Tags: rams

The origins of the steam engine

The fascinating pre-history of steam power, illustrated with interactive widgets.

How Florence Nightingale Changed Data Visualization Forever - Scientific American

The design process in action in Victorian England:

Recognizing that few people actually read statistical tables, Nightingale and her team designed graphics to attract attention and engage readers in ways that other media could not. Their diagram designs evolved over two batches of publications, giving them opportunities to react to the efforts of other parties also jockeying for influence. These competitors buried stuffy graphic analysis inside thick books. In contrast, Nightingale packaged her charts in attractive slim folios, integrating diagrams with witty prose. Her charts were accessible and punchy. Instead of building complex arguments that required heavy work from the audience, she focused her narrative lens on specific claims. It was more than data visualization—it was data storytelling.

Design and long-term thinking

I like this mashup of two diagrams: Stewart Brand’s pace layers and Stephanie DiRusso’s typology of design thinking.

The Gap

Design engineering explained, with diagrams.

I have never worked anywhere where there wasn’t someone trying to close the gap. This role is often filled in accidentally, and companies are totally unaware of the need. Recruiters have never heard of it, and IT consultancies don’t have the capability in their roster. We now name the role “Design Engineer” because the gap is widening, and the role has become too complex to not exist.

Why I hate the log graph, and you should too - Geek in Sydney

I must admit I’ve been wincing a little every time I see a graph with a logarithmic scale in a news article about COVID-19. It takes quite a bit of cognitive work to translate to a linear scale and get the real story.

Free Movie of the Week

While we’re all confined to quarters during The Situation, Gary Hustwit is offering one of his films for free every week. The fantastic Helvetica is just about to finish its run, but every one of Gary’s films is worth watching (and rewatching): Helvetica, Objectified, Urbanized, and Rams.

Filmmaker Gary Hustwit is streaming his documentaries free worldwide during the global COVID crisis. Each week we’ll be posting another film here. We hope you enjoy them, and please stay strong.

Is Me Cavechild Getting Too Much Pictogram-Time? - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Sometimes me think me should just tear bull pictogram down. Can bull pictogram really be worth it? Sure, pictogram help advance caveculture and foster writing system. But what good that stuff if whole cave society is just bunch of brainwashed bull-pictogram-watchers? You know what Aiden say yesterday? When he grow up, he want be bull-pictogram-painter! That not real job! Real job hunter! Or at least gatherer! How many bull-pictogram-painters world need?

I’ve made a few trips to Germany recently. I was in Berlin last week for the always-excellent Beyond Tellerrand. Marc did a terrific job of curating an entertaining and thought-provoking line-up of speakers. He also made sure that those speakers—myself included—were very well taken care of.

I was also in Frankfurt last month. It was for an event, but for once, it wasn’t an event that involved me in any way. Jessica was there for the Frankfurt Book Fair. I was tagging along for the ride.

While Jessica was out at the sprawling exhibition hall on the edge of town, I was exploring downtown Frankfurt. One lunch time, I found myself wandering around the town’s charming indoor market hall.

While I was perusing the sausages on display, I noticed an older gentleman also inspecting the meat wares. He looked familiar. That’s when the part of my brain responsible for facial recognition said “That’s Dieter Rams.” A more rational part of my brain said “It can’t be!”, but it seemed that my pattern matching was indeed correct.

As he began to walk away, the more impulsive part of my brain shouted “Say something!”, and before my calmer nature could intervene, I was opening my mouth to speak.

I think I would’ve been tongue-tied enough introducing myself to someone of Dieter Rams’s legendary stature, but it was compounded by having to do it in a second language.

“Entschulding Sie!”, I said (“Excuse me”). “Sind Sie Dieter Rams?” (“Are you Dieter Rams?”)

“Ja, bin ich”, he said (“Yes, I am”).

At this point, my brain realised that it had nothing further planned and it left me to my own devices. I stumbled through a sentence saying something about what a pleasure it was to see him. I might have even said something stupid along the lines of “I’m a web designer!”

Anyway, he smiled politely as I made an idiot of myself, and then I said goodbye, reiterating that it was a real treat for me to meet him.

After I walked outside, I began questioning reality. Did that really just happen? It felt utterly surreal.

Of course afterwards I thought of all the things I could’ve said. L’esprit de l’escalier. Or as the Germans put it, Treppenwitz.

I could’ve told him that I collect design principles, of which his are probably the most well-known.

I could’ve told him about the time that Clearleft went on a field trip to the Design Museum in London to see an exhibition of his work, and how annoyed I was by the signs saying “Do Not Touch” …in front of household objects that were literally designed to be touched!

I could’ve told him how much I enjoyed the documentary that Gary Hustwit made about him.

But I didn’t say any of those things. I just spouted some inanity, like the starstruck fanboy I am.

There’ll be a lunchtime showing of the Rams documentary at An Event Apart in San Francisco, where I’ll be speaking in a few weeks. Now I wonder if rewatching it is just going to make me cringe as I’m reminded of my encounter in Frankfurt.

But I’m still glad I said something.

The Decolonial Atlas

The Decolonial Atlas is a growing collection of maps which, in some way, help us to challenge our relationships with the land, people, and state. It’s based on the premise that cartography is not as objective as we’re made to believe.

For example: Names and Locations of the Top 100 People Killing the Planet — a cartogram showing the location of decision makers in the top 100 climate-hostile companies.

This map is a response to the pervasive myth that we can stop climate change if we just modify our personal behavior and buy more green products. Whether or not we separate our recycling, these corporations will go on trashing the planet unless we stop them.

An Atlas of Cyberspaces- Historical Maps

These diagrams of early networks feel like manuscripts that you’d half expect to be marked with “Here be dragons” at the edges.

Rams — Gary Hustwit

The newest Gary Hustwit film is a documentary about Dieter Rams, featuring plinkity music by Brian Eno.

Rams is a design documentary, but it’s also a rumination on consumerism, materialism, and sustainability.

Can You Still Send a Telegram? - The Atlantic

The tools that characterize a person’s time and place in technological history are the ones that a person actually uses, the technologies relied upon so heavily that they can feel like an extension of oneself. This is part of how technology can define a culture, and why sometimes you forget the thing you’re using is technology at all. Until, eventually, inevitably, the technology is all but forgotten.

Approximate Text Search Made Easy

A step-by-step explanation by Henrik on how he implemented fuzzy search on his music site—something I could do on The Session. He even talks about expanding this to work with ABC notation.

What Is the Oldest Computer Program Still in Use?

A fascinating bit of technological archeology tracing some of the oldest still-running software, from a COBOL program at the Pentagon to the firmware on the Voyager probes.

A Helpful Diagram

Blogging through Venn diagrams.

soxiam portfolio - a set on Flickr

A comprehensive set of sketches, diagrams and screenshots from Soxiam showing the evolution and iteration of interfaces on Vimeo and other sites.

Little Gordon – from Caterer.com

He's not big and he's not clever but Little Gordon is f*cking funny.