Reading

Created
Sat, 08/01/2022 - 13:01
With the festive season over, decorations have almost disappeared from shop windows and front gardens. Suburban frontyard light displays have been packed away, and the dry, dead remains of Christmas trees protrude from green waste bins. The decorations that are still up seem stubborn or stale, behind the times, which have churned on into an […]
Created
Thu, 06/01/2022 - 12:28
I had two pieces and an interview come out today. In Politico, I address the anniversary of January 6, arguing that the events of that day have misled us about the real challenges we face. A quick taste: While scholars warn of fascism on the one side and pundits bicker over wokeness on the other, the larger and longer view reveals how blinkered both of these assessments are. The right’s road to power does not run through street violence, mass rallies, fake news or lawless coups. The left’s weakness has nothing to do with critical race theory and cancel culture. Both claims suffer from the same shortcoming: They focus on the margins rather than the matrix. Driving the initiatives of […]
Created
Wed, 05/01/2022 - 13:39

For reasons architecturally unbeknownst to me, the McMansions of Chicago’s suburbs are actually insane. Perhaps it makes sense that Chicago, America’s mecca of great and distinguished architecture would also give birth to what can be appropriately called the netherworld version of that.

For six years, I have run this blog, and for six years I have been absolutely amazed by the formal leaps and bounds exhibited by the McMansions of Chicago’s suburbs. This area is undisputedly the fertile crescent of unhinged custom homebuilding and while I’ve heard other claims made for the gaudy, compact McMansions of Long Island, the paunchy shingled stylings of Greenwich, Connecticut, the Disney-Mediterranean hodgepodges of Florida, the oil-drenched nub mountains of North Texas, you name it – nothing comes remotely close to that which has been built in the suburbs of Cook, Lake, and DuPage Counties. (In the case of the houses featured in this post, nine of ten are located in Barrington, IL, which just might be the census designated place known as McMansion Hell.)

Created
Mon, 03/01/2022 - 03:09

In 1999, I had the good fortune to work alongside Dan Licht at an NYC digital startup called SenseNet, RIP. Back then, although still in his early 20s, Dan was already an accomplished art director and digital designer. Today he’s a fantastic comics illustrator, artist, and creative director. Check his recent art on Instagram and his client work at Daniel […]

The post Looking Back, Looking Ahead: artist Dan Licht appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

Created
Sun, 02/01/2022 - 12:02

This food timeline started as a way to explore the revolution in Australian food that has occurred during the baby-boomers’ lifetime, but has since expanded to include more about the previous decades (and century) as well. Also included are overseas events and trends that had an impact here. The entries are brief, but there are lots of links if you want more information.

Most Googled recipes - gnocchi

Tracking the list of most Googled recipes over the past few years is both revealing and mystifying.  The most Googled recipe for 2021 was gnocchi, perhaps not a surprise given our ongoing love for Italian food. But the most baffling is how curried sausages became the third most Googled recipe of the year. I remember […]

Created
Wed, 29/12/2021 - 01:13

Our fifteenth annual International Day Against DRM (IDAD), might be over, but the fight against Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) continues. Each year, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and its Defective by Design campaign distill what we've learned throughout the year in our anti-DRM activism on one special day: a day especially supportive to those retailers and publishers who rightly refuse to foist DRM on their customers, and a day especially critical of those who haven't gotten the message that our real digital rights cannot be restricted. For those of us steeped in the Defective by Design campaign, IDAD never fails to provide moments that inspire us in our work for the coming year.