Archive: January 8th, 2020

This is Not my Beautiful House: Examining the Desktop Metaphor, 1980-1995 | continent.

From Xerox PARC to the World Wide Web:

The internet did not use a visual spatial metaphor. Despite being accessed through and often encompassed by the desktop environment, the internet felt well and truly placeless (or perhaps everywhere). Hyperlinks were wormholes through the spatial metaphor, allowing a user to skip laterally across directories stored on disparate servers, as well as horizontally, deep into a file system without having to access the intermediate steps. Multiple windows could be open to the same website at once, shattering the illusion of a “single file” that functioned as a piece of paper that only one person could hold. The icons that a user could arrange on the desktop didn’t have a parallel in online space at all.

Guide to Internal Communication, the Basecamp Way

Writing solidifies, chat dissolves. Substantial decisions start and end with an exchange of complete thoughts, not one-line-at-a-time jousts. If it’s important, critical, or fundamental, write it up, don’t chat it down.

This one feels like it should be Somebody’s Law:

If your words can be perceived in different ways, they’ll be understood in the way which does the most harm.

The Decade in Cheer - Reasons to be Cheerful

Since 2010

• The developed world used less water, despite population growth
• The (whole) world became less transphobic than it once was
• The ozone layer started healing
• Investment in green energy far, far exceeded investment in fossil fuels
• The world got greener
• Homicide rates fell worldwide
• Weather forecasting became a lot more accurate
• The number of people without electricity fell below one billion
• Universal health care went from privileged ideal to global ambition