Random Guardian meme and pic
Jun. 7th, 2025 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)


:D
[Tumblr post #1 | Tumblr post #2]
Kurt Kohlstedt has spent ten years creating audio and print stories for the design podcast, 99% Invisible. He also co-authored the 99% Invisible City book.
Last year, 99pi’s Kurt Kohlstedt suffered a severe injury that incapacitated his right arm and dominant hand. In the aftermath, new everyday challenges led him to research, test, and evolve accessible design solutions. These experiences set the stage for Adapt or Design, a twelve-part project of 99% Invisible in three acts, available at the short link 99pi.org/adapt
The Adapt or Design series includes many groan-worthy puns related to hands; six essays exploring assistive designs for people with one functional hand; three design hacks and mods that helped Kurt manage long-term rehabilitation; and three final essays diving deep into adaptive writing technologies including a free one-handed "mirror keyboard" for Windows PowerToys.
While the first article posted in April, I just heard about it via the 99% Invisible podcast 630, where Kurt and Roman talk about all these things.
How do you dry your hair?
air dry
42 (76.4%)
towel dry roughly
21 (38.2%)
towel dry carefully / squeezingly
16 (29.1%)
hair dryer or other device
13 (23.6%)
other
0 (0.0%)
not applicable
1 (1.8%)
add styling stuff
9 (16.4%)
add conditioning stuff
10 (18.2%)
add anti-frizz stuff
6 (10.9%)
other
1 (1.8%)
ticky-box of other people are, generally speaking, quite mysterious
21 (38.2%)
ticky-box full of poll votes
17 (30.9%)
tickybox full of a yawning cat broadcasting calm and satisfaction into the world
38 (69.1%)
ticky-box full of the tickly froth edge of a wave on pale sparkly sand, at dawn
29 (52.7%)
ticky-box of rationing your exclamation marks
14 (25.5%)
ticky-box full of hugs
37 (67.3%)
The Met Office’s Shipping Forecast Key announces weather conditions in 31 areas around the UK. For internet users, real-time info is now available for each area via a handy-drop down
But it's the radio broadcast which has soothed me on many an anxious evening. Here’s five hours worth: https://youtu.be/CxHa5KaMBcM
They use a highly structured, compact format limited to 370 words:
The Beaufort Scale provides vivid descriptions of different wind patterns, as befits a tool standardized before radio or photography. For example,
Wind force 5, also known as "Fresh Breeze," is 29-38 km/h or 19-24 miles per hour or 17-21 knots. You can recognize this force when Small trees in leaf begin to sway; crested wavelets form on inland waters. Moderate waves, many white horses. Probable wave height of 2.0 meters, 2.5 meters max, with a "sea state" of 4.
The newsreaders develop a very soothing rhythm—so consistent that many people have created "better sleeping through weather awareness" content on YouTube.
For radio nerds like me, nothing finer than this 30 minute deep dive: The Shipping Forecast: A Beginner’s Guide
Fictional detectives
hardboiled
9 (26.5%)
softboiled
13 (38.2%)
scrambled
8 (23.5%)
sunny-side up
7 (20.6%)
over easy
5 (14.7%)
poached
5 (14.7%)
ingredient in alcoholic beverages
11 (32.4%)
deviled
5 (14.7%)
none
1 (2.9%)
other
2 (5.9%)
ticky-box full of dinosaur feathers
19 (55.9%)
ticky-box full of wingless bird people flying into the sky and exploding
7 (20.6%)
ticky-box of puffins making a low-budget horror movie called Jonathan Killingston Seagull
15 (44.1%)
ticky-box full of over-the-counter supplements
4 (11.8%)
ticky-box full of amulets and talismans woven from grass and daisies under a new moon
14 (41.2%)
ticky-box full of hugs
26 (76.5%)
Today LinusBoman talks about font theft. Back in the 1990s I worked in a desktop publishing service bureau. Font foundries were still using a pricing model based on industrial customers with several blocks worth of printing presses and thousands of books. Font piracy was so widespread as to be fundamental. Good times—Linus brings it all back with an excellent news hook: how the unavoidable you wouldn’t steal a car message that scolded at the start of every VHS or DVD used a pirated font. Pro captions, silent title cards subdivide the video into eight sections.
Watch on YouTube
( or stream 21 minutes here )
Linus Boman is so my type of design nerd. More about him at TimesNewBoman.com
( stream six minutes of amazing here )
Audio is instrumental music. I invite you to write image descriptions; here are the first three:
Watch Kevin on all the platforms: https://lnk.bio/kevinbparry/
Anthony Howe of HoweARTdotNET sculpts stainless steel into "kinetic sculpture," installed outside and set in motion by the wind. Most comprise a circular metal structure atop a 10 to 20 feet curved column. The circle supports four to eight rings that rotate perpendicular to the circle. Each of these rings is decorated with assorted shapes, including discs, commas, sticks, flaps, and blades. The rings are staggered so that the motion seems infinitely various; the shiny stainless steel creates cascading light and sparkles as it moves, along with the illusion of interlocking gears moving forward and backward at the same time.
If you’re at all photosensitive, scroll on by — do not open this "details" arrow
Many static pictures to admire at https://www.howeart.net