onfocus by Paul Bausch

Posts from October 2018

sidebar.io

Welcome to Newsletter Wednesday! (I just made that up so it's a thing now.) Sidebar shares five daily links about web design and it's a good one to subscribe to via email. I've recently been diving down a microcopy best practices rabbit hole and I'm blaming Sidebar for that.

Recommended · Oct 31^st, 2018, 8:03 am

davidrumsey.com

David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

This is a fun site to browse for visual inspiration. It has high-resolution scans of historic maps and map-adjacent documents that you can zoom around to see details. I've been going back to the data visualization category and the illustrated maps are pretty great too. Here's the origin story of this project.

Recommended · Oct 30^th, 2018, 8:03 am

theguardian.com

Evelyn Hofer's immersive New York

Some amazing architecture and portrait photography of NYC in the 60's and 70's. [via Tecznts] There are a few more photographs by Hofer at Galerie m Bochum.

Recommended · Oct 29^th, 2018, 7:34 pm

Fall Path

Photos · Oct 28^th, 2018, 1:00 pm

the economist

American democracy’s built-in bias towards rural Republicans

"In no other two-party system does the party that receives the most votes routinely find itself out of power." So that's not going according to plan. I really like the idea of ranked-choice voting but when the people who make those kinds of decisions benefit from the current system, any sort of voting change seems unlikely.

Recommended · Oct 28^th, 2018, 8:58 am

iTunes

Mast

This is a nice, new iOS Mastodon app. I'm going back and forth between Mast and Amaroq and I can't decide which is the one Mastodon app to rule them all yet. If you're wondering what Mastodon is, you can't go wrong with Laura Kalbag's summary: What is Mastodon and why should I use it?

Recommended · Oct 27^th, 2018, 4:03 pm

Coding Horror

What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

Jeff Atwood contemplates 10 years of the indespensible programming community Stack Overflow and where it might be heading. I'll also use this space to plug the excellent Stack Overflow newsletters. I don't visit the SO sites everyday but I like to see a weekly summary of what's popular in various communities—the RPG newsletter is especially fun if you're into that sort of thing.

Recommended · Oct 27^th, 2018, 9:50 am

The New York Times

A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

The screen struggle is real. I'm trying to find this line with my kids and with myself and this article is more fuel for the less-is-more fire.

Recommended · Oct 26^th, 2018, 5:38 pm

Quartz

190 universities just launched 600 free online courses. Here’s the full list.

It's interesting to see which subjects are covered in this list of new online courses. I signed up for a free course about podcasting from an Australian university. [via mefi]

Recommended · Oct 26^th, 2018, 8:44 am

Corvallis Color

Photos · Oct 25^th, 2018, 6:14 am

The Atlantic

Browsing the Stacks: A Photo Appreciation of Libraries

Alan Taylor at In Focus (no relation) focuses on photographs taken in and around libraries.

Recommended · Oct 24^th, 2018, 9:13 pm

YouTube

“How to Vote”

Very nice Sandwich Video about voting featuring Demi Adejuyigbe! Of course if you live in the pacific northwest like me you could have already voted by now thanks to mail in ballots.

Recommended · Oct 24^th, 2018, 8:50 pm

Yet Another Sunflower

Photos · Oct 13^th, 2018, 12:13 pm

Shift Happens Newsletter

I am just never going to make my giant email newsletter list post and I have another one to recommend. If you're interested in the history of computing, keyboards, or the ways people interact with machines you should follow Marcin Wichary's progress on his book Shift Happens. Yesterday's update was a love letter to the KPH Radio Station in Marin County, CA which preserves decades of keyboards devoted to maritime communication: A time machine behind the cypress trees. And to catch up with Wichary's obsession you can't go wrong with Matt Haughey's interview with him on Hobby Horse: Marcin Wichary quit his job for his love of keyboards.

Thoughts · Oct 9^th, 2018, 7:07 pm

Waldo Hall

Photos · Oct 1^st, 2018, 10:43 pm