IONIZED: A Journal of Witty Commentary

This site had a huge weekend. There were 144 visits in two days, all from one article on Techcrunch. At first I was ecstatic—a flood of new visitors in a short span can do that to you—that people were actually looking at what I write. No more days of five or ten visits, half of them from me. Sure, I had the occasional spike from time to time, up to twenty-five or (gasp!) thirty visits. But nothing had compared to this; I should be happy, right?

No, not at all.
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When I hear about some news event, rather than think about it for days — what caused it, why would they do that, what can we do to stop it — I Google the event, read a number of news stories about it, read the Wikipedia page on anyone I’m not familiar with, and then… And then my desire to learn is sapped, and no critical thinking has happened at all. I haven’t formed a position on it, I haven’t conceptualized what happened and why, because my involvement is merely passive. I just read news articles and biographies. No true understanding is needed when all the world’s information is at your fingertips.

via Access, at the Expense of Creativity | TightWind.

Well executed Helvetica designs for Google’s already utilitarian interfaces are beautiful, particularly the use of that Swiss red. This is why Helvetireader goes on every new machine I use. And, now, Google Calendar can get a facelift too.

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idsgn:

The 2010 IKEA catalog, now arriving at doorsteps around the world, reveals the company’s choice to change all typography to the Microsoft font that every web designer has grown to hate (you can already hear the cries). Verdana, specifically designed for on-screen readability, first shipped with Internet Explorer 3 in 1996. Being one of the better looking ‘Core fonts for the web’—a limited selection which also includes Arial, Comic Sans, and Times New Roman—Verdana has become one of the most widely used fonts on the web (but rarely ever used in print).

Iconic, beautiful, and very useful as a typeface, Futura was the IKEA style. It meant just as much as the furniture they sold, because it embodied their style in words. Futura is IKEA, not Verdana.

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Merlin Mann:

Okay, so, that’s what was in my keyboard just now. I didn’t know it was in there when I sat down to compliment Buffering on his 105 words that made me think about how I love little stories. This is why writing is fucked up and awesome and makes a 42-year-old man cry about cigarettes and Pete Rose and an ugly green car on a perfectly temperate Sunday afternoon.

Your keyboard will have different things in it than mine does, of course. But, it’s impossible to know what’s in there until you’ve made the clackity noise for a few minutes. You think you know what’s in there. But you don’t. It’s not your brain that makes the clackity noise, it’s your fingers.

Sometimes writing just happens. There’s a story that you have that wasn’t thought of beforehand, but appears after working the keyboard for a while.

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A sample:

“Design is thinking made visual.” – Saul Bass

Great thoughts regarding design; there is a treasure trove of insight here.

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Patrick Rhone:

In the world of hardware and software, the companies, developers, and tools that get it right weigh the cost of adding features heavily and take every feature addition under great consideration. In fact, they reject most feature requests right out of the starting gate. They appreciate feature requests but more often than not read them and ignore them. They simply let the signal rise above the noise to determine what features to add. When they do add a feature, they do it in the most unobtrusive and seamless way possible. They are careful to make sure the value far outweighs the cost.

Creating anything that people interact with involves the process of finding what is necessary. We revise and simplify things for a reason; the quality gained from removing the extraneous is worth more than the functionality that is lost.

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A new site aggregating content from around the web, all relating to the art of typography. Love it.

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Great interfaces don’t stay stagnant. They evolve to fit the needs of their users, while staying simple and elegant; beautiful interfaces are based on this.

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Inspired by Shawn Blanc’s Sweet Mac Setup, Jorge Quinteros has started a series of interviews that ask photographers about what they use to do their art.

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MG Siegler:

We’ve already talked at length about the two instances in the past week or so of Schiller personally reaching out to bloggers to set the record straight about a few of the App Store issues. But he has actually taken it a step farther. He’s also been reaching out to individual app makers to talk to them about their apps and offer his assistance in getting them approved, we’ve learned tonight.

And one such app, Rising Card, is now available in the App Store thanks to Schiller.

After two years of a silent Apple, a little transparency seems to be going a long way toward placating the masses. They aren’t just the Evil Empire 2.0 anymore; with a little help from the upper management they seem to be the Apple that actually cared for the quality of their products, including the App store. Hopefully this will translate to improvements for the rest of the arcane approval process.

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Leander Kahney:

It’s interesting, because companies do struggle when they become the leader. It took a long time for IBM to find their footing, and learn to play “nice.” Microsoft were so used to fighting hard to succeed, that when they finally won, they didn’t notice, and the tactics that served them well on their way to the top started to give them a bad name once they’d reached it.

Apple comes off as high-handed sometimes, and this will become more of a problem for them as they continue to grow.

Continuing the trend of classic sayings describing companies: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

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Fascinating.

(Via Daring Fireball)

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Hot waffles and shiny new tablets. Yum.

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MG Seigler on Facebook Lite:

Perhaps most importantly, Chougle notes, “And let me tell you it’s so much damn faster than the normal Facebook.”

A Facebook Fairy Tale, narrated by yours truly:

There was once a small service that people loved with great fervor and used constantly. It grew to an unimaginable size; the creators were astounded at how many people had joined in so little of a time. Much celebration occured, and happiness was felt by all.

Then, the feature requests came.

The users cried: “We want more USELESS FEATURES, please!”

Then the board chimed in: “Make it more like INSERT COMPETITOR HERE; that’ll stimulate growth!”

Then the investors called out and said: “Needs more integration. Let’s buy HOT UP-AND-COMER and shoehorn it on to ours. Then it’ll have twice the features!”

So, they implemented each and every idea. Much fanfare came from the armchair analysts and their most loyal users as they eagerly waited for the release.

It came—but, despite their work and determination to implement everything that was thrown at them, no one wanted to use it.

It had become too slow, too complex and cluttered. The core features, the ones that attracted the users in the beginning, were lost behind some menu or hidden behind some obscure icon.

It was a sad time.

The Feature Creep™ had caught them.

The end.

So remember, kids: do A few things well and work at it until it’s perfect.

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Eric Karjaluoto:

So now, look at your job, and ask yourself: How would you feel if your work was reduced to a contest? I’d guess you’d find it rather insulting. As an accountant, could you imagine meeting a potential client who wanted you to do the work first with the possibility of them “maybe” paying you after the labor was complete? Or, perhaps we could have a “steel fabricators contest”, in which hundreds of companies would design and build “spec” bridges with the best ones getting “credit, fame and glory”. Some will argue that I carry this too far. Spend a year as a designer though, and you’ll find yourself equally fed-up by how often you’re asked to work for free.

Despite the misconsceptions many have of our work, design is not just fun and games: we make the same tough decisions and put in the same hours to get our jobs done as any other profession.

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James Reynolds’ series of photographs depicting the last meals of inmates on death row. Chilling.

(Via Swiss Miss)

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Christopher Fahey:

I also know hundreds of people who have lots of friends on Twitter, who regularly blog and speak about social media, and who know all about the different companies, people, and technologies in the social media space, but who would be absolute freaking disasters if they had to put those skills to the service of a brand or company. I know this because they have volatile personalities, crummy writing skills and sloppy grammar, glaring personal issues, or are just ignorant of important subject matter. But with thousands of friends and immense popularity across lots of social media.

In other words, jerks, blowhards, and idiots are perfectly capable of mastering the logistics and technologies of social media, but do you really want them managing your social media?

It’s not just being able to spread your brand with social media; it’s about having it spread by somebody who’s friendly, dignified and charming, rather than the social media whiz who only knows the techniques but little else.

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Doubt it.

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And so, whining graphic designers rejoice around the world. Anyway, the 15-inch MacBook Pros get the same non-glossy displays of the previous generation, albeit with a $50 charge, something I’m sure will be worth the price for the designer masses. To clarify: I’ve never held anything against the glossy screen, while often wondering why many web designers complain about it when only print designers are affected by its slight color inaccuracies. Even then, glossy displays often outperform matte displays if properly calibrated:

I suspect that the false comparison with the paper stock argument feeds another persistent myth, which is that glossy screens are not for professionals. Let’s just leave aside the the fact that an image on a monitor will never entirely match an image printed on paper no matter what kind of screen you have, for a variety of reasons not least amongst them the differences between subtractive and additive color cited above. The simple fact of the matter is that a matte screen, far from a neutral view, is actually distorted when compared to a glossy screen. The matte coating that diffuses glare and reflections also works on the image on the screen, reducing contrast and saturation.

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Alison Byrne Fields:

John told me about why he left Hollywood just a few years earlier. He was terrified of the impact it was having on his sons; he was scared it was going to cause them to lose perspective on what was important and what happiness meant. And he told me a sad story about how, a big reason behind his decision to give it all up was that “they” (Hollywood) had “killed” his friend, John Candy, by greedily working him too hard.

(Via TightWind)

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Mesmerizing.

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Why print typographers make text on the web too small:

When I first linked to that article about a year ago, I was intrigued, but skeptical: “I agree it’s easier to read, but damn it’s big.” Oliver emailed me in response and made a point that really surprised me.

OLIVER: Actually it’s not that big, once you use it you start thinking “Damn. Everything else is small”. Physically 16pt is as big as 11pt in print. Huh? Yes, the screen is usually further away, which at such small distances, has a huge impact.

The old adage is correct, when referencing screen typography: bigger is, indeed, better.

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Dan Frommer on John Gruber:

John, reached by e-mail, wouldn’t comment on how much money his site makes, but he says it provides his full-time income. He says the site has recently been close to averaging 2 million monthly pageviews and about 250,000 monthly unique visitors — including some very important ones at Apple headquarters. He also estimates about 150,000 subscribers to his RSS feed.

Very impressive, especially for a one-man media company. A coy one, at that: “Sounds corny, but I don’t focus on numbers,” Gruber is quick to add. “I just try to write good stuff.”

It’s the quote at the end that really strikes a chord. Basically: do what you love, work the hell out of it, and people will find it.

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Marco Ament on Jason Calacanis’ The Case Against Apple—in Five Parts:

This, unfortunately, is the fate of Calacanis’ piece: he has some good points, but they’re buried in so much off-base ranting and misplaced frustration that it’s difficult to take any of it seriously.

He makes some rebuttals against the article’s arguments that are calm, intelligible, and backed by logic— something that’s certainly missing in parts of Calacanis’ piece. Fervor and rants only go so far, while thoughtful writing leads more valuable discussion from all parties.

(Via Daring Fireball)

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Kyle Baxter:

The iPhone is the device you use to browse the web and check Twitter while running errands or at a friend’s house; the Mac is the device you use to get real work done; and the tablet is the device you use to read a book, edit a document, or watch a movie while in bed, on a plane, or in a coffee shop.

You won’t use it because it can do things the iPhone, or a notebook, can’t. You’ll use it because it’s much better at doing them.

There’s a chasm between the way people use the iPhone or Mac, a middle-ground between work and play, that Baxter astutely recognizes. Apple doesn’t want you to do everything on one device, contrary to current trends in technology; they want to make devices that aren’t just good at many things, but great at a few specific primary functions.

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Jeffrey Zeldman:

When I let a publisher’s deadline push out a piece of writing before it is ready, it is like thrusting a helpless preemie into the cruel world. And it’s not just external deadlines that can wreck my work. Say I’m writing here, where there are no deadlines. I get nearly to the end of what I want to say, and then I’m called away by work or family. When I return to the blog post hours later to wrap things up and publish, I’m distracted, and the powerful emotion and single idea that initially led me me to write has flown over the garden wall. If I just bang out a finish, the whole piece will be weakened. I know because I’ve done it.

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MG Siegler:

This is completely a rumor, but an awesome one. Citing a “pretty reliable” source, Boy Genius Report is saying that the next version of iTunes will add a bunch of new, highly requested features. Specificially, BGR’s source says iTunes 9 features Blu-ray support, a new way to organize iPhone apps within iTunes, as well some kind of integration with Twitter, Facebook and possibly Last.fm.

The Twitter and Last.fm integration seems incredulous, but the app organization would be welcome.

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Maybe Apple’s impenetrable wall isn’t so impenetrable:

It has now been over a month since we first wrote about GPush, an iPhone app that uses Apple’s Push Notification system to alert you when you have new Gmail messages. Like so many other apps, it was starting to look like Apple simply may not accept it. But a surprise came to developers last night: An email from Apple accepting the app.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of a reversal on some of their absurd rejections.

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Lukas Mathis:

A virtual keyboard lives and dies by the details. It’s not that there’s a single feature which makes the iPhone’s virtual keyboard better than Android’s; it’s death by a thousand cuts. Apple obviously spent a lot of time on getting every little detail just right (well, except for the ducking dictionary), while Google decided to go ahead with what they had – which is usable, but no match for what the iPhone offers. I have no doubt that Android’s virtual keyboard will be improved in the future, and I’m looking forward to what they come up with.

When you’re designing something that people interact with constantly and absolutely need to work, the details, as Apple demonstrates, clearly make the difference.

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My father was a man of the ’80s and gave me a love for Hughes’ classic films:

Has there been a director that more eloquently created a vision of youth in America so consistently? With a sense of humor, empathy, darkness, playfulness and poignancy? John Hughes helped create some of the most iconic films of the 1980s as well as a slew of comedies that are bound to stand the test of time, making stars of dozens of young actors along the way.

Sadly, Hughes died today after suffering a sudden heart attack during a walk while on vacation in New York City.

John Hughes, you will be missed.

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