Since Google Reader got rid of the ability to share as an RSS feed, I’ll probably be doing a few of these linkdumps every now and then. Doubt it’ll be as cool as thingsmagazine or pull off the eclectic amazingness of kottke but I’ll try.
And just to have it noted: I hate the new Google Reader. Fix any of the backend issues but why change something that has worked for a lot of people for so long? Before anyone rolls in with “can’t complain about free services”: Yes, you can, especially ones that become poorly designed and counteract or negate past beneficial user behavior.
Onward…
Big news: Tim and I posting at the new Sentient Cinema site. It’s a bit basic at the moment but we’re working on trying to get it spiffy. Add it to your bookmarks and RSS readers.
From my friends:
My good friend Timur, researching his PhD in Istanbul, is providing wonderful new blog posts frequently at his Tamerlane spot. I’ll do a separate photo post but he’s well worth following:
http://tamerlane.blogspot.com
Also, another friend runs The Minimum Blues, a blog that is 2/3 great music reviews and 1/3 US soccer analysis and 100% great. Check it out:
http://www.theminimumblues.com
The Best Thing I Read All Week:
Ok, who am I kidding, this is probably the best thing I read all year and I will probably devote a whole post to it in the future.
A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design
Choice quotes:
Take out your favorite Magical And Revolutionary Technology Device. Use it for a bit.
What did you feel? Did it feel glassy? Did it have no connection whatsoever with the task you were performing?
I call this technology Pictures Under Glass. Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade.
Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness. It’s a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And yet, it’s the star player in every Vision Of The Future.
What can you do with a Picture Under Glass? You can slide it.
That’s the fundamental gesture in this technology. Sliding a finger along a flat surface.
That’s that. Moving on to things that will probably cause more ire:
I’ve enjoyed living in LA for the past two years. It’s an interesting place – not some shiny skyscraper-filled futuristic city nor a completely erratic, Third World hovel but somewhere in between. That’s what makes it fun and always interesting. Unfortunately, Los Angeles, and California in general has major problems. One of my favorite journalists, and probably the best financial journalist out there today, Michael Lewis, explores this topic at Vanity Fair w/ his piece California or Bust.
Real quick:
Roma. The Millions has a long piece on de-romanticizing the Eternal City. / 10,000 TED Talks! / A Report on Corporate Tax Dodgers / Your Private Twitter Information Belong To US (that is the US Government) (link)/
The new Lost Generation:
(via cnn and kateopolis)
More.
It’s ok, it’s not just general young people facing rising debt and unemployment, our vets are too:
via John Robb @ Global Guerrillas
Pretty much all that will be posted here about the Penn State matter:
Omelas State University by John Scalzi
Moving onto happier topics, here are some bits worth reading/seeing from the world of architecture, urbanism, and design.
Community Driven Visions of Modernity in Mumbai / Kazys Varnelis on the Future of Network Culture / The Power of Public Space for Protest Movement by the Infrastructurist /
Kevin Bauman’s 100 Abandoned Houses
And of course some Scandinavian architecture cause I can’t get enough:
Culture Yard by AART Architects (dezeen)
Maritime Museum & Science Centre by COBE and Transform (dezeen)
In case anyone was curious, my favorite Scandinavian architecture firm is Bjarke Ingels Group. I have their archi-comic “Yes Is More” and it is an entertaining romp through the mind of an innovative group of people headed by a brilliant leader.
Real books, real art, real awesome:
By Isaac Salazar via swiss-miss
I’ll end with this little piece of amazing:
via kottke
