Seaside and Elsewhere
Curated by Jordan Yee
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Today Apple stopped me from buying an app from the Mac App Store.
After clicking “Install App” and entering my password, I was presented a screen simply titled “Security Info.” Apple wanted me to create security questions. Sounds like a great idea, I thought, especially in light of the Matt Honan incident.
The problem however was that I couldn’t answer any of them. They either didn’t apply or couldn’t — or were too ambiguous to — be reliably answered.
Maybe if I wasn’t Canadian and consequently was more polarized, I’d have had a singular best friend, or film star, or band in school.
Maybe if learning to cook, or the first film I saw, or the first flight I took was a life changing moment, I’d be able to remember it.
Maybe if I had paid more attention or had better memory, I’d be able to remember the first beach I went to, or how to spell my favourite elementary teacher’s name, or the name of my first manager from that awful first job that one summer over a decade ago.
Maybe if I hadn’t bought more than one album the first time I bought albums, or owned a car, or was into professional sports.
Maybe if I had had a pet, or loved a children’s book, or had a formal name that required a nickname.
Or maybe if Apple had let me write my own questions, I’d have bought that app.
I understand that good security and good user experience tend to be at odds but this is just poor execution. “Execution” because a better design already exists: let users write their own questions.
In the end I was able to answer one question. The name of the street where I grew up. Well, sort of. I did move three times between birth and university. Not that it mattered though since Apple required three answered questions.
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Photo reblogged from boo hoo boo hoo boo hoo boo
i’m selling my two worn-out old laptops on ebay. a big one here, and a small one here. i will only be removing financial information from these computers. all music, video files, writing, failed projects and abandoned comics will stay on them.
if you are willing to navigate their jumbled and confusing directory trees you could find such things as valentines i’ve made, a text file i’ve used for my to-do lists and personal notes for 2-3 years, high res versions of all my comics, terrible music i’ve recorded etc. these are kind of strange/personal things for you to buy and if you buy them feel free to do something strange with the files on them.
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Photo reblogged from Cabin Porn
Stone and sod cabin in West Fjords, Iceland.
Photographed by Nathan Swa.
Finally a cabin porn, I’ve been in!
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Paul Woods, Edenspiekermann, on using Keynote as a layout and UI design tool:
In fact, when I first started working at ESPI last July, I was very surprised to find out that designers were using Keynote for laying out presentations. My surprise turned to alarm when I found out that they were also using it as a design tool to build UI designs for websites and apps. It turns out that I was absolutely wrong. Keynote is an incredibly powerful design tool. Less then one year later, I now rarely (if ever) use InDesign to layout presentations, and I have started using Keynote almost exclusively for any web layouts I do. And not just UX wireframes, but full UI designs.
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The great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.Ernest Hemingway in the tenth chapter of Death in the Afternoon; originally published in 1932.
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Bad design is where the customer thinks it’s their fault that something doesn’t work. So if you can’t make your GPS device work in your car — I mean, there should be a riot because they’re so poorly designed! Instead, the user thinks, ‘Oh, I’m not very smart, I can’t make this GPS thing work.’ People should demand more from the things they own, they need to demand that things work.
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All bad writers are in love with the epic.Ernest Hemingway in the fifth chapter of Death in the Afternoon; originally published in 1932.
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True mysticism should not be confused with incompetence in writing which seeks to mystify where there is no mystery but is really only the necessity to fake to cover lack of knowledge or the inability to state clearly. Mysticism implies a mystery and there are many mysteries; but incompetence is not one of them; nor is overwritten journalism made literature by the injection of a false epic quality.Ernest Hemingway in the fifth chapter of Death in the Afternoon; originally published in 1932.
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If a man writes clearly enough any one can see if he fakes.Ernest Hemingway in the fifth chapter of Death in the Afternoon; originally published in 1932.
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I found the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing what you truly felt, rather than what you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel, was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were that produced the emotion you experienced.Ernest Hemingway in the first chapter of his novel Death in the Afternoon; originally published in 1932.
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If those who read this decide with disgust that it is written by some one who lacks their, the reader’s, fineness of feeling. I can only plead that this may be true. But whoever reads this can only truly make such a judgement when he, or she, has seen the things that are spoken of and knows truly what their reactions to them would be.Ernest Hemingway in the first chapter of his novel Death in the Afternoon; originally published in 1932.
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I am formally retreating, for a period at least, from posting links to current writing and news. I will be acquainting myself with the great and classic writers to experience great writing. In the time ahead you can expect quotes from what I am reading along with the odd unpublished link posts.
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A great conversation between Frank Warren of PostSecret and Hannah Hart of My Drunk Kitchen.
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I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently.Ernest Hemingway
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The meta question for all of us is this: Which civilization are you a designer for? The one that’s dying, or the one that we are trying to create?Paul Hawken
