ideasphere

Mostly nice but looks like their setup needs a tweak on what counts as ‘bullshit’:

“The Shortcut

$100 PlayStation gift card deal, Disney+ password crackdown, New Matrix movie, Budget AirPods, Samsung TVs [10h]”

(Hn saving you from all the emoji in that headline too…)

‘Tree’ has always been my go-to. How about you?

I thought the exact opposite from a UX angle. Swiped down and it started scrolljacking and then I read the line about touch screens helping us “to snag Lightning deals on Prime Day” and it was enough for me to just stop reading and close the tab.

Trick question, all tri bikes look weird.

“Don’t get used to me serving you when you can just get the drinks yourself”

They are specifically who I’m defining as flag-in-the-ground types.

Adrian Frutiger was a well-known type designer whose fonts were popular in the era being talked about. It makes sense but I agree that to me, this hyper-specificity and flexing of knowledge on specifics shows that it’s really about the person coining it wanting to plant their flag in the ground. To be ‘the person who coined that phrase everyone uses online’ and their justification for taking that role is “I know who Adrian Frutiger is.” It promotes the idea of singular figures defining (and policing) the definition of these terms rather than encouraging others to contribute and engage in a collective mess (which is how I prefer culture to operate.)

I agree 100%. Style is important but it’s the personal identification with defining and policing its microscopic fluctuations that ultimately leads nowhere but back at the snakes head. The older I get and the most first-hand experience I have, the more I realise it’s an obsession of those not burdened with this. The broad strokes are there but it’s ultimately myth making – seeking to squish the square peg of history into the round hole of a neat narrative.

Much like in music, I find this hyper-specific genre-mania is ultimately just tiring. Regressive retromania that leads to pastiche and revivalism at best.

Sony released the PCG-C2GPS laptop in Nov 1999 which had a reflective LCD almost exactly like this. The use-case was that you’d primarily use it in your car (during the day) for navigation and want the better battery life by not having a backlight. The back of the LCD hinges off like this but also stores a front light you can attach for low-light situations.

https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/article/991104/sony.htm

The photos of the screen in use look bad! B/W only for reflective in my experience (i.e. Pebble watch.)

From a few years back, MySpace too: https://spacehey.com/

This makes me think about this blog post I read once and often think about; looking at the restaurants and clubs featured in American Psycho and “where are they now?”

https://www.scoutingny.com/patrick-batemans-new-york-what-ha...

I love the author’s conclusion that ultimately the trendiest, hottest place with a line out the door and no chance of getting in is an abstract cultural concept. Often just a box that will soon go back to being just a box (or a baby carriage showroom.)