Diane, it’s Thursday and I’ve been figuring out how transcription fits into my everyday work. I had to make up a character to make it make sense, as I’ll say.
Diane, I wrote a lecture by talking about it (Interconnected)
The Norbauer design language fuses aesthetics from what I like to call the two great ages of American High Futurism: the First Age—Midcentury Modern—from 1955 to 1969 (when everyone would soon be living in space) and the Second Age, from 1981 to 2001 (the same, but cyberspace). The rounded shapes, parabolic and flaring profiles, and muted colors of the Norbauer universe intentionally evoke the art, graphics, and architecture of these periods.
But it’s not just that I think these semiotic codes (forgive me) are inherently beautiful. I love them because they capture a feeling: nostalgic optimism for the future.
These decades saw incredible advances in aerospace, energy, computing, and communication technologies, accompanied by a pervasive belief in the inevitability of cultural progress, economic growth, and liberalization.
But those ideas don’t hold the same cultural purchase that they once did. The utopian hopes that had been a part of cyber-culture in its early days (decentralization, anonymity, lack of concern with social status or authority, peaceful mutual understanding across cultures, free speech) seem to be fading away. The open web polarized instead into a few walled gardens controlled by a handful of mega-corporations, whose incentives are primarily to monetize attention into outrage and algorithmic tribalism.
I love this feature. Is it a little silly at times? Sure. But there are plenty of occasions where I can’t easily get to my phone or Apple Watch—say I’m carrying things in both hands, or wearing gloves—and I don’t necessarily want to talk to Siri. Nodding and shaking my head is second nature, and I like the audio feedback the AirPods provide to encourage the gesture.
Wish List: More head gestures — Six Colors
Yes
If you have a customer you can’t afford to lose, you’re in an even worse position. Now you’re no longer a sovereign company making your own product, you’re a consulting firm making custom software for that biggest customer, or others like it. Now you’re tethered. Not good.
Friend’s company is going through this now. He’s trying to create a product, the org wants to service big clients. Never the twain can meet…
Shottr can be used for free for as long as you want. Most of its features are available to free users; the main caveat is that the app will ask you to consider buying it every once in a while.
Shottr — Screenshot Annotation App For Mac
Nice little utility.
But I do find common ground in the need for the objects in our lives to remain characterful. We have spent an awful lot of time making things more perfect, refined, and efficient. In the process, though, I worry we are losing some of the things which make them interesting. Perhaps efficiency and refinement are an enemy of personality — the vibration of an engine is lost energy; a needle reading a vinyl record is not nearly as precise as a laser reading a compact disc.
Squareeyez