July 2005

When a great designer does the wrong good design

Right now in Brooklyn there is a battle being waged. The classic battler of progress vs. quality of life. Brooklyn is facing a huge renassaince. Almost every neighborhood has seen huge improvements from East New York to Bay Ridge. Brooklyn is now THE place to live in New York City and not one major capital plan was necessary to create that attraction.

But one real estate baron come basketball team owner got it in his head that he single-handedly can change Brooklyn forever. But at what cost. I moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan because I wanted to slow down. I had lived over 11 years in Manhattan (w/ a 2 year respite in the suburbs of San Francisco) and I have to say upon returning to the city, I was overwhelmed by the density of everything. Thus, I fled the throngs of Manhattan, to live in “brownstone Brooklyn”.

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politics can't be ignored

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Elements of Design – Is there a negative space to interaction?

It seems after doing very limited study that the manipulation of negative space (in graphic design called “white space”) is a key attribute of any designer’s craft. … Is there a negative space to interaction or behavior? What do people think?

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general thoughts

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Ontology isn’t overrated and Tagging isn’t really anything new.

Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags by Clay Shirky is a great article that describes the power of tagging, but it is not critical enough, nor does it separate blatant individualistic tagging from a more controlled universe of folksonomy. Thomas Vander Wal was a guest contributore on Ok-Cancel with an article of his own, Tagging for Fun and Finding.

Is all this lauding of tagging going a bit too far? It all feels short-sighted to me. Fun! but short-sighted.

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patterns and widgets

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Why the ending matters (maybe more than the rest)? (contains movie spoiler)

Recently I had a movie experience, that left me feeling betrayed. The kind of betrayal that only an intimate relationship could create.

Have you ever walked into a movie theatre with the utmost excitement and hope for a moving and exciting experience, to leave the theatre totally distraunt, and all you and your buddy can talk about is how disappointing that experience was? Well, if you don’t mind a nasty spoiler to a summer blockbuster, read on.

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patterns and widgets

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