1. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
  2. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
  3. Abo, Akinori 9
  4. aesthetics 19
  5. agile 30
  6. Albers, Josef 17
  7. Alexander, Christopher 135
  8. Alexander, Scott 5
  9. Allsopp, John 4
  10. Ammer, Ralph 6
  11. Anderson, Gretchen 7
  12. anxiety 9
  13. Appleton, Maggie 5
  14. Aptekar-Cassels, Wesley 5
  15. Arango, Jorge 4
  16. architecture 110
  17. art 86
  18. Asimov, Isaac 5
  19. attention 17
  20. Auping, Michael 6
  21. Aurelius, Marcus 14
  22. Bachelard, Gaston 12
  23. Baker, Nicholson 10
  24. beauty 58
  25. Behrensmeyer, Anna K. 7
  26. Bell, Larry 3
  27. Bjarnason, Baldur 8
  28. Blake, William 5
  29. blogging 22
  30. body 11
  31. Boeing, Geoff 7
  32. boredom 9
  33. Botton, Alain de 38
  34. Brand, Stewart 4
  35. Bringhurst, Robert 16
  36. Brooks, Frederick P. 22
  37. Broskoski, Charles 6
  38. brutalism 7
  39. building 16
  40. bureaucracy 12
  41. Burnham, Bo 9
  42. business 15
  43. Byron, Lord 14
  44. Cagan, Marty 8
  45. Calvino, Italo 21
  46. Camus, Albert 13
  47. care 6
  48. Carruth, Shane 15
  49. Cegłowski, Maciej 6
  50. Cervantes, Miguel de 7
  51. chance 11
  52. change 16
  53. Chiang, Ted 4
  54. childhood 6
  55. Chimero, Frank 17
  56. choice 8
  57. cities 51
  58. Clark, Robin 3
  59. Cleary, Thomas 8
  60. Cleary, J.C. 8
  61. code 20
  62. collaboration 18
  63. collections 31
  64. Collison, Simon 3
  65. color 23
  66. commonplace 11
  67. communication 31
  68. community 7
  69. complexity 11
  70. connection 24
  71. constraints 25
  72. construction 9
  73. content 9
  74. Corbusier, Le 13
  75. Coyier, Chris 4
  76. craft 66
  77. creativity 59
  78. crime 9
  79. Critchlow, Tom 5
  80. critique 10
  81. Cross, Nigel 12
  82. Cross, Anita Clayburn 10
  83. css 11
  84. culture 13
  85. curiosity 11
  86. cycles 7
  87. Danielewski, Mark Z. 4
  88. darkness 28
  89. Darwin, Will 10
  90. data 8
  91. death 38
  92. Debord, Guy 6
  93. decisions 10
  94. design 131
  95. details 31
  96. Dickinson, Emily 9
  97. Dieste, Eladio 4
  98. discovery 9
  99. doors 7
  100. Dorn, Brandon 11
  101. drawing 23
  102. Drucker, Peter F. 15
  103. Duany, Andres 18
  104. Eatock, Daniel 4
  105. economics 13
  106. efficiency 7
  107. Eisenman, Peter 8
  108. Eliot, T.S. 14
  109. emotion 8
  110. ending 14
  111. engineering 11
  112. Eno, Brian 4
  113. ethics 14
  114. euphony 38
  115. Evans, Benedict 4
  116. evolution 9
  117. experience 14
  118. farming 8
  119. fashion 11
  120. features 25
  121. feedback 6
  122. flaws 10
  123. Flexner, Abraham 8
  124. food 16
  125. form 19
  126. Fowler, Martin 4
  127. Franklin, Ursula M. 30
  128. friendship 6
  129. fun 7
  130. function 31
  131. games 13
  132. gardens 26
  133. Garfield, Emily 4
  134. Garfunkel, Art 6
  135. geography 8
  136. geometry 18
  137. goals 9
  138. Gombrich, E. H. 4
  139. goodness 12
  140. Graham, Paul 37
  141. graphics 13
  142. Greene, Erick 6
  143. Hamming, Richard 45
  144. happiness 17
  145. Harford, Tim 4
  146. Harper, Thomas J. 15
  147. Hayes, Brian 28
  148. heat 7
  149. Heinrich, Bernd 7
  150. Herbert, Frank 4
  151. Heschong, Lisa 27
  152. Hesse, Herman 6
  153. history 13
  154. Hoffman, Yoel 10
  155. Hofstadter, Douglas 6
  156. home 15
  157. Hoy, Amy 4
  158. Hoyt, Ben 5
  159. html 11
  160. Hudlow, Gandalf 4
  161. humanity 16
  162. humor 6
  163. Huxley, Aldous 7
  164. hypermedia 22
  165. i 18
  166. ideas 21
  167. identity 33
  168. images 10
  169. industry 9
  170. information 42
  171. infrastructure 17
  172. innovation 15
  173. interaction 10
  174. interest 10
  175. interfaces 37
  176. intuition 8
  177. invention 10
  178. Irwin, Robert 65
  179. Isaacson, Walter 28
  180. Ishikawa, Sara 33
  181. iteration 13
  182. Ive, Jonathan 6
  183. Jackson, Steven J. 14
  184. Jacobs, Jane 54
  185. Jacobs, Alan 5
  186. Jobs, Steve 20
  187. Jones, Nick 5
  188. Kahn, Louis 4
  189. Kakuzō, Okakura 23
  190. Kaufman, Kenn 4
  191. Keith, Jeremy 6
  192. Keller, Jenny 10
  193. Kelly, Kevin 3
  194. Keqin, Yuanwu 8
  195. Ketheswaran, Pirijan 6
  196. Kingdon, Jonathan 5
  197. Kitching, Roger 7
  198. Klein, Laura 4
  199. Kleon, Austin 13
  200. Klinkenborg, Verlyn 24
  201. Klyn, Dan 20
  202. knowledge 29
  203. Kohlstedt, Kurt 12
  204. Kramer, Karen L. 10
  205. Krishna, Golden 10
  206. Kuma, Kengo 18
  207. language 20
  208. learning 30
  209. life 59
  210. light 31
  211. loneliness 12
  212. love 25
  213. Lovell, Sophie 16
  214. Lupton, Ellen 11
  215. Luu, Dan 8
  216. Lynch, Kevin 12
  217. MacIver, David R. 8
  218. MacWright, Tom 5
  219. Magnus, Margaret 12
  220. making 77
  221. management 14
  222. Manaugh, Geoff 27
  223. Markson, David 16
  224. Mars, Roman 13
  225. material 39
  226. math 16
  227. McCarter, Robert 21
  228. meaning 33
  229. media 16
  230. melancholy 51
  231. memory 28
  232. metaphor 10
  233. metrics 19
  234. microsites 49
  235. Miller, J. Abbott 10
  236. Mills, C. Wright 9
  237. minimalism 10
  238. Miyazaki, Hayao 30
  239. Mod, Craig 15
  240. modularity 6
  241. Mollison, Bill 31
  242. morality 8
  243. Murakami, Haruki 21
  244. music 16
  245. Müller, Boris 7
  246. Naka, Toshiharu 8
  247. names 11
  248. Naskrecki, Piotr 5
  249. nature 51
  250. networks 15
  251. Noessel, Christopher 7
  252. notetaking 35
  253. novelty 11
  254. objects 16
  255. order 10
  256. ornament 9
  257. Orwell, George 7
  258. Ott, Matthias 4
  259. ownership 6
  260. Pallasmaa, Juhani 41
  261. Palmer, John 8
  262. patterns 11
  263. Patton, James L. 9
  264. Pawson, John 21
  265. perception 22
  266. perfection 7
  267. performance 17
  268. Perrine, John D. 9
  269. Petroski, Henry 24
  270. philosophy 6
  271. photography 20
  272. physics 6
  273. Pinker, Steven 8
  274. place 14
  275. planning 15
  276. Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth 18
  277. poetry 13
  278. politics 9
  279. Pollan, Michael 6
  280. practice 10
  281. problems 31
  282. process 22
  283. production 7
  284. productivity 12
  285. products 21
  286. programming 9
  287. progress 16
  288. Pye, David 42
  289. quality 26
  290. questions 8
  291. Radić, Smiljan 20
  292. Rams, Dieter 16
  293. Rao, Venkatesh 14
  294. reading 16
  295. reality 13
  296. Reichenstein, Oliver 5
  297. religion 11
  298. Rendle, Robin 12
  299. repair 28
  300. research 17
  301. Reveal, James L. 4
  302. Richards, Melanie 3
  303. Richie, Donald 10
  304. Rougeux, Nicholas 4
  305. Rowe, Peter G. 10
  306. Rupert, Dave 4
  307. Ruskin, John 5
  308. Satyal, Parimal 9
  309. Saval, Nikil 13
  310. Sayers, Dorothy 32
  311. Schaller, George B. 7
  312. Schwulst, Laurel 5
  313. science 17
  314. seeing 36
  315. Sennett, Richard 45
  316. senses 11
  317. Seuss, Dr. 14
  318. Shakespeare, William 4
  319. Shorin, Toby 8
  320. silence 9
  321. Silverstein, Murray 33
  322. Simms, Matthew 19
  323. Simon, Paul 6
  324. simplicity 14
  325. Singer, Ryan 12
  326. skill 17
  327. Sloan, Robin 5
  328. Smith, Cyril Stanley 29
  329. Smith, Justin E. H. 6
  330. Smith, Rach 4
  331. socializing 7
  332. society 23
  333. software 68
  334. solitude 12
  335. Somers, James 8
  336. Sorkin, Michael 56
  337. sound 14
  338. space 20
  339. Speck, Jeff 18
  340. spirit 10
  341. streets 10
  342. structure 13
  343. Strunk, William 15
  344. Ström, Matthew 13
  345. style 30
  346. Sun, Chuánqí 15
  347. symbols 12
  348. systems 18
  349. Sōetsu, Yanagi 34
  350. Sōseki, Natsume 8
  351. Tanaka, Tomoyuki 9
  352. Tanizaki, Jun'ichirō 15
  353. taste 10
  354. Taylor, Dorian 16
  355. teaching 21
  356. teamwork 17
  357. technology 41
  358. texture 7
  359. thinking 31
  360. Thoreau, Henry David 8
  361. time 54
  362. Tolkien, J.R.R. 6
  363. tools 32
  364. touch 8
  365. transportation 16
  366. Trombley, Nick 44
  367. truth 15
  368. Tufte, Edward 31
  369. Turrell, James 6
  370. typography 25
  371. understanding 32
  372. urbanism 68
  373. ux 100
  374. Victor, Bret 9
  375. Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène 4
  376. vision 7
  377. visualization 34
  378. Voltaire 4
  379. wabi-sabi 8
  380. walking 23
  381. Wallace, David Foster 33
  382. Wang, Shawn 6
  383. war 7
  384. waste 12
  385. Watterson, Bill 4
  386. Webb, Matt 14
  387. Wechler, Lawrence 37
  388. whimsy 11
  389. White, E.B. 15
  390. Wirth, Niklaus 6
  391. wisdom 20
  392. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 7
  393. Woolf, Virginia 11
  394. words 35
  395. work 81
  396. writing 55
  397. Wurman, Richard Saul 18
  398. www 88
  399. Yamada, Kōun 5
  400. Yamashita, Yuhki 4
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society

Close
  • A set of potential photographs

    A Quote by Susan Sontag

    ...a mentality which looks at the world as a set of potential photographs.

    1. ​​The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses​​
    2. ​​Mere retinal art​​
    • photography
    • society
    • images

    First found in Pallasmaa's boook.

  • The one reveals a subject and the other reveals an algorithm

    My own book may be crap, but I am certain, when such an imbalance in profitability as the one I have just described emerges, between photojournalism and selfies, that it is all over. This is not a critical judgment. I am not saying that the photos of Pol Pot are good and the selfies are bad. I am saying that the one reveals a subject and the other reveals an algorithm, and that when everything in our society is driven and sustained in existence by the latter, it is all over.

    Justin E. H. Smith, It's All Over
    • algorithms
    • society
  • We live in the aftermath

    So do we live in later modernity, postmodernity, alternative modernity, or liquid modernity? Knowledge societies, information societies, network societies, or risk societies? New media, old media, dead media, or hypermedia? The world of information, the world of search, the world of networks, or the or the world of big data?

    The answer is simple: like every generation before, we live in the aftermath.

    Steven J. Jackson, Rethinking Repair
    • society
    • history
  • From consumption to production

    I see no other solution (political, economic) to the problems of mankind than the formation of small responsible communities involved in permaculture and appropriate technology. I believe that the days of centralised power are numbered, and that a re-tribalisation of society is an inevitable, if sometimes painful, process.

    The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens.

    Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture
    • society
    • consumption
    • production
  • Management and manipulation of fear

    More and more of daily life is governed by the management and manipulation of fear.

    A society can be judged by the risks to which it chooses to respond, the dangers it values, the targets it gives high priority.

    Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan
    • fear
    • society
  • To create noblemen and kings

    While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.

    Henry David Thoreau, Walden
    • society
    • civilization
  • Cupcakes and froyo

    Screenshot of www.ribbonfarm.com on 2020-04-17 at 12.29.53 PM.png

    Premium mediocre is the finest bottle of wine at Olive Garden. Premium mediocre is cupcakes and froyo. Premium mediocre is “truffle” oil on anything (no actual truffles are harmed in the making of “truffle” oil), and extra-leg-room seats in Economy. Premium mediocre is cruise ships, artisan pizza, Game of Thrones, and The Bellagio.

    Venkatesh Rao, Premium Mediocre
    www.ribbonfarm.com
    • culture
    • society
    • demography
  • Consumption

    The proponents of technology in the 1840s were very enthusiastic about replacing workers with machines. But somehow I find no indication that they realized that while production could be carried out with few workers and still run to high outputs, buyers would be needed for those outputs. The realization that though the need for workers decreased, the need for purchasers could increase, did not seem to be part of the discourse on the machinery question. Since then, however, technology and its promoters have had to create a social institution – the consumer – in order to deal with the increasingly tricky problem that machines can produce but it is usually people who consume.

    Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology
    • consumption
    • waste
    • society
  • Millennials and Gen. Z

    I made a prediction on Twitter on February 6th: If Millennials (b. 1980 – 2000) were the premium mediocre generation, Gen Z (b. 2000 – 2020) is going to be the domestic cozy generation.

    A squeezable nugget of comfort
    www.ribbonfarm.com
    • society
    • culture
    • demography
  • Premium Mediocre vs. Domestic Cozy

    Premium mediocre seeks to control its narrative. Domestic cozy is indifferent both to being misunderstood and being ignored.

    Instagram, Tinder, kale salads, and Urban Outfitters are premium mediocre. Minecraft, YouTube, cooking at home, and knitting are domestic cozy. Steve Jobs represented the premium that premium mediocrity aspired towards. Elon Musk represents the relaxed-playfulness-amidst-weirdness at the heart of domestic cozy.

    Premium mediocre looks outward with a salesman affect, edgy anxiety bubbling just below the surface. Domestic cozy looks inward with a relaxed affect. A preternaturally relaxed affect bordering on creepy. One best embodied by the rise of the ASMR-like sensory modality (which even the NYT has noticed) that has come to be known as oddly satisfying.

    Premium mediocrity is the same everywhere, every patch of domestic cozy is domestic cozy in its own way.

    A squeezable nugget of comfort
    www.ribbonfarm.com
    • society

    Millennials may be the generation of premium mediocre, but I know a good chunk of them who are exhausted of pretending, and have jumped ship - or are at least ready to jump - to domestic cozy.

  • We infantilize ourselves

    Here in the US, we expect government and law to be our conscience. Our superego, you could say. It has something to do with liberal individualism, and something to do with capitalism, but I don't understand much of the theoretical aspect—what I see is what I live in. Americans are in a way crazy. We infantilize ourselves. We don't think of ourselves as citizens—parts of something larger to which we have profound responsibilities. We think of ourselves as citizens when it comes to our rights and privileges, but not our responsibilities. We abdicate our civic responsibilities to the government and expect the government, in effect, to legislate morality.

    David Foster Wallace, The Pale King
    • society
    • government
    • politics
    • morality
    • civics
  • The Real World of Technology

    A Lecture by Ursula M. Franklin
    www.amazon.com
    1. ​​Technology is a system​​
    2. ​​Fish and water​​
    3. ​​Defining activities​​
    4. ​​Holistic and prescriptive technologies​​
    5. ​​That which requires caring​​
    1. ​​From hands to machines​​
    2. ​​The design systems between us​​
    3. ​​Stress systems​​
    • technology
    • work
    • society
    • craft
  • This is Water

    A Speech by David Foster Wallace
    www.youtube.com
    1. ​​Everybody worships​​
    1. ​​No words to describe​​
    • life
    • attention
    • society
  • Man in the Middle: The Designer

    A Book by C. Wright Mills
    www.carlosvieirareis.com
    1. ​​The old unity​​
    2. ​​Defining craftsmanship​​
    3. ​​The central value for which they stand​​
    4. ​​The star system​​
    5. ​​As if it were an advertisement​​
    • design
    • society
  • The Waste Land

    A Poem by T.S. Eliot
    www.poetryfoundation.org
    1. ​​HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME​​
    2. ​​A handful of dust​​
    3. ​​Who walks beside you?​​
    4. ​​Has it begun to sprout?​​
    5. ​​Fragments​​
    • solitude
    • society
  • Builder Brain

    An Essay by Charlie Warzel
    newsletters.theatlantic.com

    The Builder mindset often eschews policy completely and focuses on the macro issues, rather than the micro complexities. It is a mindset that seeks to find very elaborate, hypothetical-but-definitely-paradigm-shifting, futuristic technology to fix current problems, instead of focusing on a series of boring-sounding and modest reforms that might help people now.

    …The worst version of Builder mentality is that their dreams become reality, but instead of maintaining their creations, they simply move onto the next Big Thing, leaving others to deal with the mess they’ve made.

    1. ​​A time to build and a time to repair​​
    • technology
    • building
    • society
    • repair
  • evermore, and other beautiful things

    An Article by Linus the Sephist
    linus.coffee

    If all evidence of civilization on Earth was destroyed, and humans had to re-build society from the ground up, what would be different? Feynman reckons that pivotal scientific moments, like the discovery of the atom, will still happen in the same way. Perhaps mathematics will be similarly rediscovered.

    Someone told me once in response to this question, no artwork would ever be recreated. The art we create – music, stories, dance, film – isn’t a fundamental element of the universe, or even of humanity. It’s unique to each artist. If you choose to create art, you leave something in the world that has never had a chance to exist before, and will never again have a chance to exist. There will never be another Beatles or Studio Ghibli or Picasso. Art, in its infinite variations of originality, is cosmically unique in a way the sciences will never be. Art immortalizes human experiences that would otherwise vanish in time.

    • art
    • science
    • humanity
    • society
  • The Third Way

    An Article by Kevin Kelly
    kk.org

    But all the civilized cities of the world were also filled with third places that people loved. Not quite private, not quite public, these third places were intimate but open to anyone. Like settling down at a table at a cafe. It felt like your space, but you were not the landlord. They were public, open spaces that you could “own” for a while.

    …We need a new third category of work — something between “employee” and “not an employee”—that encompasses digital gig laborers. AirBnB is neither a hotel, nor a private resident. It is a third thing, and we need to create a new category to deal with it…This is the era of the third way.

    • place
    • society
    • work
    • culture
  • Class 1 / Class 2 Problems

    An Article by Kevin Kelly
    kk.org

    There are two classes of problems caused by new technology. Class 1 problems are due to it not working perfectly. Class 2 problems are due to it working perfectly.

    ...Class 1 problems arise early and they are easy to imagine. Usually market forces will solve them. You could say, most Class 1 problems are solved along the way as they rush to become Class 2 problems. Class 2 problems are much harder to solve because they require more than just the invisible hand of the market to overcome them.

    ...Class 1 problems are caused by technology that is not perfect, and are solved by the marketplace. Class 2 problems are caused by technology that is perfect, and must be solved by extra-market forces such as cultural norms, regulation, and social imagination.

    • problems
    • technology
    • culture
    • society
  • Stepping out of the firehose

    An Article by Benedict Evans
    www.ben-evans.com

    In 1800, if you’d said that you wanted something ‘made by hand’, that would be meaningless - everything was handmade. But half a century later, it could be a reaction against the age of the machine - of steam and coal-smoke and ‘dark satanic mills.’ The Arts and Crafts movement proposed slow, hand-made, imperfect craft in reaction to mass-produced ‘perfection’ (and a lot of other things besides). A century later this is one reason I’m fascinated by the new luxury goods platforms LVMH and Kering, or indeed Supreme. How do you mass-manufacture, mass-market and mass-retail things whose entire nature is supposedly that they’re individual?

    ...we keep building tools, but also we let go. That’s part of the progression - Arts and Crafts was a reaction against what became the machine age, but Bauhaus and futurism embraced it. If the ‘metaverse’ means anything, it reflects that we have all grown up with this now, and we’re looking at ways to absorb it, internalise it and reflect it in our lives and in popular culture - to take ownership of it. When software eats the world, it’s not software anymore.

    1. ​​Things that don't scale​​
    2. ​​Dark satanic mills​​
    • hypermedia
    • progress
    • society
    • technology
  • The Cycle of Goodness

    An Idea by Tadao Yoshida
    ykknorthamerica.com

    The CYCLE OF GOODNESS® is the corporate philosophy established by YKK’s founder, Tadao Yoshida, who believed that “no one prospers without rendering benefit to others.” It expresses the basic belief of the YKK Group. Tadao Yoshida firmly believed that business belongs to society. As an important member of society, a company survives through coexistence. When the benefits are shared, the value of the company’s existence will be recognized by society. When pursuing his business, Mr. Yoshida was most concerned with that aspect and would find a path leading to mutual prosperity. He believed that using ingenuity and inventiveness in business activities and constantly creating new value would lead to the success of clients and business partners and make it possible to contribute to society. This type of reasoning is referred to as the CYCLE OF GOODNESS® and has always served as the foundation of our business activities.

    1. ​​Why YKK zippers are the brown M&Ms of product design​​
    • goodness
    • society
    • business
  • Life as Protest

    A Fragment by Craig Mod
    craigmod.com

    I’ve written this before but I constantly need to remind myself of it, so, once again: A certain kind of work, lifestyle, mode of living — in and of itself — is protest. That is, work that is curious and rigorous is implicitly an antipode to didactic, shallow bombastity. It is inherently an archetype against bullshit. That to be committed to this work or life of rigor (be it rigor focused on “art” or, as they say in Japanese, sakuhin, or family or athleticism or whatever), and to share it with the world is to opt-out of being paralyzed by idiocy, and help others who may be paralyzed find a path back to whatever fecundity of life it is that they deserve.

    • life
    • work
    • society
  • Premium Mediocre

    An Article from Ribbonfarm by Venkatesh Rao
    www.ribbonfarm.com
    1. ​​Cupcakes and froyo​​
    2. ​​Maya Millennial​​
    3. ​​What premium mediocre is not​​
    • society
    • culture

See also:
  1. culture
  2. technology
  3. work
  4. consumption
  5. demography
  6. life
  7. waste
  8. government
  9. politics
  10. morality
  11. civics
  12. design
  13. craft
  14. solitude
  15. attention
  16. civilization
  17. fear
  18. production
  19. photography
  20. images
  21. goodness
  22. business
  23. history
  24. hypermedia
  25. progress
  26. algorithms
  27. problems
  28. place
  29. art
  30. science
  31. humanity
  32. building
  33. repair
  1. Ursula M. Franklin
  2. Venkatesh Rao
  3. David Foster Wallace
  4. Kevin Kelly
  5. C. Wright Mills
  6. T.S. Eliot
  7. Henry David Thoreau
  8. Michael Sorkin
  9. Bill Mollison
  10. Susan Sontag
  11. Craig Mod
  12. Tadao Yoshida
  13. Steven J. Jackson
  14. Benedict Evans
  15. Justin E. H. Smith
  16. Linus the Sephist
  17. Charlie Warzel