions need to be checked.
Ethan hits the nail on the head again. Assumptions are killers, and it's hard to get away from them, but testing on devices that we don't normally use, being on slow internet, and other habits can shake us out of those assumptions fairly quickly.
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When we think about caring for our neighbors, we think about local churches, and charities—systems embedded in our communities. But I see these technological systems as one of the main ways that we take care of each other at scale. It’s how Americans care for all three hundred million of our neighbors, rich or poor, spread over four million square miles, embedded in global supply chains.
The US likes to hide all the ways in which government makes our lives better and Chachra points out that if they were more visible maybe more people would be grateful for them and value what they do.
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Lincoln’s scenario does not reflect the way most people work today. Yet the “small business owner” endures as an American stock character, conjured by politicians to push through deregulatory measures that benefit large corporations. In reality, thanks to a lack of guaranteed, nationalized health care and threadbare welfare benefits, setting up a small business is simply too risky a venture for many Americans, who must rely on their employers for health insurance and income. These conditions render long-term employment more palatable than a precarious existence of freelance gigs, which further gives companies license to oppress their employees.
I know, I know, more about how we work in this culture, but holy cow it is screwed up. And this piece highlights two books I now want to read. And I have a longer post brewing in my head about it all.
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Get a book-size (or paperback-size)d sketchbook. Write your name and date on an early page and maybe think of a name for it — and if you want, write the book’s name there at the front. Make it into your little painful pal. The pain goes away slowly page by page. Fill it up and do another one. It can be hard to get started. Don’t flunk yourself before you get the ball rolling.
Thanks to my coworker Sue I've discovered Lynda Barry and holy shit her book Syllabus is changing how I think about drawing and writing so much (review will be coming). But in the meantime, the original link to Gary Panter's sketchbook tips isn't working, but I found this instead. I hope this one stays up, but I may print it just in case.
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Even before smartphones, this country’s professional culture had come to venerate freneticism. How often do you hear somebody humble-brag about how busy they are? The saddest version, and I’ve heard it more than once, is the story of people who send work emails on their wedding day or from the hospital room where their child is born — and are proud of it.
I link to a lot of articles that talk about disconnecting and slowing down and this one isn't even that controversial, taking one hour a week to unplug and be uninterrupted. I realized in the last week or so that I want a simple, un-busy life, and I realize it's a privilege to even think about that.
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To emphasize: CSS isn't a programming language. It's a stylesheet language. We shouldn't expect it to behave like a programming language. It has its own unique landscape and structures, ones that people with programming language mental maps might not expect.
This article is so good. And I've heard similar sentiments before, but this says it the best I've ever seen. Thank you Danielle.
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“This is not a question of expect,” she said. “It is a question of hope. It is a question of faith rather than knowledge. You wouldn’t do it unless you thought there was a chance.” Humans, she said, “have hope built in,” adding, “If our ancestors had not had that component, they would not have bothered getting up in the morning. You are always going to have hope that today there will be a giraffe, where yesterday there wasn’t one.” At the same time, Atwood loves to entertain notions of how degraded our future might become, and what effect that might have on the human race. She speculates that, if our atmosphere becomes too carbon-heavy, with a dwindling in the oxygen supply, one of the first things that will happen is that we will become a lot less intelligent.
I've been reading a lot of Atwood lately, mostly her novels, and I really enjoyed this profile. I haven't read The Handmaid's Tale yet, mostly because it's a bit too real and too much for me. But I love her work and this profile is a great way to get to know more about her.
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To put it another way: in the long term, the organization of a pattern library is more important than the patterns themselves. If a pattern’s purpose isn’t clear, or if the pattern isn’t easily findable within the library, then the value of that pattern quickly approaches zero.
I really like this. My role at my job has been changing a bit lately so I've been thinking a lot about the work I like to do as well. I'm doing some project management, some writing, and some code. It's a weird mix, and I'm still working through how I feel about it all, and reading someone else's thoughts on their work helps me do that. The way in which Ethan talks about the work is also just great, because I like how these are loose and flexible, making it easier to see the high level amongst the actual doing.
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We feel the grain and discover the contours of the problem we are solving, and revise when our efforts don’t work quite as expected. Luckily, code and pixels are free, so your trials and errors should be less expensive than the considerable amount of lumber I’d waste if I ever took up woodworking.
Frank's talked about thinking of the grain of the web before and as I think about the analogy more, it works more and more.
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Many people presume that employment is the opposite of independence, and that endlessly irritates me. It’s so short-sighted. History shows a long record of artists who did “normal” work to support their creative practice. If you work as a barista, graphic designer, or accountant to fund your writing or music: great! (You can swap out any of those job titles or passions with your own.) By keeping your day job, you’re in the fine company of T.S. Eliot, Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, and more.
I had a hard time picking a quote because this is such a great piece. But I chose the one above because I've been thinking a lot about independence versus being employed full time. Over the past two years I've held full time jobs and in many ways, especially in the past year, I've felt more free than ever before. I leave work behind at the end of my day and I pursue the things that matter to me with no worries. That's become the ultimate freedom.
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The key psychological insight here is that people have no trouble turning any information into a coherent narrative. This is true when, as in the case of my friend, the information (i.e., her tardiness) is incorrect. And this is true, as in our experiments, when the information is random. People can’t help seeing signals, even in noise.
I found the thoughts in this piece really interesting, especially as it pertains to long, in person interviews. I'm not saying we should throw them out, but I also think that they often, when structured badly, do more harm than good.
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Perhaps Lego is the right example, we’ve just been looking at the wrong aspect of it. The most important aspect of Lego is not so much the bricks themselves, but the system of tubes and stubs that holds them to together. New bricks have been added to the system over the years, yet a brick manufactured today will still connect with one of the first produced in 1958.
Paul's written a fantastic series based on a talk of his that I really love. It is one of my favorite things when people take something outside the web world and use it to illustrate concepts we use every day as we make things for the web. Cross discipline thinking is so valuable. Do read the entire series, it's fantastic (and gorgeous photos as well!).