December 2011
1 post
“It looks like a human was involved in choosing what went where. It looks too...”
– Marissa Mayer addressing Google designers, as quoted in “In The Plex” by Steven Levy
October 2011
3 posts
Shit That Siri Says →
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve...”
– Steve Jobs
September 2011
4 posts
Here’s the thing about Apple’s “recent” success. →
It isn’t recent.
The only thing that has changed are some numbers. Some big numbers: largest company in the world, second most profitable company in the world, most profitable retail stores in the world, best-selling smart phone, second best-selling smart phone, best-selling tablet computer, etc.
Other numbers have not changed: customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, consumer...
Apple’s Designers Work Towards Storefront Symmetry →
One of the best examples of Apple’s design craftiness is the just-opened 4th Street (N. Calif.) store, where the new sidewalk, store window panels and inside stone floor tiles all are dimensioned and positioned to present a symmetrical appearance. In this case, the master element is the stone floor tiles, which are 76 centimeters square (about 30 inches). The glass window panes are then...
Louie Mantia on "workflow" →
I’ll be honest with you, I never understood what “workflow” means. I don’t go through steps of things to do while designing. I just sit down and start drawing in Photoshop. It’s almost like molding clay. You just have to start molding and fleshing out icons and UI design by doing. I draw fast enough in Photoshop that I don’t sketch, make wireframes, or...
August 2011
2 posts
Resigned →
Apple’s products are replete with Apple-like features and details, embedded in Apple-like apps, running on Apple-like devices, which come packaged in Apple-like boxes, are promoted in Apple-like ads, and sold in Apple-like stores. The company is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth. Zoom out enough and you can see that the same things that...
What they're "protecting" us from →
July 2011
2 posts
http://www.foodspotting.com/alexhong →
I will finish this. I will eat… ALL OF THE THINGS.
June 2011
1 post
May 2011
3 posts
Anatomy of a Mashup: Definitive Daft Punk... →
I could listen to the first two minutes of this forever.
Also, pretty.
Paper Tigers →
Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade-grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the future. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility.
Google vs. Apple: How Business Models Drive... →
This explains everything:
97% of Google’s ~$30b in annual revenues comes from advertisers, whereas ~99% of Apple’s ~$87b in annual revenue comes directly from customers who buy and use Apple’s products and services.
April 2011
1 post
March 2011
1 post
February 2011
4 posts
Arcade Fire, and the ‘Never Heard of It’ Grammys →
There are some obvious jokes to be made about people with Internet access using Twitter to complain about not knowing something, as opposed to using Google to look it up. But for the most part, this reaction — all these examples cherry-picked from teenage pop fans and bemused adults — is just plain normal. “Never heard of it”: This has been the natural and traditional response of all sorts of...
whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com →
insta.graphr.net →
January 2011
5 posts
I’ll go further and say that the repeated compulsion to resolve and resolve and resolve is actually a terrific marker that you’re not really ready to change anything in a grownup and sustainable way. You probably just want another magic wand.
Otherwise you’d already be doing the things you’ve resolved to do. You’d already be living those changes. And, you’d already be seeing actual...
ceo – Halo (Beyoncé cover)
December 2010
1 post
November 2010
1 post
Regina Spektor – No Surprises (Radiohead cover)
October 2010
4 posts
Ben Folds – You Don’t Know Me (feat. Regina...
John Sculley on Steve Jobs →
A remarkably frank and insightful (and lengthy) interview with John Sculley, the man who infamously deposed Steve Jobs, in which he discusses Steve’s methodology and admits it was a mistake for him to have been made CEO:
The reason why I said it was a mistake to have hired me as CEO was Steve always wanted to be CEO. It would have been much more honest if the board had said, “Let’s...
September 2010
1 post
Domestic Conflict, Explained By Stock Photos →
Kevin Nguyen imagines the backstories behind the stock photos he found of couples fighting.
Also from The Bygone Bureau: Controversial Corporate Brands, Reviewed by Kanye West.
August 2010
4 posts
Chrome Experiments: Arcade Fire →
Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering… this Chrome Experiment has them all. “The Wilderness Downtown” is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire’s song “We Used To Wait” and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video, audio,...
Apple's Attention to Detail
floodlite:
In July 2002, Apple filed a patent for a “Breathing Status LED Indicator” (No. US 6,658,577 B2). They described it as a “blinking effect of the sleep-mode indicator in accordance with the present invention mimics the rhythm of breathing which is psychologically appealing.”
The average respiratory rate for adults is 12-20 breaths per minute, which is the rate that the...
July 2010
1 post
The Emperor's New Antenna →
If you read only one article about “Antennagate” (too late, I know), it should be this one.
June 2010
10 posts
Jonathan Ive on the Design of the iPhone 4 →
“The best design explicitly acknowledges that you cannot disconnect the form from the material—the material informs the form,” says Ive. “It is the polar opposite of working virtually in CAD to create an arbitrary form that you then render as a particular material, annotating a part and saying ‘that’s wood’ and so on. Because when an object’s...
Stars vs. The Album Leaf - Opinions Versus the Sun
“Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of...”
– Barbie
I'm Comic Sans, Asshole. →
Listen up. I know the shit you’ve been saying behind my back. You think I’m stupid. You think I’m immature. You think I’m a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I’m Comic Sans, and I’m the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.
Massive Flow Of Bullshit Continues To Gush From BP... →
As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico entered its eighth week Wednesday, fears continued to grow that the massive flow of bullshit still gushing from the headquarters of oil giant BP could prove catastrophic if nothing is done to contain it.
The toxic bullshit, which began to spew from the mouths of BP executives shortly after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April, has...
The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa (feat. Ezra...
1 tag
“There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I’d like my life back.”
– Tony Hayward, CEO of BP
“My sex life is pretty good.”
– Steve Jobs at the D8 Conference, when pressed on whether he felt betrayed by Google.
May 2010
11 posts
The Killers - Four Winds (Bright Eyes cover)
...