farming
An information service society
Auditory Hallucinations from Offworld Megafarms
Quaker Square Inn
The modernist architect Le Corbusier was an admirer of American grain elevators, suggesting that their regularity and modularity could serve as a model for other kinds of buildings. At least one later architect took the suggestion seriously. The Quaker Square Inn in Akron, Ohio, occupies the shell of a former elevator. If you're in town for the night, you can rent a round room in one of the silos.
Introduction to Permaculture
A Book by Bill MollisonThe conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of the landscape with people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
In Search of Organic Software
An Article by Pirijan KetheswaranTwo different kinds of farms can grow vegetables. One is a factory farm built for scale, and the other takes the time to grow more expensive but healthier plants without pesticides.
Will everyone appreciate the difference? Of course not, but the latter plants are labelled ‘organic’ to give us the information and the choice, so that those of us who do care can make better decisions.
So maybe we should have ‘organic’ software as well, made by companies that:
- Are not funded in such a way where the primary obligation of the company is to 🎡 chase funding rounds or get acquired (so bootstrapping, crowdfunding, grants, and angel investment are okay)
- Have a clear pricing page
- Disclose their sources of funding and sources of revenue
The Sheaves
A Poem by Edwin Arlington RobinsonWhere long the shadows of the wind had rolled,
Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned;
And as by some vast magic undivined
The world was turning slowly into gold.
Like nothing that was ever bought or sold
It waited there, the body and the mind;
And with a mighty meaning of a kind
That tells the more the more it is not told.So in a land where all days are not fair,
Fair days went on till on another day
A thousand golden sheaves were lying there,
Shining and still, but not for long to stay—
As if a thousand girls with golden hair
Might rise from where they slept and go away.Data Farming
A Research PaperMiners seek valuable nuggets of ore buried in the earth, but have no control over what is out there or how hard it is to extract the nuggets from their surroundings. ... Similarly, data miners seek to uncover valuable nuggets of information buried within massive amounts of data.
Farmers cultivate the land to maximize their yield. They manipulate the environment to their advantage using irrigation, pest control, crop rotation, fertilizer, and more. Small-scale designed experiments let them determine whether these treatments are effective. Similarly, data farmers manipulate simulation models to their advantage, using large-scale designed experimentation to grow data from their models in a manner that easily lets them extract useful information.
Weighing up UX
Metrics come up when we’re talking about A/B testing, growth design, and all of the practices that help designers get their seat at the table (to use the well-worn cliché). But while metrics are very useful for measuring design’s benefit to the business, they’re not really cut out for measuring user experience.
Two levels of veto
At Clearleft, every staff member has two levels of veto on client work. You can say “I’m not comfortable working on this”, in which case, the work may still happen but we’ll make sure the resourcing works out so you don’t have anything to do with that project. Or you can say “I’m not comfortable with Clearleft working on this”, in which case the work won’t go ahead.
Our obedience to the king
Going back to the question of whether it’s ever okay to use a deceptive dark pattern, here’s what I think…
It makes no difference whether it’s implemented by ProPublica or Breitbart; using a deceptive dark pattern is wrong.
But there is a world of difference in being a designer who works at ProPublica and being a designer who works at Breitbart.
That’s what I’m getting at when I say there’s a danger to focusing purely on user experience. That focus can be used as a way of avoiding responsibility for the larger business goals. Then designers are like the soldiers on the eve of battle in Henry V:
For we know enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.