Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

>Number One<

Don’t Make an Ass of Yourself

Upon seeing the logo for Claude, I simply thought: oh, that’s Vonnegut’s butthole. It seems I’m not the only person who thought that because most people seem to think that there is a design language going on in which all AI companies have butt hole-adjecent logos. This quick little piece talks about some of the modern design theory that has accidentally produced this butthole images and how if you wanted to design your own logo, you can take head of new styles to not be so bottom-forward.

>Number Two<

Seriously, for the 1000th time, Read the Material

Some of the best and worst parts about this world is that everything is interconnected but also that both makes it difficult to keep up with all the complexity you need to understand about thing but also that it causes a lot of very actually insightful points to get boiled down in a context-less soup that allows us to misunderstand and misquote them. Hell is other people is the poster child for this but lately the big winner is “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” This article breaks down a specific misuse case but also does so while using “enshittification” incorrect which I hope as tongue and cheek as I found it except I know people now use enshittification to simply mean bad. I’m going to have to lie on the floor about this.

>Number Three<

The GOP Big Tent of Indian-Americans

A lot of hay was made about Black male voters turning to Trump but it misses the story of Indian-Americans who have had a much sharper turn to Trump, and especially to the GOP over the last 2-3 decades. This video by Akil Vaidya does an amazing job of breaking down how and why this turn is occurring despite the GOP’s open hostility towards POC and immigrants.

>Number Four<

Not That You Need Another Reason To Dislike Spotify (But Here’s One More)

Now that 7-11 in the US is bought out by the Japanese company and has been trying to make 7-11s more like Japanese style konbini I wondered if they would be able to import some of Japan’s more interesting staples like melon pan. I remember eating melon pan (which sorry folks, I’m not a huge fan of) in high school from the local Japanese market but I had no idea where it really came from. This article details that story which is actually pretty cool.

>Number Five<

This is No Way To Live

If you have been sitting with the heavy terror of the news lately, you are not alone. I think it’s actually really important to remember that so many people are feeling the same way you are and that even the small things you do have meaning and impact and can build up to a whole. People should not have to live in terror, in fear, and horror of people we task with managing our society. So we’ll do what we can because as this essay says:

Survival is a collective process. We weren’t meant to do it alone, just as we weren’t meant to solve problems larger than ourselves alone.

That’s all for this month and hopefully I’ll see you back again next month with some more exciting and cool things!