Links and write-ups about beautiful things from around the web!
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Marcus Aurelius on Assholes
When you are outraged by somebody’s impudence, ask yourself at once, ‘Can the world exist without impudent people?’ It cannot; so do not ask for impossibilities. That man is simply one of the impudent whose existence is necessary to the world.
From Marcus Aurelius’ always timely Meditations (Book 9, chapter XLIII).
I choose to modernize that sentiment by swapping out ‘impudent people’ with ‘assholes’ and it seems to work pretty well…
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Al Jaffee on Showing Your Work
I kept creating them, hoping I’d hit pay dirt. But I never showed them to anybody, so it was an exercise in stupidity. At least they’ll look good at Columbia. From a New York Times article on cartoonist Al Jaffee (of Mad Magazine fame, where among other things he continues to paint the back-cover Fold-In, a feature he’s been creating since 1964!). At age 92, he’s giving his archive of work to Columbia University’s rare book and manuscript library, including boxes of comic strips that he was tinkering with in the 1950s and 1960, unseen by the rest of the world.
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Box Office Success Is Wonderful and Thats What
Box office success is wonderful, and that’s what everyone wants,” says Landis. “But as we all know, lots of shitty movies are huge hits, and lots of great movies fail. You know, Peter Bogdanovich famously said, ‘The only true test of a movie is time.’ That’s the best thing about movies — they still exist.
If you’re a fan of the movie Clue, go read this piece immediately: “Something Terrible Has Happened Here”: The Crazy Story Of How “Clue” Went From Forgotten Flop To Cult Triumph
One of my favorite comedies. So many great back stories and insights on how different it could have been (originally to be written by Tom Stoppard! with John Landis directing! and Carrie Fisher and Rowan Atkinson starring!).
(Hat tip to @jondavidguerra)
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Low-rated and barely animated, Rocky & Bullwinkle became a TV touchstone
From a good Onion AV Club writeup of the low-budget success of moose-and-squirrel:
Meanwhile, the two friends are targeted by Boris and Natasha and a couple of Moon Men, who want to sabotage the space program, lest their home fill up with tourists. There are also plot complications involving Rocky and Bullwinkle’s seafaring friend Captain Peter Peachfuzz; Boris and Natasha’s boss, Fearless Leader; the Abominable Snowman; and a blight that almost wipes out the world’s supply of mooseberries. As the weeks go by and the show keeps adding to the plates spinning in the air, it’s easy to imagine that the writers may have thought that the network was postponing cancellation because someone high up was curious to see how long they could keep this shit up.
The whole Rocky & Bullwinkle series is on Netflix in pretty decent condition (it’s been re-re-edited into many different formats over the years) if you need to fill a few hundred hours of your life!
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How Long Has Photoshop Had a Hat Feature It
How long has Photoshop had a “Hat” feature? It makes hats.
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Ive Had the Nagging Feeling That Id Seen the
I’ve had the nagging feeling that I’d seen the Adobe Creative Cloud logo before, and I just remembered where: it’s very similar to the linked-rings logo of the facility seen in one of my favorite movies, Wandâfuru Raifu, which takes place in a sort-of way station on the road to the afterlife (heaven not specified). The female lead wears a necklace with the same symbol, but apart from that the film is entirely vague about the organization (?) that the logo belongs to. Hopefully the hereafter’s movie-making division hasn’t been acquired by Adobe!
(Screen grab from the Criterion Forums, which made me hopeful that this film was coming out on Criterion…)
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Why Would You Design Something if It Didnt
Why would you design something, if it didn’t improve the human condition? From the NY Times obit for Niels Diffrient, industrial designer and ergonomics pioneer (among other things, he designed the Polaroid SX-70 Land camera and worked with Henry Dreyfuss and Eero Saarinen on furniture and devices like the Bell Systems princess telephone)
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Sixteen Colors Draw – ANSI Editor
Create and edit ANSI and ASCII art in your browser!
If ansi.drastic.net isn’t doing it for you, here’s another in-browser ANSI art generator, with source available on Github. Go make some BBS graffiti!
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Timekeeping with electron spin states in diamond
From Physical Review A, a new method for keeping precise (like nearly atomic clock precise) time using a diamond and a laser:
Frequency standards based on atomic states, such as Rb or Cs vapors, or single-trapped ions, are the most precise measures of time. Here we propose and analyze a precision oscillator approach based upon spins in a solid-state system, in particular, the nitrogen-vacancy defect in single-crystal diamond.
Oh good, now if Jay-Z is still worried about his Rolleys that don’t tick-tock, or his Audamars that’s losing time hidden behind all those big rocks, he can just shoot a laser at them.
(yep, I just attempted a Watch the Throne / Nature magazine crossover joke. goodnight, everybody!)
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Antiphonal Geometry — Harmony and proportion in responsive web design
One thing of note is that none of them express the golden ratio, that so-called best of proportions. 5:8 comes quite close but, as far as I’m aware, no web device matches the golden section in its screen aspect ratio. I’m not sure why that is, but I like to think that it’s because the golden ratio is for the weak.
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The musical interval ratios also provide an opportunity, not only to create connectedness between the parts of a layout, but to bind the content to a device. Just as a textblock and page resonate together, so too can web content and the screen on which it is displayed.Owen Gregory (@fullcreammilk) on musical intervals, device aspect ratios, and how we should be seeking these harmonies when designing for the web as a responsive medium. A good read. And I like the jab at the golden ratio.
See also: Cennydd Bowles’s The Music of Interaction Design talk.
