similarselection

“One of the stranger developments of the modern web is the expectation that every site needs a purpose that can be explained in marketing language. What’s your brand? What’s your niche? How are you building engagement? What’s the content strategy? Maybe you just want a website. That’s still allowed.”

Free web app for creating simple 8 page photo zines from a single sheet of paper.

Clarifications and responses to criticisms of the authors essay “AI Is Normal Technology”

View and download every 3D model from the original Katamari Damacy game.

A review of the indie blog post aggregator.

Open source circuit-bent video processor that runs in your browser.

“You may not know what the open web is, but you’ll miss it when it’s gone”

Another new groovebox for “obsolete” handheld gaming hardware. This time for the PS Vita. Mixes gamepad and touch screen controls.

“Where are we, given the internet? And what are we to do, given the internet?”

In browser collage maker. Uses PDF magazines from the Internet Archive and images from Wikimedia Commons as source material.

AI and output-competence decoupling.

A platform for long form writing. Minimum 1000 words to publish a post. No algorithms.

“Decoupling being anti-corporation from anti-technology is really important”

Popular throwback headphones with a thin metal band and sponge ear pads. There’s a whole secondary market for colored replacement ear pads.

A look at the past, present, and future of music as accessory.

“Maybe this is the essential blessing of the iPod: the software gives you the potential for an unlimited musical library, but the hardware’s limits still lock you into a committed relationship with the songs you choose.”

A fully featured modern groovebox for the Commodore Amiga (also available for Mac and Windows).

A new FM groovebox with a simple fast UI. Runs on original GameBoy Advance hardware or under emulation.

“The real self is the part of you who survives the first reaction; the part that can be angry and still be kind, scared and still steady.”

Ebooks, drop shipping, courses, and affiliate link listicle sites are everywhere. None of it is good - much less thoughtful. Caring isn’t passive. It requires time and effort.

How social media rips us apart.

I made a little website for exploring the game catalog for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System.

Artistic vision has taken a backseat to franchises and reboots. It’s wearing thin for a growing audience.

A critical look at “tech detoxes” and their similarity to the conservative ideal of the pastoral.

Far from being a relic, the blog is a structurally sound format for thinking and publishing.

Python script that uses OpenStreetMap data to create minimalist customizable city map posters for any city in the world.

Patreon supported online motion design/video editor. Works locally. No source files are uploaded.

I’m not a big skeuomorphic guy, but I LOVE the idea of a generative color picker designed to look like a hardware synth.

Liz Bucar: “But maybe—and I’m genuinely asking—maybe we need to take seriously what religions have always understood: Imagination isn’t frivolous. Hope requires training. Trust needs practice. The capacity to envision and organize toward futures you cannot yet see is a skill, not a personality quirk some people are born with.”

“When people know they’re taking a mythologized substance with decades of counterculture mystique, outcomes improve dramatically. Strip away that knowledge through rigorous blinding, and the magic fades.” / A good deal of mental health is literally a mind game.

“CARI defines a consumer aesthetic as a visual movement unified by overarching attitudes and themes that survived long enough or became popular enough to be appropriated by capital.”

Sam Valenti IV argues against obsessing over inputs in favor of “ use[ing] our disdain to foster more critique and a keen desire for greatness.”

Web, app, and most other design increasingly looks the same.

A story of small scale, non-radical, user-centered innovation that’s had a massive impact on the internet at large.

Molly White: “The industry that promised it would free us from captured institutions has captured them itself. The anti-establishment rebels are now the establishment, their survival dependent on the very centralized power structures they once claimed to make obsolete.”

“An organizing toolkit and ongoing learning series to introduce mutual aid organizing—from starting a group to sustaining it for the long haul.”

“A collection of found cassette tapes from all over the world.”

“A dream of being known without being challenged. But without friction, there is no true dialogue, no true understanding, no true consensus, and no ideological encounter pushing us to new ideas. No fun.”

Remembering Ken Donnie of The Black Dog.

A book of hand drawn patterns by Katsushika Hokusai.

“I’m just trying to breathe and concede to not needing much”

“There was nothing here, really. The only thing there was electricity. I took the risk because I thought in my gut that there was something to be done.”

Taking my cell service and phone number with it. The CEO allegedly failed to pay T-Mobile for its network, then fled to Brazil. Update: No fleeing. Just incompetence.

“It is undoubtedly a rap album. however, to truly understand it, one must approach the album as if it were blues”

How grocery store layouts manipulate our shopping behavior.

Five people improvising live techno for seven hours.

Beautiful font (with a perfect name) based on SF Muni destination displays.

Practical advice.

Leah Reich: “Do you want to be inventory? Or do you want to be a human being?”

Talking about brand design is awkward - Doubly so when that brand sets out to be counter-cultural.

Jeffery Zeldman ponders the moments of inspiration, the hours of plodding, and the ultimate mystery at the heart of a creative career.

“That sounds nice, but how is a tiny software company supposed to compete with huge and well-funded companies?” The answer is that you don’t really have to. You just have to get an understanding of the proper pace and scale of whatever your endeavor is.

“[The web] used to mostly consist of little things made by people, and that was pretty cool! You would see more than four websites in a day. Websites would have colors!”

There’s a lot of web out there, it’s just gotten harder to find it…

How do various AI models perform when prototyping in real design contexts?

Frank Chimero: “I want to carve out a small creative place for myself in everything that is happening. Is it possible?”