Ethan Marcotte is an independent designer, speaker, and author, and the creator of “responsive web design.” This is his website.
Jessamyn West gets a lot of questions from library patrons on how to disabling, hiding, or just plain avoiding “AI” in modern software. So she’s compiled a great resource, with an even better short URL: NoToAI.org Visit this site. (Permalink)
A look at the people and production processes that shaped the revolutionary design of the Black Panther Party’s flagship newspaper. Visit this site. (via) (Permalink)
A tumblr filled with pixelated backgrounds from old video games. Beautiful. Visit this site. (via) (Permalink)
I’ve long been a sucker for personal sites that mimic a desktop experience, and Dustin’s designed a fine one here. Visit this site. (via) (Permalink)
A look at American restaurant menus from the turn of the nineteenth century and, through them, the country as a whole. Don’t miss their interactive gallery of nearly five thousand menus from that time period. Stunning work. Visit this site. (Permalink)
Love this site from Sami Smith , which lets you cut out old magazines  —  either from the Internet Archive, or from your own PDFs  —  and use them to make digital collages. Visit this site. (via) (Permalink)
A tremendous profile of Trici Venola, an early MacPaint-era digital artist. Her portfolio is filled with stunning pixel art, but I’m still thinking about this line: “But where’s the tiger coming from?” he asked in genuine bewilderment, “isn’t there a program for drawing the tiger? That you just tell and it draws one?” and he wandered away leaving me wondering forever, Where does the tiger come…
The University of Colorado’s Media Archaeology Lab is “one of the largest collections in the world of still-functioning obsolete media.” Their catalog is filled with all the hardware you’d expect  —  old PCs and Macs, gaming consoles, and more  —  but don’t miss their trove of software and printed materials . I have a new life goal, and it is to visit the MAL at some…
Naz talks about his latest redesign, which started as a response to the emerging of “AI” slop. But over time, it helped him reconnect with some older, deeper ideas. I paused to think about what I found inspiring at this time, and what feels fundamentally me. The answer lay in a mix of blueprints, indigo dyes, and selvedge denim. Add in some mid-century Americana via compartmentalized typography,…
mandy has given us two gifts here: a powerhouse of an essay about reading as a form of resistance and rediscovery; and  —  and!  —  a gorgeous, stately new redesign. Also, mandy’s announced a new subscription model for her website. Her site will remain free, but if you’ve ever wanted to support her writing, well, now’s your chance. Visit this site. (Permalink)
Tim Van Damme updates his homepage to show non-work projects, and it’s about as lovely as you’d expect. (Be sure to click or tap into some of those work samples. That zoom treatment is gorgeous, and not to be missed.) Visit this site. (Permalink)
Okay, this is neat: Heydon Pickering’s released an HTML (!!) framework for mixing, sampling, and sequencing music, all right in your browser. Too cool. Visit this site. (Permalink)
Don’t get distracted by the headline: Coates’ piece on American imperialism, racism, and electoral politics is taking a much, much longer view than the last few years. …a black presidency is a contradiction  —  it owes its power to a movement against racist state violence at home but seeks an office which has always practiced racist state violence abroad. But what was known in 1964…
Thank you, Miriam. Visit this site. (Permalink)
Likewise, we are wont to assume that deskilling looks like someone doing more menial work after most of their work has been automated away. The copywriter who once generated sentences and ideas from their brilliant, creative mind but is now tasked with babysitting a sycophantic LLM that spits out uncanny but plausible-sounding versions of the same is an obvious victim. But deskilling shows up in…
A catalog of named colors  —  think Uranium Red, Chartres Blue, and Raw Sienna  —  and how they got their names. A beautiful site, filled with beautiful words. Visit this site. (Permalink)
A tremendous piece by Eric Bailey on his recent accessibility work with LLMs. He takes a clear-eyed look at his experience  —  the real solutions he’s shipped, the limits of the technology, and its legitimately cataclysmic toll. I am also firmly aware of the connection between climate change and disability , as well as who gets left behind in climate disasters . It is hard to escape…
The UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health has released a new report on the energy use of LLMs and the data center boom. “Sobering” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Visit this site. (via) (Permalink)
I am so excited Ingrid’s put this important little book back out in the world. It’ll give you a new way of seeing. You’d better believe I’ve preordered the new edition. Visit this site. (Permalink)
An extensive  —  and extensively catalogued!  —  archive of ASCII-like artwork, all created on letterpress: with metal type, ornaments, and rules. Astonishing, and lovely. Visit this site. (via) (Permalink)
I’ve enjoyed following Keisha McKenzie’s words for a few years now, and she’s recently rehomed her writing from Substack back to her own blog. Here, though state-level politics somewhat buffers my family from the rollercoaster that is the USA at 250, we’re still in the capital region blast radius. And here, in the shadow of Mordor, we feed seniors and walk them as often as they can stand it. We…
Reader, I chuckled several times. Nay, the misery will not stop with your final breath; seven generations of your progeny will be cursed with corrupted souls, minds, and bodies. Fate will toy with your offspring like a wolf toys with the slowest bunny. So cease your inanity and browse the Chrome Web Store to find extensions that customize the experience more to your liking. A McSweeney’s-ass piece…
Naz Hamid revives absenter, his once and future photo blog. This was one of those websites that was such a fixture in my early career: Naz paired exquisitely composed photographs with a lovely pop of color on each page, and I’m so, so glad he’s brought that back for the new version. It does me a world of good to see this website back online. As Naz said himself over on Mastodon , it feels a little…
Henry absolutely nails the key point here: it doesn’t matter if so-called AI “works.” What matters is that the value of your labor goes down, and workers are pushed further into precarity. The widespread deployment of AI/LLMs constitutes an existential threat to labor whether or not it is an adept move by the adoptive industries. Thus it is essential for workers to stop asking whether or not AI…
elle has a delightful little isometric homepage, all lovingly rendered in pixel art. Love it. (Fun bonus: try typing curl elle.sh in your terminal. Maybe you’ll be as delighted as I was.) Visit this site. (Permalink)
Quoting this intensely personal, beautifully written little essay feels like I’m doing it a disservice, but: The technology, when honed, is genuinely amazing. Ask it to zero shot a parser for an esoteric grammar implemented in an esoteric language with full tests and it’s done. The tooling as it exists today promotes absolutely nothing like the focus required to apply it judiciously. Almost every…
I did an interview for KAIJUVILLE, my friend Brendan ’s blog/newsletter about video games! Nobody has ever asked me to speak about video games! And boy, lemme tell you: it was just the best time. Ethan I hate to tell you this, but we’re closing in on the tenth anniversary of Breath of the Wild real fast, despite it being a game that came out when I was already an adult. I feel like it’s not okay…
These facilities influence everything : our water , our air , our land, our utility bills, and the very stability of our energy grid. Because they touch so many parts of our lives, we have to know where the decisions are being made and how our voices can shape what comes next. An organizing guide aimed at protecting the communities most impacted by data center expansion, and on curtailing that…
Love these immaculately animated little guides by Bryan Macomber , each showing the inner workings of everyday objects like Zippo lighters and mechanical pencils . Just gorgeous. Visit this site. (via) (Permalink)
Rand Wilson , a organizer for more than forty years, tells the story of how he first got involved in the movement. I returned home to Somerville determined to do more organizing and put into practice what I had learned in Waterbury. Without much thought or effort, I got a job sometime as a “quality control checker” at Clinical Assays (a subsidiary of Baxter Travenol Labs ) in Cambridge. It turned…
If you’ve ever wondered whether a USB-C cable connected to your Mac can be used for data or power, this little menu bar utility looks perfect . Visit this site. (via) (Permalink)
Deeply appreciated this clear-eyed opinion piece from Sarah Choudhary : We keep talking about vibe coding and AI adoption as if the only question is whether developers will be replaced. That framing misses the story. The story is that a specific kind of executive, the one who needs a progressive headline every quarter, has been running an uncontrolled experiment on your workforce. The data on that…
I read Ron’s latest post yesterday morning, and haven’t stopped thinking about it. It’s a hard look at the once-lofty goals of “civic tech,” and how they’re meant to be squared against the events of the last year: Remaking government in the image of such a destructive lot, given their impact, would say a lot about your view of the world. Facebook on democracy. Uber on labor. Amazon on warehouse…
In 2012, I really wanted to design book covers but didn’t have any book cover work. So I hired myself to redesign my personal library. I love this, and I love seeing a space made for personal, unsolicited design projects. Inspiring on every level. Visit this site. (Permalink)
A website that searches for empty or near-empty movie theater screenings near you. Absolutely amazing. Visit this site. (Permalink)
I enjoyed this just as much as everyone led me to believe I might. Visit this site. (Permalink)
After years building a career in tech, Ky Decker asks where there’s still a place in the industry for them. Heartfelt, and heartbreaking: Many of us have bullshit jobs where the goal is not, in fact, to make something good, or even to learn, but to simply make money to pay rent and medical expenses. To hopefully find a little joy on the side. The whole system is broken; AI alone didn’t break it,…
My friend Mike, whose nom de musique is Mute City , has a new electronic album out. It’s a collaboration with Parris Taylor , and folks I gotta say it sounds GREAT. I’ve been seat-dancing all morning. Visit this site. (Permalink)
I really enjoyed this. It begins with a sweeping look at LLMs through the lens of process analysis in software design, and moves on to discuss what “productivity” actually means. And it’s not output: So the consistent theme here, in the studies and reports and in more recent public examples, is that being able to generate code much more quickly than before, even in 2026 with modern LLMs and modern…
The world has always been run by rich men. The robber barons of the Gilded Age were known for their ruthlessness in the accumulation of wealth  —  hiring Pinkertons to shoot striking unionists. But they directly engaged with the world around them, using their wealth and power to muscle it into its most profitable form. And although today’s billionaires are clearly manipulating…
Well, hey: typed guilloché generator into a search engine, and I found this lovely little side project from Erik Wrenholt . Just like that! Remember when the internet, y’know, worked the way you expected it to? Good stuff! Visit this site. (Permalink)
My friend Mark’s photography entries are always a delight, but this one stopped me in my tracks. Exquisite. Visit this site. (Permalink)
What lovely little dots, courtesy of stipple artist Ruben Bos . Visit this site. (Permalink)
I thought this essay was fairly thought-provoking: The contemporary effort to recast the Luddites as thoughtful critics of technology gives modern anxieties about AI a historical pedigree they do not deserve. The movement was a violent defense of guild privilege, male supremacy, and craft hierarchy against the leveling forces of industrial modernity. They could have fought for equality and…
I love Citywide , Jason’s gorgeous sans serif inspired by bus roll signs, and I really love that he’s now added a chonky yet comfy lowercase to it. It took a tremendous amount of work, but the final result makes it look effortless. Visit this site. (Permalink)
In this essay, Hamilton suggests that if airline and airport workers weren’t so constrained by federal labor laws, the current airport crises would have already been resolved. I think he’s right, and the whole essay is worth your time: The main thing to understand about US labor law is that its primary function is to restrict the power of workers in favor of the power of businesses. The ideal of…
A tremendous (and lovely) look at the history and traditions of hand-painted signage in Mexico. Visit this site. (Permalink)
And yet, there is no denying AI is an extraordinary tool. It feels as if Pandora’s box is already open and we are not going ‘back’ to a time before it was. So, I keep circling one deceptively simple proposition: using AI responsibly means knowing when not to use it. That is not a rhetorical flourish; it’s a literacy problem, the harder one. The question isn’t “how do I get outputs?” but “should I…
Loved every part of this essay from Gita Jackson: Knowing and being able to see the firmament that upholds injustice is useful, but you also have to know what to do with that knowledge. Visit this site. (Permalink)
A project from the University of Toronto’s Creative Labour & Critical Futures research lab: Around the world, cultural workers are striking, protesting, running campaigns and mobilizing in relation to the use of AI in the workplace, such as Hollywood writers, game performers in the US and voice actors in Brazil. This tracker aims to document strikes, protests, campaigns and mobilizations by…