August 2013 Articles

A terrific reminder of one of, if not the most important aspect of life: being kind to one-another. George Saunders’ commencement speech to the 2013 graduating class of Syracuse University.

“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.”

Do you have a Ralph’s Rewards card? Do you have a charity associated with your rewards card?

Ralph’s will donate to a charity you identify, and they have thousands registered, based on your eligible purchases when you shop with them.

A “no-brainer” way to help an organization you care about.

“The Oxford comma, so-called because the Oxford University Press style guidelines require it, is the comma before the conjunction at the end of a list. If your preferred style is to omit the second comma in “red, white, and blue,” you are aligned with the anti-Oxford comma faction. The pro-Oxford comma faction is more vocal and numerous in the US, while in the UK, anti-Oxford comma reigns. (Oxford University is an outsider, style-wise, in its own land.) In the US, book and magazine publishers are generally pro, while newspapers are anti, but both styles can be found in both media.”

An open letter from Kara Swisher of All Things D to Jeff Bezos, the new owner of the Washington Post.

A neat new online-book about typography.

“This is a bold claim, but I stand behind it: if you learn and fol­low these five ty­pog­ra­phy rules, you will be a bet­ter ty­pog­ra­ph­er than 95% of pro­fes­sion­al writ­ers and 70% of pro­fes­sion­al de­sign­ers. (The rest of this book will raise you to the 99th per­centile in both categories.)

“All it takes is ten min­utes–five min­utes to read these rules once, then five minutes to read them again.”

“An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace….”

“FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – With inviting beaches that run for miles along South Florida’s shores, it is easy to put sand into the same category as turbo air-conditioning and a decent mojito – something ever present and easily taken for granted.

“As it turns out, though, sand is not forever. Constant erosion from storms and tides and a rising sea level continue to swallow up chunks of beach along Florida’s Atlantic coastline. Communities have spent the last few decades replenishing their beaches with dredged-up sand. “

Turns out, that off-shore sand reserve is about to run out.

Computing user interfaces, mobile and desktop, require interaction from users (hence “user interface”). The more complicated your interface is, the more cognitive resources the user must employ. And those resources are limited.

Tess Vigeland’s step away from the secure job with an audience of supporters into the swirling well of “what’s next?”.

“… when I left — it wasn’t for another dream. It wasn’t something I expected to do or planned for months or years. I left a sure thing for the vast unknown. And it was easily the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.”