Links
A regularly updated collection of things I find worth reading, watching, or listening to. Subscribe via RSS.-
You Need to Be Bored
№ 98Arthur C. Brooks, a Harvard professor, explains why boredom helps you be more creative, and less depressed. I feel like this is common knowledge, but it seems like we—as humans—are less and less capable of allowing boredom into our lives. This video was a helpful reminder of why doing so is a good thing.
-
Ode to the Dinkus
№ 97
The Dinkus. Three months ago, I was a normal person. Now all I think about 24-7 is the dinkus.
I use the word dingus a lot, and had no clue that a line of three asterisks (***), often used to create a breather between two paragraphs of writing, was called a dinkus. My sincere thanks to Đorđe, who suggested I have a custom one made for Trema.
The dinkus, mind you, is not to be confused with the asterism (⁂). Daisy Alioto, writer and dinkus influencer, explained it all, years ago, over on The Paris Review.
-
This very website was featured on MaxiBestOf, which has quickly become my favourite web design gallery (and, it should go without saying, that is unrelated to them featuring my website). They steadily publish new sites, usually of a high quality, and in doing so it's become a web design gallery I can safely rely on for design inspiration.
Before, they've featured the website I created for my magazine, TRANSCRIPT, as well as the previous iteration of my personal website.
Thank you! I appreciate it.
-
The same reason you would bake a batch of cookies: because you enjoy it — the process itself, but also the result.
Make websites because you like to.
-
Philip Bump, previously a national correspondent at The Washington Post, on the question of whether you can positively influence, say, X's direction by staying on it, as some are arguing.
Since I left The Washington Post, this question has guided my discussions with people interested in my writing for them. I’ve had numerous offers to write that I have (hopefully respectfully) declined. I’ve done so largely because I am trying to be conscientious about the prior question, to work with and for institutions that are directing their accrued power responsibly.
He goes on to say that this is why he doesn't use Substack, and I wish more people would follow his example.
-
iA Presenter. Image by Information Architects. iA Writer has been my go-to writing app on Mac and iOS for over a decade, but I've never properly gotten stuck into iA Presenter. Its release coincided with my role shifting, and having to create fewer presentations as a result.
They've now released version 1.5 of their app, which has seen them strip away even more of its features to benefit the primary workflow, and I can really get behind their reasoning.
PowerPoint and similar apps start by letting you pick a design. Making your presentation look good right away sounds helpful. But in practice, it distracts. It shifts your attention to how the slides look instead of what you want to say.
Putting the focus on design from the get-go is a fundamental mistake. To make the user concentrate on the message, the design should stay in the background… until it’s time for design. Flashy colors in the default template are counterproductive.Most of making a good, thoughtful presentation (or website, for that matter), is the writing. Writing to tell a good story, rather than showing good slides. Most of their competition doesn't seem aware of or bothered by that, and I appreciate them doubling down on this notion.
-
Teddy Blanks. Photo by Graham Dickie for The New York Times. Responsible for the opening titles of films like Barbie, Nosferatu, Midsommar and Wicked, and TV shows like Severance, Teddy Blanks is becoming the modern-day Saul Bass.
-
Photo by Obsidian, image editing by The Verge. Steph “kepano” Ango, the CEO of Obsidian, was interviewed by Casey Newton for Decoder. I appreciate how he—and in turn, Obsidian—thinks about building their product. They're a small team and, while they're ambitious, they're not looking to raise (or make) hundreds of millions of dollars.
We’re not trying to take over the world. We’re not trying to be the next Microsoft. That makes it a lot easier to make long-term decisions that we feel are better for ourselves or for our users. It’s the tool that we want to use all day long. So, it’s okay if people leave.
Obsidian uses Markdown, and all files are local. That means you can take them wherever you go, or even edit them in whichever tool you prefer. It's no walled garden, and if Obsidian the company ever ceases to exist, your files are fine.
I know Kepano has been on this line of thinking for a long time. I remember researching similar things years ago and stumbling upon his thinking on File over app, which is a philosophy I can get behind.
I've started using Obsidian this summer and while the UI is a tad clunky for my taste, I can appreciate the system they've created. There's a lot to appreciate in the interview, too; on note-taking, file systems, design, and AI, among other things.
-
They hardly ever miss at McSweeney's.
I would like to address the recent slander circulating on social media, in editorial Slack channels, and in the margins of otherwise decent Substack newsletters. Specifically, the baseless, libelous accusation that my usage is a telltale sign of artificial intelligence.
Listen here, my good bitch.
-
Loren Stephens
№ 89Loren Stephens is eighty years old, and he blogs. His blog runs on Eleventy and Netlify, and he speaks to Manuel Moreale about his life since retirement, his blogging, and his creative environment. It's all very straight-forward, and ... isn't that kind of the point?
I quickly subscribed via his RSS feed. He's had a few good posts up recently (1, 2).