111–115 of 115 posts
hey this is elan, author of this piece. thanks for sharing and for the discussion for what it’s worth i do agree with the one or two comments here that say that the line “modularity is inversely correlated with expressiveness” is a bit reductive. i did have a long section of caveats but removed them because i felt like they confused the matter more. ironically i’m butting up against the expressive limits of the engli…
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I’m still looking for a map which let me optimize for “stopping as little as possible” which in practice means avoiding traffic jams and traffic lights. I notice this makes me drive more relax, and especially with a baby it’s way easier to keep the baby asleep
or "fewest turns". i would rather drive an extra straight 0.25 miles down a major road than to zig-zag through tiny side streets while trying to carefully pay attention to unfamiliar street names and/or constant nav app directions. i've had google maps instruct me to take four or five additional turns to save a couple hundred yards of driving.
> I don't want this to be mistaken for a story about web design. If you squint, you will find the same set of tradeoffs in all manner of creative work and systems thinking Lots of comments about literal maps and then web design. This generalization of the idea quoted above made me think of something I believe about technological convergence (putting everything into phones and tablets). We’re losing the way custom mad…
We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group. It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep the screen on without having directions. For most people, the entire experience of using a map is…
That isn't the point. I just want to trace out all the different ways I can possibly go and measure them. I don't want the software to find a route for me at all. I can find it myself. I just want the software to record it and measure the distance, not the way "Map My Run" and what not do by recording where you actually go via GPS, but letting me do it on the map before running it. The stupidest thing is this would be so much computationally simpler than what they really do. They wouldn't need GPS or location services at all. They wouldn't need any feed of current route status. A paper map can do this with no computation at all. I'd just like to have it on my phone and not need a ruler and string to do the measurements.
For the inevitable peanut gallery, I'm aware of browser-based web apps that can do this and I use them. I'm also aware of Apple/Google's "choose waypoints" or whatever feature, which does not do what I want because it still finds routes itself between the waypoints.
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I mean, for most of the twentieth centuries books all looked the same. Same handful of typefaces, sizes, margins, etc. Newspapers also. Same handful of column layouts, typefaces, styling. It's not about user metrics. It's that what's important is the content of the text itself, alongside whatever photographs and illustrations are necessary and informative. Websites are no different from the long tradition of books an…
e.e. cummings