internets.rob
Picking those weedy flowers
you saw
on the side of the highway.
22 Jan 2012
05 Dec 2011
“ A late sixties Gulf Air card portrays a well-tailored Marvel Comics–style man, stalwart and square jawed, prepared to meet his fate with a ducklike dignity.
— Avi Steinberg – The Unlikely Event from Paris Review. Highly recommended.
02 Dec 2011
01 Dec 2011
22 Nov 2011
14 Nov 2011
“ This current incarnation of Republicanism is so crude, so un-American, so fascistic in its disdain for the rule of law and its relish for violence that it should have no place in a Western polity. To have leading Republican candidates embrace torture in this way renders it the only political party in the entire Western world to embrace the abuse and torture of prisoners. It is unique in the West in embracing the tactics of totalitarian states throughout the world.
— Andrew Sullivan, “Why Huntsman And Paul Matter”
The fact that these unctuous, idiotic, craven hypocrites haven’t been run off the stage in utter shame sickens me.
The fact that these unctuous, idiotic, craven hypocrites haven’t been run off the stage in utter shame sickens me.
26 Oct 2011
“ The locus of the infantilist aesthetic seemed to be Steve Jobs himself, if his pronouncements at keynote presentations were an accurate representation. The default book in iBooks? Winnie the Pooh. The trailers he used to demonstrate the video capabilities of the device? Pixar movies. The music choices? Resolutely mainstream, conservative and sentimental. At his recent memorial service on the Apple campus, Coldplay and Norah Jones played. Can you imagine these artists playing at a Dieter Rams memorial?
My question is: why does this approach not extend to the devices themselves? Why not make a wooden case for the iMac, like those hideous Sony TVs from my childhood? Or why not a case that makes the computer look like a typewriter?
And why, when we have these beautiful, clean, efficient devices, do we put up with this horrific, dishonest and childish crap?
My question is: why does this approach not extend to the devices themselves? Why not make a wooden case for the iMac, like those hideous Sony TVs from my childhood? Or why not a case that makes the computer look like a typewriter?
And why, when we have these beautiful, clean, efficient devices, do we put up with this horrific, dishonest and childish crap?
—
From “Apple’s aesthetic dichotomy,” James Higgs/Made by Many.
There is a certain garish sentimentality to the design of these applications. James Higgs apparently feels the same glaring dissonance I feel when i look at this stuff: the iPad or iPhone is so damn elegant it makes you wince when you see the clumsy digital image of a puffy leatherbound book when you turn it on.
My guess, personally, is that the issue comes down to the fact that Jony Ive doesn’t design GUIs. Or the people in charge of the whole package think he’s designing a piece of hardware with a different character than what he thinks he’s designing. Sad.
18 Oct 2011
» The Partisan and the Political :: Peter Frase
Interesting long read on the difference between ideology and partisanship, the OWS protests in the modern American political sphere, and what if anything the remnants of the dead left can do with them.
05 Oct 2011
