links week four

redesigns and long reads.

I got to see William Gibson this week in the city, and listening to his southern drawl discuss the intricacies of stubs and alternate realities. Once I finish Mainline, I can’t wait to dive into Agency. Maybe every generation has a real feeling of living in the future, but between tech news and world news, things are a little too reminiscent of sad cyberpunk. This is why I read fiction—at least there we can have heroes.

And now, the links:

• No family? If you’re in Japan, you can rent one. I wonder if this would save me money on therapy, or leave me even more psychically confused?
• Two sites I read have recently gone through a redesign (much like mine), and it’s fun to see how they thought about it. Even when the site update isn’t a bit overblown it can be very interesting.
• In addition to redesigning our personal websites (you started blogging, right? It’s good for you), perhaps we should find other ways to fix the web.
• One friend who blogs blessed us this week with a survey of the feral cats of their neighborhood.
• Finally, here’s a longer read about Instagram. More than a few friends consider Instagram to be their nice, chill place online—a place for soothing images and creativity. I wish it had stayed that way for me, but alas, between ads, and folks aiming to take the exact same photo or get really stoked on exercise, I found it uncomfortable at best. For me, Slack is largely the place I see friend’s photos. I hope that at some point a non FB company will try to solve the friends + friends of friends photo sharing problem.

This year I decided to upgrade my coffee at home a bit more than before, and my latest acquisition is all about drinking coffee by the window and reading books. Prior to this coffee server, I would drip directly into a Zojirushi vacuum thermos, but I prefer the look at ease of carrying that this brings. It’s never a bad idea to add a little class to one’s weekend, I think. On that note, I would encourage you to take a few deep breaths, and think about simple ways you can make your days off even more relaxing and delightful.

Enjoy your Sunday, and I’ll see you next week space cowgirls~