rands

Put the Laptop Away

Clay Shirky on Medium:

People often start multi-tasking because they believe it will help them get more done. Those gains never materialize; instead, efficiency is degraded. However, it provides emotional gratification as a side-effect. (Multi-tasking moves the pleasure of procrastination inside the period of work.) This side-effect is enough to keep people committed to multi-tasking despite worsening the very thing they set out to improve.

September 28, 2014

The Song of the Introvert

You are a threat. It’s a strong word. I don’t mean that you intend pain, injury, or damage. But I’m an introvert and you – as a new unknown human – are a threat to me. I don’t know what you want and you most definitely want something and until I figure that out, you’re… more

September 17, 2014 17 Comments

Not a Hobby

Apple TV the beloved stepchild of the Apple product line-up has continuously been dubbed a hobby since its introduction. The label gives Apple optionality. The label allows Apple to say, “Well, we’re serious about this, but we’re not sure about it.’” While I use my Apple TV every single day, my opinion is the reason… more

September 10, 2014 19 Comments

The Wolf

You’ve heard of the 10x engineer, but I am here to tell you about the Wolf. They are an engineer, and they consistently exhibit the following characteristics: They appear to exist outside the well-defined process we’ve defined to get things done, but they appear to suffer no consequences for not following these rules. Everyone knows… more

September 1, 2014 27 Comments

Finding the Perfect Underline

From Marcin Wichary on Medium:

The perfect underline should be visible, but unobtrusive — allowing people to realize what’s clickable, but without drawing too much attention to itself. It should be positioned at just the right distance from the text, sitting comfortably behind it for when descenders want to occupy the same space…

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I believe Medium’s fastidiousness regarding typography is one of the defining characteristics of their brand.

August 21, 2014

The End of Printed Newspaper

Clay Shirky on Medium:

Contrary to the contrived ignorance of media reporters, the future of the daily newspaper is one of the few certainties in the current landscape: Most of them are going away, in this decade. (If you work at a paper and you don’t know what’s happened to your own circulation or revenue in the last few years, now might be a good time to ask.) We’re late enough in the process that we can even predict the likely circumstance of its demise.

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August 20, 2014

A Path to Discovery

Saturday morning is for discovery. Multiple browser windows point me in multiple directions and I wander until I discover a thing to consider. The key to Saturday morning is not direction, the key is association. I am free associating myself across the internet looking for… something. Turntable.fm used to be key to this experience. This… more

August 19, 2014 6 Comments