Rad Not Sad

Rad! Not Sad :( is a spectrum of assorted radicality, found inspiration, and pleasurable tones curated by Chris Kalima (@ckalima).

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albums

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Poi spotting in the Ember.js docs.

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I have two offices in Sunnyvale, but only one has a bed.

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A single photograph captured using the most popular equipment and settings (for Reuters’ top 95 photos of 2012) would be shot using a Canon 1D Mark IV with a 16-35mm lens attached, set at 1/320s, f/2.8, and ISO 200.

The Most Popular Cameras and Settings for Reuters’ 2012 Photos of the Year

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Pinhole portraits of bodysurfers by Arlo Keo Valera & Hyeyoung Kim Kim. A lot of familiar faces!

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Nobel Prizes and laureates from 1901-2012 by Giorgia Lupi via Brain Pickings.

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Check out Matthew DiVito's blog for a future-retro animated .gif feast.

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Took my new Holga lens with a Canon mount for a spin around Makapu'u yesterday. Much of the Holga magic is lost in the digital form, but RAW file output is nice, as is the cost savings of processing in Photoshop instead of a darkroom. At least I never mis-wound the roll, something I seem to do all the time with my real Holga. Miss those signature light leaks though.

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One of my favorite typefaces just got better.

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"In computing, most colors are expressed as RGB triplets. “We learned in elementary school that yellow and blue when mixed turn green,” says Petschnigg. “However when you plug in the values to this equation, you get a different result: Gray!

How the team behind Paper developed their color mixer via Fast Company

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Value Now. Details Later.

I recently dusted off my copy of Getting Real for a quick re-read. The book contains a collection of short essays, grouped into segments, addressing different web application development concerns. It's a terrific reference full of actionable ideas and highly recommended.

Today while browsing the table of contents in the copy I own (first edition, 2006), I discovered the following error. The listed page numbers fall behind the content by the third entry (About 37signals is actually on page 7, not the listed page 6), and are off by 16 pages by the final entry.

In the Priorities section, there is an entry titled Ignore Details Early On, which states:

How often have you found yourself stuck on a single design or code element for a whole day? How often have you realized that the progress you made today wasn't real progress? This happens when you focus on details too early in the process. There's plenty of time to be a perfectionist. Just do it later.

I've fallen into the trap of premature optimization, fixating on ways to achieve perfection prior to release, but letting go is something I've become more comfortable with over time. Because details are subject to revision as the overall product evolves, it makes sense to delay their execution until the time is appropriate.

The table of contents mistake is clearly an error in details, but it didn't stop Getting Real from becoming a best seller and evolving into Rework. I may need to flip a few additional pages to find what I'm looking for, but that's a minor usability annoyance. If the value proposition is strong enough, then I become much more willing to overlook such shortcomings. Just ask Craig Newmark, he stopped worrying about the details in 2001.

Value now. Details later.

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If you know where I can find a copy of Graphis Diagrams: The Graphic Visualization of Abstract Data by Walter Herdeg, please get in touch. Thanks!

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Can't roll a spliff on no MP3, sound is much better on 33. Even nicer is the 12" sound, the top is heavy and the bottom's round.

"All the guys in The Lions grew up on classic Jamaican records so since we began we have wanted to give our records that same edge and roughness that we grew up hearing on LPs by The Upsetters, Soul Syndicate, The Rockers Band and Roots Radics. The rhythm section was all recorded to tape, the Hammond buzzed a little, fuses blew and good mistakes were left in. We basically made the dusty reggae soul LP WE have been wanting to hear for years." – Dan Ubick (producer)

Something tells me The Lions are about to drop the reggae equivalent of Mayer Hawthorne's A Strange Arrangement.

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Steal Like an Artist – Austin Kleon's manifesto for creativity in the digital age.

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How to Hard Wrap Text in TextMate

I like to hard wrap my copy when prepping plain-text content for email campaigns. Unfortunately, TextMate doesn't have a built-in function to hard wrap. Here's a tip (thanks John) on how to accomplish it, so you don't have to run back to BBEdit, which is sadly something I've actually done.

To hard wrap text in TextMate use Text > Filter Through Command... [⌥⌘R on a Mac], then type the following command to use your current soft wrap column count: fold -sw$TM_COLUMNS.

If you'd like to use an explicit column count instead, such as 80, then replace the $TM_COLUMNS variable with that value: fold -sw80