The Nintendo way of adapting technology is not to look for the state of the art but to utilize mature technology that can be mass-produced cheaply.
This is the reason a Nintendo console never has the fastest chips or the beefiest specs of its generation; instead, its remixes components in an interesting and generative way. Think of the Gameboy’s monochrome screen, the Wii’s motion controller, the Switch’s smartphone form.
[Gunpei Yokoi] is talking about reliability and predictability, in performance and supply alike. He wants the components to be boring, so their application can be daring.
This visualization takes the current New York Times Best Sellers list for combined print and e-book fiction and scales each title according to the demand for its e-book edition at a collection of U.S. public libraries, selected for their size and geographic diversity.
This is a kind of manifesto about the difference between liking something on the internet and loving something on the internet.
It’s also an experiment in a new format: a “tap essay,” presenting its argument tap by tap, making its case with typography, color, and a few surprises.
The inglenook, the gazebo, and the porch swing also have strong definitions of their spaces. They are each a bit like a little house set off for a special thermal purpose. They might be termed "thermal aediculae". Although the term aedicula is most often used in conjunction with a sacred or ceremonial little house, it can also be used to describe any diminutive structure used to mark a place as special.
Summerson contends that there is a basic human "fascination of the minitature shelter." Perhaps this is because the aedicula intensifies ones experience of the place by working someone like a caricature. By reducing some things in scale, it exaggerates the importance of other things, most especially the size of a person in relation to the space.