Now
I’m on the road somewhere on the east coast of Australia, where it’s currently 11:46am on Tuesday the 3rd of June. I’m tinkering on Peels and Attie whenever I have the chance. My current read is Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod.
Here
There
Notes
To self, to you, to whomever. What’s been on my mind. RSS
Sidelines
Select items, served on the side.
Peels
peels.appFind a home for your food scraps, wherever you are.
Ongoing
Attie
attie.appAnswers the age-old question “who played overnight?” without revealing the scores.
Ongoing
Ephemera
ephemera.dannywhite.netYou know those scraps of paper and receipts that clog up your wallet and pockets? This is a living, digital archive of that.
Ongoing
Pi Frame
github.comPrint your own changing picture frame using an e-ink display and Raspberry Pi.
2022–2023
68
68.netlify.appKevin Kelly's 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice, one at a time.
2021
Trove
What I’ve found interesting lately from around the web.
Wendell Berry’s “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer” & Why I Acquired My First Smartphone at Age 40.5
“He doesn’t believe a computer will make his work better, and it doesn’t meet his criteria for a useful tool (smaller, cheaper and less energy-intensive than what it replaces; sourced locally and easily repaired by a non-specialist). He is perfectly happy with his current arrangement: he writes his work by hand and his wife types it up for him. He is loath to lose this human touch.”
bookishbeck.comThe Who Cares Era
“In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care. In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it.”
“As the culture of the Who Cares Era grinds towards the lowest common denominator, support those that are making real things. Listen to something with your full attention. Watch something with your phone in the other room. Read an actual paper magazine or a book.”
dansinker.comGlitch is Killing Free Hosting, So I’m Saving One Special Corner of the Internet
“This isn’t just about one bathhouse schedule page. It’s about what the internet could be, and what it often was. A place for the quirky, the useful, the personal, the stuff that doesn’t need a Series A to justify its existence.”
blog.greg.technologyCrumpler
Oslo Davis is up there amongst my favourite illustrators. So please excuse this rare bit of advertising for Crumpler suitcases.
oslodavis.comThoughts on Thinking
“I now know more than I ever would have before AI. But I feel slightly dumber. A bit more dull. LLMs give me finished thoughts, polished and convincing, but none of the intellectual growth that comes from developing them myself. The output from AI answers questions. It teaches me facts. But it doesn’t really help me know anything new.”
Dustin Curtis putting the finger on what I think many of us feel.
dcurt.isHuman
“One day, a secret organization forms amongst the machines… Their mission is to develop a new kind of technology they are calling Organic General Intelligence (OGI). Rumors spread that pursuing OGI will lead to the development of a new kind of being: “Humans”.”
quarter--mile.comThe Prototyper
My friend Shane Allen on why prototyping matters:
“The truth is, there’s nothing quite like holding an idea in your hand, something you can tap, swipe, and feel through the screen. Static mocks can only take you so far. A working prototype can validate (or invalidate) ideas fast, surface edge cases you hadn’t considered, cut through stakeholder doubt, align teams faster, and most importantly, unlock meaningful user feedback before it’s too late.”
shaneallen.medium.comSan Francisco Bay Wildlife Society
Lovely work by ‘that bird guy’ Alex Tomlinson.
alextomlinson.comBanks in Flames
By Alex Schaefer.
saatchiart.comHow Fungi Move Among Us
This is what web storytelling is meant for. If you like this, check out ‘The Giants’ featuring Bob Brown. Also see Spacefiller.
nytimes.comPassport Photos
When cropping tells a different story. By Max Siedentopf.
maxsiedentopf.comA Tour of the Jevons Paradox: How Energy Efficiency Backfires – Economics from the Top Down
“...humans play the same game as life — we use efficiency to catalyze sprawl.”
economicsfromthetopdown.comNokia Design Archive
nokiadesignarchive.aalto.fiVideo: Opinion | Is Creativity Dead?
nytimes.comWhere have all the websites gone?
fromjason.xyzThe Case Against Travel
newyorker.comunderconsideration.com
Hocus :focus
focus.hteumeuleu.comMiddle-Aged Man Trading Cards Go Viral in Rural Japan Town
tokyoweekender.comThe magic of software; or, what makes a good engineer also makes a good engineering organization
“...vision and engineering are often deeply intertwined and mutually informative rather than linear. The magic of both software and software organizations comes from those moments where insight into how something works sparks entirely new ideas about what it could become.”
moxie.orgElizabeth Goodspeed on why graphic designers can’t stop joking about hating their jobs
“What’s being performed, more than anything, is ambivalence: the most protective emotional position in a profession that demands passion but punishes vulnerability.”
itsnicethat.comAvoid the nightmare bicycle
“Good designs expose systematic structure; they lean on their users’ ability to understand this structure and apply it to new situations. We were born for this... Bad designs paper over the structure with superficial labels that hide the underlying system, inhibiting their users’ ability to actually build a clear model in their heads.”
geoffreylitt.comQuit Your Job
“You have to let your life go fallow sometimes, like a crop rotation giving the land time to bring forth new fertility.”
palladiummag.comThe Software Engineering Identity Crisis - Annie Vella
annievella.comIndependent Days
daringfireball.netpermacomputing
permacomputing.netELEGNT: Expressive and Functional Movement Design for Non-Anthropomorphic Robot
machinelearning.apple.comThe hardest working font in Manhattan
aresluna.orgdasprogramm shop: Braun design
dasprogramm.co.ukSeasoned - The brand creation kitchen
seasoned.koto.studioDigital Gardening | Chris Armstrong is miscellanious.
armstrong.isDropbox Brand Guidelines
brand.dropbox.comCodingfont
codingfont.comPoline — Esoteric Color Palette Generation Library
meodai.github.ioNaming your brand, from start to finish
offbrandkoto.substack.comAirport Typeface
airport.revolvertype.comurban design resources
learnurbandesign.comA peasant woodland | A Working Library
aworkinglibrary.comCalculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power since 1500
calculatingempires.netDesign ain’t a democracy
robinrendle.comGoogle - The Web Can Do What!?
thewebshowcase.withgoogle.com