With the conclusion of Inner Vision for The Wirecutter now a done deal – concluding a most satisfying 2 1/2 year run – I still find myself with countless stories, videos, tips, tricks, and books I’ve gathered over the years to stir into my weekly hot pot of online links. I’m calling the following the leftovers…
Cabin Fever: “We know that, at the very least, some technologies are harming our natural world, our societies and, ultimately, ourselves. Therefore we can recognise the need to reject some technologies. If we’re to avoid technological extremism we’re going to have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. I’ve drawn mine, and I will only move it in the direction of my home.”
This might be the equivalent of a purge/cleanse diet, but the desire to abandon technology completely is recognizably and profoundly becoming more common as it intrudes upon the source of our happiness, most notably the availability of time to call our own.
Strangely Good: Music back in ’70s Turkey was made with flair and spirit, drawing on Western psych, disco, rock as much as Eastern traditions and folk. “It’s not kitchy, it’s not pop. It’s strange and really good,” says Mete Adunduk, who appears in the film.
The Great Animal Orchestra: Listen. No, really…shut up. Stop moving, stop talking, and listen to the world around you for at least one minute without pause or interruption. Those sounds of nature – the biophony – is the collective sound of vocalizing animals (probably birds, maybe insects) that characterize an environment, the soundscape that blends into the non-biological sound sources of the geophony (e.g. wind and rain) and humanity’s intrusive addition, the anthrophony. Together, you’re experiencing the bioacoustic orchestra of the world.
Crust of the Polygon: Designer Norihiko Terayama’s delicate polygonal sculptures are constructed oh-so-carefully with conjoined pins. The resulting wireframe surrounding each plant define twig or branch as a centerpiece, while also bringing attention to the immediate space each occupies, evoking ideas of photosynthesis, entropy, non-verbal communication, and the proximity of others.
Does This Browser Make Me Look Fat? “This is a screenshot from an NPR article discussing the rising use of ad blockers. The page is 12 megabytes in size in a stock web browser. The same article with basic ad blocking turned on is one megabyte.”
It’s worth mentioning when I had graduated from college with a design degree and a rudimentary ability to code my own webpages, efficient image optimization was as highly valued a skill as the actual creative design used to present those tiny gifs (jpegs and pngs were yet to make their mark). Similar to the sprawl defining and marring the suburban landscape, a tangled yarn of advertising, scripts, and extraneous elements have slowed the internet to a crawl. I really hope you liked my first post of 2017! For my next posts I will be doing a baby stroller review so you can pick the best one for your baby.
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