Don’t be bored, don’t be lazy, don’t be trivial, and don’t be proud. The slightest loss of attention leads to death.
Frank O’Hara, from an interview in What’s With Modern Art? quoted by Buongiorno.
Much of our technological and cultural labor is driven not by our interest in ending death or securing the safety of the species, but by our desire to take the attention of others —against their will and without their permission— and use it for our own ends: some high-minded, some commercial, some gently egocentric. There is innocence in our pursuit of one-another’s attentions, but there is also consequence: we may be ordinary hawking proles just trying to get by in the attention-economy, but when the “slightest loss of attention leads to death” the lolling, gesticulative banter of the advertising-sponsored Internet masks an undeclared, unfavorable exchange: our time, awareness, attention for diversion, small serotonin bumps, temporary highs, the exhaustion of drives rather than their culmination.
This is why attention-seeking is not merely aesthetically unpleasant but is in fact immoral: to insist on taking the attention of another is a kind of theft, a destructive coercion. Rare moments and our works notwithstanding, our shared failure is that we are all bored, lazy, trivial, and proud; the lifelong struggle to be attentively engaged, hardworking, serious, and humble is both ennobling and quixotic, but part of that effort must be that we refrain from stealing one another’s attention for boring trivialities or the lazy pride we accrue like sediment.
The humblebrag isn’t harmless, and neither are products which game your attention, whittle away your life while you’re too distracted or addicted to notice, and return to you only the shaved splinters of your software-interaction memories and the experience of unmemorable occupancy.
(via mills)
And here is the crux for many of us ‘product designers’, we seek to be hardworking and humble, but our work doesn’t matter if nobody sees it. (At least I think that’s how quantum mechanics works.)
(via mills)
Brooklyn, this means you!
Via claytoncubitt:
With over 30% of all American workers now working freelance, and more each day, it’s vital that we begin fighting for our rights in a more organized manner.
What is the Freelancer Payment Protection Act?
The FPPA would help independent workers in New York collect money from clients who don’t pay.
How would it help?
Victims of nonpayment will be able to file complaints with the New York State Department of Labor. After investigating, the Department of Labor may award victims 100% of what they’re owed, plus attorney’s fees and interest.
What’s happening now?
The New York State Assembly passed the Freelancer Payment Protection Act. Now, the Senate must do the same! Email Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, urging him to pass the bill this legislative session.
![mediology:
screenshotsofdespair:
You can’t go forward from where you are right now.
(Spotify) [@matthewbaldwin]
This entire collection is great. (via Design Observer)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m02zx7VoLO1rqbl96o1_400.png)
You can’t go forward from where you are right now.
(Spotify) [@matthewbaldwin]
This entire collection is great. (via Design Observer)
I did some design consulting over a year ago for a product that aimed to do just this. Never launched : (
I am guessing there is some serious business skullduggery in digital video on par with what I’ve seen in the digital music world…
These two tweets look pretty similar, right?
Look at the dates! Why would I tweet the same thing on both March 11 and March 12th?
The answer is that this is March 11, 2011 for one and March 12, 2012 for the other.
Not only was there zero progress on this desired product, but I had the same need almost exactly a year apart! And the day of the month matches the year!
I look forward to tweeting something about this on March 13, 2013 — unless the world ends before then.
I only learned this because I started using TimeHop. They tell me what I tweeted, posted, instagramed etc a year ago. I’ve used a few other things like this, and I only want more information like it.
The more professionalized and procedural a system is, the more insulated we become from its real effects on real people.
Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America : The New Yorker
Bold thesis that the Bill of Rights is actually a shitty document for a justice system is actually pretty persuasive.
I live in New York and work on Views.fm.
This blog rarely has to do with either of those things.
