Better Elevation

Well-defined.

My friend (and boss) Daniel Pasco on design:

Every task, no matter how small, is worth pouring your heart into. Whenever we look at a new project, I ask myself “What is it about this app that is going to make it a Black Pixel app? What characteristics do I want people to associate with our brand?” For us, those characteristics are great design, real utility, beauty, and delight.

As the guy responsible for the entire creative department at Black Pixel, It’s heartening to know that I report to someone who cares just as much about these things as I do.

Austin Kleon:

There’s this very real thing that runs rampant in educated people. It’s called imposter syndrome. The clinical definition is a “psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments.” It means that you feel like a phony, like you’re just winging it, that you really don’t have any idea what you’re doing.

Guess what?

None of us do.

I’m putting this on my fridge.

Noted Canadian Guy English points out a subtle but important problem with multitasking gestures in 4.3:

The problem isn’t that they’re not handy (zing), rather that they break what I feel is one of the key wonders of iPad — it becomes the application that is running. These multitasking gestures add a set of interactions that relate not to what is on the screen but to an abstract higher-level of functionality. The touch screen is now an input into two systems: the application and the operating system.

June 6th through the 10th. A renewed focus on the Mac, including space in the Apple Design Awards. This should be a very interesting year.

This font exists. Someone made it. Think about that for a moment.

Brent Simmons correctly observes that web sites shouldn’t be going down due to traffic in 2011:

Given that we can’t rely on servers getting faster, but we can rely on more and more traffic, weblog developers could learn new techniques to make their sites faster.

I can’t help but wonder if this wasn’t at least partially inspired by the pounding¹ that Better Elevation took yesterday. I put WP Super Cache in place, but the damage had already been done. And Brent is absolutely right: my web hosting company (LunarPages) didn’t fail due to traffic, they explicitly killed the site because WordPress was taking up too much CPU.

1. That permalink URL cracks me up [↩]

Bullied kid fights back.

This video makes me happy.

Music sales are down, and he says it’s all Steve’s fault:

“And the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it… I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’ Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.”

You know who never complains about the shift to digital music? People who buy and listen to music.

VeriFone is concerned about the Square reader:

In less than an hour, any reasonably skilled programmer can write an application that will “skim” – or steal – a consumer’s financial and personal information right off the card utilizing an easily obtained Square card reader. How do we know? We did it.

In less than five minutes, any reasonably skilled kindergartner can devise a system that will “imprint” — or steal — a consumer’s financial and personal information right off the card using an easily obtained Crayola crayon. How do I know? I did it.

Marco Arment on which iPad 2 to buy:

While I haven’t seen them yet, I suspect that the white bezel is more likely to be distracting. You’re not supposed to notice the hardware while using it, and I bet the black will be easier to ignore than the white.

Nailed it.

Apparently this isn’t a joke.

The company claims that the bag contains ‘Controlled Ripening Technology’ – which extends the shelf-life of the banana by up to six days.

The banana is put into the plastic bag when it is green and, according to the manufacturers, goes on to ripen more slowly than if it had been left in the open air.

I’m sure the opportunity to include logos and marketing had nothing to do with it. Go banana!

From Taco Bell’s new beef FAQs page:

OKAY, BUT I’VE HEARD YOU USE GRADE D MEAT. IS THAT WHY IT’S SO CHEAP?

Although that’s funny, the answer is NO. In fact, there’s no such grade given by the USDA for beef. We use the same quality beef used in all ground beef (like you’d find in the grocery store) – only USDA-inspected, 100% premium real beef, period.

…Weezer is there.

(Via Paul Kafasis)

The doors go away when they aren’t needed. I especially love the note about the side mirrors.