Each mobile phone handset is not a mere product, perhaps like the other products that have traditionally adorned the pages of this magazine—as a chair is, or a lighting fixture is. Instead, each handset is a play in a wider global contest, a node in logistics networks of immense scale and complexity, a platform for an ecosystem of applications, an exemplar of the internet of things, a window onto the daily interactions of billions of users, of their ever-changing personalities and cultures, a product that consumers traditionally consider the most important in their possession, after the keys to their home.
“Portable Cathedrals” by Dan Hill for Domus

So much of it is quotable that it’s difficult to tease out one singular paragraph around which to blog. Its focus on the nature of mobile-phone-ness is unabating. Hill also admirably keeps the phones aesthetic and technical qualities within scope while forgoing descriptions of the device as technoassemblage (the prevailing editorial voice of Cnet, Gizmodo, Engadget, and even The Verge).

I, for one, am taking notes.

(via Small Surfaces)

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.
Waldo Jaquith

The parallel to “I, Pencil,” The Toaster Project, etc. is unmistakable.

In the case of food, I’ve often called molecular gastronomy the practice of post-ethnic cuisine. Perhaps I should begin carving a niche in my taxonomy for post-industrial dishes, where the modern lettuce-and-tomato-topped interpretation of the ground beef sandwich would take residence with other ethnically-bound but supply-chain-dependent dishes (e.g. the McRib). Maybe Next could take it up as a theme.

Also: I realize this means that Wimpy of Popeye (while looking and sounding quite one-percent) manages to blend two distinctly 20th-century tastes – burgers and credit – in his signature epigram.

Somewhat related: I have dinner plans at Shake Shack tonight.

(via Kottke)

This morning, I came to think about how that disdain is caused, at its root, by the clash of mobility and immobility. In the case of automobile traffic, this clash is hastened by the car’s promise of self-directed and accelerated mobility – rendered totally worthless with exceeding regularity around 4 every afternoon.

Underlying this presumption is the premise that the value of self-directed accelerated mobility is proportional to the intended travel distance. In short: we care more about how fast we go when we have to travel farther. Where travel distance is thirty miles of flat highway, the value of accelerated mobility is high. Where travel distance is three city blocks or even a mile, other forms of mobility are probably suitable. Shorter travel distances give us more options for mobility.

Which gets me to the rent part: travel distances in cities can be very short. The density of pre-modern urban planning creates short distances between places where people live and where people conduct commerce. Residents of these areas can therefore enjoy a range of mobility options that need not necessarily be self-directed or accelerated – when it takes 5 minutes to bike, 10 minutes to walk, or 10 minutes to take public transit to your destination, the relative advantage of making the trip in 5 minutes by one’s own car evaporates hastily. And we pay more for access to that spectrum.

There is an easy leap to be made next about the equation of time and money (and space). My attachment to cities is grounded in my care of time: my time matters therefore my time in transit matters therefore I choose to live in a place where my time in transit is minimal. And I pay a lot of money for that choice.

However, while distance and mobility don’t mean as much if we have loads of time, this equation doesn’t take into account the issue of physical space.

In cities, one’s choice of residence is a function of time, money, and space. How close can one get to the place where they want to be, how much will it cost, and how much space will they have for themselves? When space needs exceed available funds, distance must seemingly necessarily increase – which increases the value of mobility and makes traffic (as a social phenomenon and personal, emotional reality) suck that much more.

And therein lies the problem: people who need more space create (and experience) traffic in order to afford that space.

I thought one of the better solutions proposed was by Facebook, who (if I recall correctly) offered their employees a $500 monthly credit if they lived within a mile (or two? or what?) of their campus. While its increased employee satisfaction and productivity and ability to recruit based on reduced traffic generates value, I wonder whether this program persists as the company has grown, created artificial demand in the radius around its headquarters, and whether the expenditure now exceeds the benefits. Is $500 still enough to cover the increased demand in that neighborhood? Is it still worth $500 per month per employee to Facebook to make this bubble?

Facebook’s predilection towards walled gardens aside, the other reason this program could make sense is that (if they own the land on which they operate) by creating an urban area around their headquarters they raise the property value of their headquarters past its suburban ceiling. Executed properly, they could grow the area to the point where it could be an urban center that could survive independently. With commuting distances lower and high property values sustained by company stipends, the area could flourish in a way that provides residents with a high range of mobility options and more space. Improperly executed, they risk creating a company town.

Space is also an aggregated measurement, and in order to consider increase one’s personal space without losing mobility, you have to consider not just area – lot size and square footage – but volume. Considering volume when planning cities is a tricky thing because people tend to neither plan for nor consume housing in three dimensions. As I’ve learned, not all 600-square-foot apartments are created equal.

So another solution without a financial imperative is simply a better use of volume in cities. As much as it is an “urban planning” challenge, we should challenge ourselves to better use our personal space. When building homes and offices, this means better designed appliances, hinges, ducts, and other kinds of interior infrastructure. In actual use, this means keeping a couple winter coats instead of a closetful, working in an open-floor office rather than one partitioned with modular furniture.

Does living this way actually reduce traffic? I think it will. It goes up the food chain, in a manner of speaking. The extra inches we take for granted around our homes can add up to miles around cities and neighborhoods. And when that happens, mobility becomes increasingly valuable because it’s a matter of time.

And it doesn’t hurt to try.

Related: I spent Halloween evening watching the DC premiere of Urbanized. It seems that with each succeeding movie in Gary Hustwit’s “design trilogy,” the coherence decreases as scope increases. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t an eminently watchable film: its world-spanning breadth is compelling.

I made eye contact with him and moved to nod as if an acquaintance, but he didn’t recognize me. He may not have recognized that I recognized him. Or maybe he did: he is, after all, recognizable.

I thought to take a picture of him with my phone, to tell him I was a fan and in particular I remember his voice work at Eastern State Penitentiary. I did not take that leap. I read the lips of the TSA agent who asked to see his boarding pass and identification: I’m a fan of your work.

I yanked my over-stuffed suitcase onto the steel tables leading to the conveyor belt, emptied my pockets into a side pocket of my suitcase, took off my shoes. As my bag passed through the perfunctory X-ray, I faced to the side, elbows above my head, as shown in the diagram. I stood perfectly still. Another agent allowed me to pass. I lined up at the end of the conveyor belt and waited for my bag. My shoes came out. The agent at the conveyor belt called for a bag check. The agent responsible for bag checks chided him for calling for bag checks so often. She asked whose it was and I said it was mine. She told me to follow her. I put on my shoes and followed her.

She opened the main compartment of the bag, removed the clean shirts at the top of its contents, and observed two drums wrapped in plastic. She looked at me wearily, wordlessly asking what these two drums were meant to be.

“My parents gave me an ice cream maker for my birthday,” I said. She started swabbing the edge of the compartment.
“Are you going to use it?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, then clarified: “Not on this flight.”

She continued swabbing other pockets and placed each of these swabs into a scanner the size of a jukebox. I watched, having expected this interaction as a consequence of packing a disassembled kitchen appliance into my suitcase.

“Homemade ice cream is good,” she said without prompting.
“I agree.”
“I asked because I have an ice cream maker but I never use it.”
“Well…”
“It’s good with fresh fruit.”

I started to comment about how I thought frozen fruit would suffice for mixing into ice cream. She started to advise me about strawberries.

“What’s good is when you take strawberries, cut them in half and hull them. Sprinkle some sugar over that, leave it overnight, pour out the juice the next morning. Puree that,” she said.

I stopped paying attention to my suitcase. I assume the swab turned up clean.

“That sounds good,” I said. “I’ll have to try that.”

She replaced my clean shirts atop the drums of the ice cream maker and zipped the suitcase closed. I fished out my phone, wallet, etc. from the side pocket of the suitcase and replaced them in the pockets of my jeans. Another agent interrupted us to bring me my messenger bag. I left it at the end of the conveyor belt in my haste to follow the agent who did bag checks and advised me about strawberries. I took my suitcase and messenger bag and headed towards Gate 30 where Christina was waiting and other passengers for Alaska 6 were already lined up.

As I offered her to get us a bottle of water, Steve Buscemi and the woman with reddish brown hair sauntered past.

So I accidentally synchronized this video of a kayaker encountering a blue whale with this song and it turns out to match up quite nicely. Open two browser tabs, play video full screen, and have a snack.

(Video via The Awl.)

I’ve long maintained that you have to be prolific before you can be good. A corollary, I’ve learned, is that you have to stay prolific in order to stay good. A shabby score on a (brilliantly made) kerning test set it off last night, but it’s been percolating for years. It’s been a while since I’ve expended the effort to write well about wrinkles of the world I’ve inhabited.

Writing and designing were not previously practices meant to imbue me with cultural relevance so much as they were personal relevance: they were means to accrue self-confidence. Somehow, as the former became a byproduct, it was that I pursued. And it felt good – to have references queued up, flexibility and mobility in my career, disposable income, a role as a mentor – to have all those things afforded by a body of substantial work to one’s name.

And I forgot to make work that was relevant to myself. And when it stopped being relevant to me, I stopped making work as often. And when I stopped making work, I forgot how to make good work.

And I won’t be making good work for a while – I hope it’s a little while and not a long while. But I’ll be making work, and I hope that I produce something I judge favorably before too long.

I’d like to believe it’s not so much that I’ve forgotten how to write as I’ve just forgotten to write. Please bear with me as I test this hypothesis.

While I wanted to believe the study, it was clearly a hoax. Still, I begrudge its believers – that Internet Explorer is such an awful brand name these days is what gives the ApTiquant (née Sokal) Affair the taint of reality.

And it’s deserved criticism. I feel dumber every time I use that browser, that by troubleshooting for its rendering engine, enduring its comparatively slow performance, and attempting to comprehend its persistent lack of a sensible Ctrl+L behavior, I am rendered slightly less alive. Or maybe it’s the thought of Internet Explorer’s resilient hegemony, throbbing along on the fetid fumes of versions 6 and 7, polluting this series of tubes, that drives me to activities that kill my brain cells.

So no research has borne out that Internet Explorer users, as a bloc, are (not) almost retarded. But in the age of WebKit and Firefox and iPhones and Androids, Internet Explorer’s users seem less and less apathetic and more and more adamantly unsavvy. Using Internet Explorer by rational choice at this point is equal to claiming that Barack Obama was born outside the United States. The browser is so loathsome I can’t even think of hipsters who use it ironically.

And as a designer – and with no intention to sully fine prose – “borne back ceaselessly into the past” and what have you.

(In case you were actually interested in answering the question of why people still use Internet Explorer, see Mozilla’s series on why people don’t upgrade their browsers.)

(Much like the movie described herein, this post will make a lot more sense if you read the first part.)

So I live-tweeted my viewing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. I was hesitant to even watch it when I was offered a ticket, having reveled to some degree in the cultural anti-cachet of having remained quite ignorant about one of the defining fictional universes of the last decade.

Though I still don’t really understand the canon of Harry Potter, I find that since watching this movie and (having had much of the jargon explained to me) that I understand the Twitterverse/blogosphere a little better – it makes a kind of sense to me now when someone calls Rebekah Brooks one of Rupert Murdoch’s horcruxes.

What follows below are the complete tweets of that night. Please forgive any typos; much of this was written in a crowded movie theater on a BlackBerry with the aid/obstacle of Christina’s summer cardigan laying over the screen. (Seriously, RIM, make a BlackBerry ad that involves tweeting snarkily in a dark movie theater filled with emotionally attached fans – with pretty minimal typos – and the halo of touchscreens will dim.)

Also, the following tweets will probably make more sense if you’re watching the movie backwards. And SPOILER ALERT, obvs:

15 Jul But first an escalator. #hp

15 Jul And going to find cabs. #hp

15 Jul All 8 theaters let out the same movie at the SAME TIME. #hp

15 Jul @mrknight9 Thanks for the spellcheck and background. #hp

15 Jul Is the second half of the book better than the second half of the movie? #hp

15 Jul THE END. #hp

15 Jul Frog on the window why? #hp

15 Jul Is the sorting hat not made by Diebold then? #hp

15 Jul Apparently nobody ages well. #hp

15 Jul 19 years what? #hp

15 Jul There goes the world’s best cricket bat. #hp

15 Jul All that damage didn’t touch the cafeteria. Convenient. #hp

15 Jul Death by eczema. #hp

15 Jul Don’t cross the streams via Ghostbusters. #hp

15 Jul Mid air weapon decision via Point Break. #hp

15 Jul “Not my daughter, you bitch.” And more applause. #hp

15 Jul If that were a real lightsaber fight, they’d owe Lucasflim some money. #hp

15 Jul Get mad, shoot fire. Oh, and Harry’s alive again, for reasons passing understanding. #hp

15 Jul How has long blond hair made this many unironic appearances? And the name Draco for that matter? And awkwaaaaard hug. #hp

15 Jul No-Nose couldn’t sell me a new Audi, let alone himself as the head of a religion. #hp

15 Jul Fair isle sweater continues in a land where no one can bear children. #hp

15 Jul Fyi Harry Potter est mort. #hp

15 Jul @nowowl: “Is this real life? Is this forever?” #hp

15 Jul And wrong about the dead, living, and love. And what does his mother’s tequila have a lick to do withthis? #hp

15 Jul Ian McK is totally right about words. #hp

15 Jul I’ll take the northeast Regional, if you please. #hp

15 Jul Did Ian Mc’ just call Harry a whore…crux? #hp

15 Jul That shot of a bleeding old man baby was maybe a second too long. #hp

15 Jul THE AUDIENCE IS DeAD. #hp

15 Jul SHOWDOWN. #hp

15 Jul Circle of dead people uttering platitudes. #hp

15 Jul Oh, you’re a hologram. #hp

15 Jul And psychologists. Seriously, teenagers, don’t kill yourselves. #hp

15 Jul That’s a lot of stairs. #hp

15 Jul WHAT THE HELL is a whore crux? #hp

15 Jul This is what happens when you lay off librarians. #hp

15 Jul Deer made of stars. Anyone want mutual funds? #hp

15 Jul Magic in this movie looks a lot like Listerine. #hp

15 Jul Gratuitous owl shot and crying fat baby. #hp

15 Jul Remind me to never dunk my head in a floating bowl of swirling ink. #hp

15 Jul Alan Rickman as Ozzy Osbourne is now chatting up Ian McKellen as St. Peter about a baby in a cradle. #hp

15 Jul WTF!? #hp

15 Jul WHAt IS HAPPENING? #hp

15 Jul Is this the start of breakfast in bed? #hp

15 Jul This is like a Mervyn’s ad shot by Annie Leibowitz after she blew up and got irrelevant. #hp

15 Jul Open threat of death via 007 franchise. #hp

15 Jul Harry Potter keeps staggering like a man who needs a sandwich. #hp

15 Jul Is that code for “I did yer mom?” #hp

15 Jul “Quick, a flask! Anything!” #hp

15 Jul It’s like watching The Wire, starting at the episode where Avon has Stringer killed. #hp

15 Jul So THAT’S Snape. #hp

15 Jul No-Nose us insecure. #hp

15 Jul Giant in a loincloth is threshing wheat, except the wheat is people. #hp

15 Jul WTF is a motherfucking whore crux!?!?!? #hp

15 Jul Methinks Lennon glasses and No-Nose will have a “you complete me” moment before this is over. #hp

15 Jul Fire snake via indiana jones. (Hree bad guys via The Matrix. Gratuitous jewelry shot via LOTR. #hp

15 Jul That’s an awesome tiara, dude. #hp

15 Jul Is this the supply closet? #hp

15 Jul Now I’m really confused. #hp

15 Jul Fair isle sweater LIVES. #hp

15 Jul Lay off the eyeliner, man. #hp

15 Jul Get drenched. Make out. Applause. #hp

15 Jul Heorge Harris : HP :: Samuel L Jackson : Star Wars prequels? #hp

15 Jul This is like that awesome European flight path infographic. #hp

15 Jul This would be an awesome Max Fischer play. #hp

15 Jul “You’re the New York Times. “#hp

15 Jul *applause* #hp

15 Jul Voldemort. He’s a Republican, right? #hp

15 Jul His name is really Long Bottom? #hp

15 Jul Is Harry Potter like the Max Fischer of this place? #hp

15 Jul CAT. #hp

15 Jul OMG it’s a Tarantino scene with Bic pens and fire. #hp

15 Jul Alan Rickman as Ozzy Osbourne. #hp

15 Jul Okay, it’s at a private school. Girls in ties earlier now making sense. #hp

15 Jul Yes, please tell us what a bloody didem is. And why are people laughing now? #hp

15 Jul Sweater vests are apparently popular here. #hp

15 Jul Girl in the painting TURNED AROUND AND LEFT. #hp

15 Jul Girl in the painting TURNED AROUND AND LEFty. #hp

15 Jul Butterbeer looks like regular beer but with a really big head. #hp

15 Jul They can fucking teleport!? #hp

15 Jul And everyone’s getting naked. In a shot from a Michael Bay movie. #hp

15 Jul ACID FLASHBACK feat. Man with no nose. #hp

15 Jul Where DOES one get pinstripe suits in these wee sizes? #hp

15 Jul This is like a deBeers commercial gone horribly wrong.#hp

15 Jul There are Ferengis taunting an albino dragon. #hp

15 Jul And rollercoasters. #hp

15 Jul Um…was that a scene from the Bourne trilogy but ended with a roofie? #hp

15 Jul And in walks Helena Bonham-Carter… #hp

15 Jul Should I know what a horcrux is? #hp

15 Jul Someone TP’d the floating statues… #hp

15 Jul RT @Sheep4Ore: @matthewmarco Is that the sequel to HP and the Shredder of Doom?

14 Jul Storage Wars?!? What the fuck is this shit? #hp

14 Jul “To hear your voice, come out of a Smurf, is amazing.” #hp

14 Jul I am sitting in the second row. I may end up just tweeting what appears in the lower-right corner of the shot. #hp

14 Jul There’s a high school graduate holding a plant, getting his picture taken with an iPad at the front row. #hp

14 Jul SPOILER ALERT: I am going to be live-tweeting H.P. and the Toner of Secrets for the next 3 hours. #hp

14 Jul Okay, so is this movie just high school graduates and girls in neckties? #hp

14 Jul Is someone graduating? #hp

14 Jul Also, having learned from #bee11, I should charge my phone completely.

14 Jul Will they have an actor say ‘previously on Harry Potter,’ followed by a montage to acquaint new viewers? #hp

14 Jul @brannonc I didn’t actually know that. I’m also afraid to find out what “Hogwarts” are.

14 Jul Aforementioned Slate article: http://www.slate.com/id/2299131 (via @DJonRoberts).

14 Jul I may also do this with the last Twilight movie. I should note I actually know more about Twilight than HP at this point.

14 Jul With that in mind, I may live-blog tonight’s proceedings. Like the Slate article but with more profanity.

14 Jul What I know about Harry Potter: he has 2 sidekicks, a girl and a redhead. There’s something called butter beer. And Snape kills Dumbledore.

14 Jul SPOILER ALERT: I will be watching Harry Potter at midnight. I’ve never read an HP book or seen an HP movie before today.

Acknowledgements: Cardigan and coordination by Christina. Tickets acquired by Hannah. Toner of Secrets illustration by Will.

1. St. Vincent and the Grenadines
2. Cape Verde
3. Ascension Island
4. Democratic Republic of the Congo
5. El Salvador
6. Trinidad and Tobago
7. Wallis and Futuna
8. Central African Republic
9. Montenegro
10. Oman

What I know about Harry Potter:

• He has two sidekicks, a redhead and a woman.
• There’s a drink called butter beer.
• There’s a game called quiddich (sp?).
• Snape kills Dumbledore.
• The first book was written by J.K. Rowling shortly after she divorced. She is now a gazillionaire, and in pounds sterling.
• Daniel Radcliffe plays the title role. He appeared naked on Broadway.
• The third movie was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who also directed Y Tu Mama Tambien which had lots of nudity. Everyone agrees that it’s “really dark” but nobody seems to remember the name of the movie right away (The Prisoner of Azkaban, apparently).
• Design Observer ran a piece on the typography in one of the movies a couple years ago.

I’m afraid to learn what “hog warts” are.