inasmuch

I feel as though I'm fighting an unwinnable battle by asking for more, not less intention in art. Most artists at least produce a statement to accompany their work, but I rarely find them substantive, despite their often turgid language.

What I find particularly distasteful about this is the presentation of "art" as interior design products. This seems to be a trend among independent creators looking to make a living outside of the traditional gallery/fair/buyer system. I of course understand why they're doing it, but I'm using those disparaging quotation marks because that commercial contextualization commercializes the work itself. And at that point, it escapes my own nebulous boundaries for art and becomes something else.

What exactly, I don't know. I'm not sure "design" qualifies here, even though we're being asked to appraise the work as we might a chair or credenza, because I'm not sure I believe "this wall feels empty" is a problem to be solved, in the design sense.

So what is it then? Stuff? Just more stuff for people to buy and feel good about owning? Okay.

(And no, I don't think this counts as me having a reaction to the art. I'm reacting to the creator, the marketing, and—sorry—the bullshit.)

Also a raw HTML writer, but I’ve been considering the SSG route to make site updates (global nav changes, redesigns, etc.) manageable. You seem to have some method of handling this on your site, given that I can view a page of posts from 10 years ago and still see links to this year’s posts. How are you doing that with raw HTML? (If this question doesn’t make it clear, I am quite amateur.)

I'm grateful to not have much of a problem with my smartphone usage, but I often find myself researching dumb phones in search of something somehow better because I quite dislike my phone (and all the others I've seen/heard of) as a device. It's too big, I hate touchscreens, and I hate Bluetooth.

I'd like to see someone develop a new smartphone platform with all the niceties like GPS, a decent camera, easy cloud (and/or manual) backups of my data, and either a lot of onboard storage or easy SD compatibility, but offer it in a completely different physical format that is more conducive to efficient, intermittent productive/tool-like use and less tuned for consumption. Small form factor, maybe a fold-out QWERTY keyboard (my LG Env3 is the only phone I've ever actually liked), headphone jack, etc. Something reasonably durable that can take a drop or be submerged and simply won't be "fun" enough to spend much passive time on.

As for apps, I like all my basics to be built by the same company that built the hardware, but combining that with an open platform for third-party options seems like an easy win, even if I don't end up using those other apps myself.

I recently got my old iPod up and running again because I loathe the touchscreen/Bluetooth headphone combination for listening to music. But it feels so stupid to be carrying an additional device. I now carry a camera with me too because I dislike smartphone image processing. This also feels stupid.

It's silly that we've concluded the only two options are pocket computers that can't do much at all, or pocket computers that can do anything, but only in this one way that many people find harmful.

Born in ‘88. Haven’t had Facebook since 2010; Instagram since 2012; Twitter since 2017. Not on Reddit, only use Discord for voice calls with a couple friends while gaming.

My few friends are more or less the same way, but I’ve felt very isolated from my peers for a long time due to their passive relationship maintenance and growth through social media. All the ways I used to meet new people seem to be ineffective these days. I have developed a Youtube consumption problem and I suspect it’s because it gives me the hit a better social life would.

I hear sentiments like yours every now and then, but I’m sure not seeing a change myself. Most people seem to agree the platforms are bad, but also seem more addicted than ever.

I'm inordinately irritated that this quiz is impossible to ace. I got every question right but for #6, which has an answer format that makes it impossible to answer correctly. "Sorry, trick question," it says when you put in "0 hours" as the best approximation of the correct "you can't park here at all" answer. Like, I knew that … you just … made it impossible to answer correctly? What?

This is a silly thing to be upset about, but just … why would they have done that? It's so stupid.

I have asked for feedback a few times—particularly on ones where I felt I got close to an offer. Unfortunately no one has even responded to these requests.

The remote thing definitely limits my options, but I have tried to be realistic about it. For the first few years of this struggle, I was primarily looking for local work in a big city with lots of options. Since I moved a couple years ago, I have been focused on remote-only or at least remote-first companies, as I am currently experiencing the sorta second-class-citizenship of being a remote employee at a company that still claims it isn’t remote, despite not having any offices since the pandemic.

I’m definitely open to local work and actually prefer working in an office, if it’s a decent place, so I do keep an eye out for it, but there aren’t many opportunities for my kind of work where I live.

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions!

This is the killer for me. I've never found tech work fulfilling, personally, and I never expected to. But what has burned me out is the sense of being perpetually behind because there's no finish line; infinitely marching onward without ever feeling you've accomplished something. Every morning I open the same files.

My friends outside tech often talk about the satisfaction and relief they feel after completing a big project, and the relatively peaceful lull between such projects, and it just sounds so nice. Doesn't matter whether it's a big event they planned, a tour they went on, or a structure they welded. When something is done it's done. They get to move on personally and professionally.

It used to feel like a job change would provide that sense of momentum, but even that's disappearing now that every product (at least from my designer's perspective) feels more or less identical these days.

I came to suggest exactly this, though I'm not sure I've ever seen it in the wild.

Set a flat minimum amount you need to collect for the software and allow your customer to either pay that out in subscription payments (and then continue paying if she wants to keep receiving updates) or, if she decides to cancel her subscription early, allow her to pay any remaining difference between the sum of her subscription payments and your flat price.

I run my mom’s portfolio site through porkbun.com. $10/yr domain + $3/mo hosting = $46.

I used to use nearlyfreespeech.net for my own site and it was even cheaper, but a little more complicated to get up and running.

I love stave churches so much.

I had the good fortune of visiting the Hopperstad stave church when it was getting a fresh coat of the traditional resinous mixture that preserves it and gives it its signature color. If I remember correctly (I probably don't), they said they give it a new coat every 26 years. The smell was heady.

The carvings throughout the building are as cool as the building itself: chimerical mashups of Christian and local pagan imagery, signatures from ancient travelers, and of course more runes than you can shake a stave at.

One of those places, like the Hagia Sophia, that overwhelms you with the depth of history. How tragic to only get one life; to only experience one era.

Yeah, I hear you. A CC subscription is not cheap, but it's pretty incredible what you get for ~$600/yr, especially compared to what's offered by other subscriptions people pay for without blinking an eye.

I'm as eager—if not more—to take on massive greedy corporations as the next person, but my guillotine would be dull well before I got to Adobe's neck.

I don't think I'll be designing on an Android device any time soon, but fingers crossed for implementation!