rachel binx ⤇ blogget in losers, we're writing down our thoughtshttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2019 Reading Rounduphttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2019/reading-roundup/https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2019/reading-roundup/Mon, 23 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT<p>🤠 yeehaw Circa January 2017 I decided to “get back into reading,” and for some reason was unable to stick with anything but dystopian sci-fi novels. 2018 was largely the same (although seriously hmu if you want sci-fi recs). In 2019, I blossomed into a person who is able to handle multiple types of books. Below are my favorites, loosely organized by theme.</p> <h3>Climate</h3> <p>My “most important” category of books this year was about the environment and climate change.</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32075449-the-ends-of-the-world">The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41552709-the-uninhabitable-earth">The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40026731-the-end-of-ice">The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17286721-junkyard-planet">Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42972014-secondhand">Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale</a></li> </ul> <p>^ all of these books feed into my desire to blow up my life &amp; move to the middle of nowhere in nature. Which is impractical, but I were to do it, I would need to be able to talk intelligently about the things I was looking at (chiefly rocks and clouds) so I did buy some physical books to help out with that:</p> <h3>Capitalism, basically</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24886755-the-cosmopolites">The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34964830-automating-inequality">Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29502567-dream-hoarders">Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34551009-carceral-capitalism">Carceral Capitalism</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44573628-super-pumped">Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber</a></li> </ul> <h3>Sci-Fi 4ever</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077752-acceptance">Acceptance</a> (finishing the trilogy)</li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26187256-the-thing-itself">The Thing Itself</a> (Kantian philosophy as the basis for bending time and space! What’s not to love)</li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40121978-infinite-detail">Infinite Detail</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41809056-oval">Oval</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31451186-borne">Borne</a> (yes I love Jeff Vandermeer and will read anything he writes)</li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35654201-the-strange-bird">The Strange Bird</a> (yes this did make me cry)</li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-time">Children of Time</a></li> </ul> <h3>Trying to have a better life</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42771901-how-to-do-nothing">How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39728820-against-creativity">Against Creativity</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep">Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37830765-ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now">Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42397849-burnout">Burnout, The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle</a></li> </ul> <h3>Trying to be a better person</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34146472-literally-show-me-a-healthy-person">Literally Show Me A Healthy Person</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-score">The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37754223-the-unexpected-joy-of-being-sober">The Unexpected Joy of being Sober</a></li> <li>[How To Date Men When You Hate Men](How To Date Men When You Hate Men) (LOL)</li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37569338-how-to-be-a-good-creature">How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals</a></li> <li><a href="https://shop.whichlight.com/products/feeling-great-about-my-butt-book">Feeling Great About My Butt</a> (go buy this from Kawan :) )</li> </ul> <p></p> <h3>Epilogue</h3> <p>For 2020, I have a few books planned/preordered that I am excited about:</p> <ul> <li>Joanne McNeil’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374194335/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1">Lurking: How a Person Became a User</a></li> <li>Kyle Chayka’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V3N7MPQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1">The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism</a></li> <li>Jeff Vandermeer’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q6TNWYC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Dead Astronauts</a></li> <li>Melissa Broder’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32871394-the-pisces">The Pisces</a></li> </ul> <p>If you’ve read this far - send me recommendations, please! I am always on the hunt for more :)</p>2020 Reading Listhttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2020/reading-list/https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2020/reading-list/Wed, 30 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT<p>This year was hard for me, and also everyone else I know. Sometimes I used reading for escapism, and other times I wanted to learn more about basically… why are things so bad right now. Not the most fun, but I did learn a lot.</p> <h3>Books That Rocked My Worldview</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42585300-this-land">This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West</a> (my top book for my 2020)</li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53562067-evil-geniuses">Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35171984-fantasyland">Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History</a> (Kurt Anderson double-header, oh yeahhhhh)</li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt">Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years</a></li> </ul> <p></p> <h3>Capitalism, Basically</h3> <ul> <li>Uses of Decorating (oh no this appears to be an art book with no internet presence… shoot, it’s really good!!)</li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43565344-lurking">Lurking</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37976541-bad-blood">Bad Blood</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50403486-subprime-attention-crisis">Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45186565-uncanny-valley">Uncanny Valley</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44453047-the-longing-for-less">The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40004260-down-to-earth">Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime</a></li> </ul> <h3>Some Nice Fiction</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32871394-the-pisces">The Pisces</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25904473-so-sad-today">So Sad Today</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41830689-new-waves">New Waves</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53205961-ghost-hardware">Ghost Hardware</a></li> <li>Dune (a re-read :) )</li> </ul> <h3>Thinking About How I Think</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38728977-the-molecule-of-more">The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity-and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22822855-nonsense">Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12262741-wild">Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail</a></li> </ul> <h3>2021</h3> <p>I’m on a heavy earth-sciences kick, so I’m hoping to read more books on geology and/or the geologic history of the American west. I’m kicking off the year by starting <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39204074-timefulness">Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World</a> ❤</p>2021 Booklisthttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2021/booklist/https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2021/booklist/Mon, 27 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT<p>Wow, what a year!</p> <p>In terms of general reading themes, I started with a heavy climate-focus at the beginning of the year. Climate change is a <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/47.1/introducing-the-idea-of-hyperobjects">hyperobject</a>, and it’s useful to approach it from varying disciplines and rhetorical techniques. Midway through the year, though, I felt kinda saturated with this topics. Which lead to bifurcating themes for the rest of the books:</p> <ol> <li><em>Appreciating the hell out of the natural world.</em> There’s no better way to honor &amp; respect our planet than by going deep on it! Biology, geology, chemistry, ecology, gimme all of it :)</li> <li><em>Digging into the historical/political/financial reasons for why we wound up here.</em> Sadly I see now that, in terms of climate change, we as a species know exactly what’s going on and what we would need to do to fix it. It’s the money/power systems in place that prevent us from taking swift(er) action. So basically ya girl is finally learning econ 101.</li> </ol> <p>Enjoy! I hope you find a good recommendation or two.</p> <h3>Climate :(</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53441709-the-new-climate-war">The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17465709-braiding-sweetgrass">Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39204074-timefulness">Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43345615-the-outlaw-ocean">The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54814834-under-a-white-sky">Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53231994-all-we-can-save">All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis</a></li> </ul> <h3>Nature :)</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12305851-certainly-more-than-you-want-to-know-about-the-fishes-of-the-pacific-coa">Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6546229-cold-water-corals">Cold-Water Corals: The Biology and Geology of Deep-Sea Coral Habitats</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39364824-coral-whisperers">Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51938590-the-book-of-eels">The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87040.Gathering_Moss">Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses</a></li> </ul> <h3>Culture Systems</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56269264-the-dawn-of-everything">The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/475.Collapse">Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51174256-the-immortality-key">The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25614450-fossil-capital">Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2714607-the-ascent-of-money">The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45731395-the-deficit-myth">The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy</a></li> </ul> <h3>Culture Feelings</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52514416-tomorrow-sex-will-be-good-again">Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56876312-virtue-hoarders">Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55711622-hola-papi">Hola Papi: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons</a></li> </ul> <p>until next year, loves :)</p> <p></p>2022 Readingshttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2022/readings/https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2022/readings/Sun, 25 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT<p>I daresay… I got more fun this year?? Or at least I didn’t spend 100% of my time reading climate books.</p> <p>OTOH, I’m turning into a History Dad. Oh, you read a nice novel that you’d like to share? Sorry friend, I only do hard non-fiction on my various niche interests. And boy howdy are you gonna hear me talk about them :)</p> <h3>Art Data Map Tech</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.abebooks.com/9780374601119/Ways-Being-Animals-Plants-Machines-0374601119/plp">Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence</a></li> <li><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374720513/livingindata">Living in Data</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.atlasoftheinvisible.com/">Atlas of The Invisible</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/669487/code-as-creative-medium-by-golan-levin-and-tega-brain/">Code as a Creative Medium</a></li> </ul> <h3>The Environment</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/39858757-designing-climate-solutions">Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58097321">Sagebrush Empire</a></li> <li><a href="https://regeneration.org/the-book">Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18667790-the-third-plate">The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/885635.The_Tainted_Desert">The Tainted Desert</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/climatic-media">Climatic Media: Transpacific Experiments in Atmospheric Control</a></li> </ul> <h3>The Experience of Living</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785515-four-thousand-weeks">Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48890486-breath">Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18222705-deep">Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27213168-i-contain-multitudes">I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life</a></li> </ul> <h3>History</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27833494-dark-money">Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58721072-a-brief-history-of-timekeeping">A Brief History of Timekeeping</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4806.Longitude">Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58067654-the-quiet-before">The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas</a></li> </ul> <h3>Economics</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466958-bullshit-jobs">Bullshit Jobs: A Theory</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6763725-capitalist-realism">Capitalist Realism</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52199304-the-world-for-sale">The World For Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-politics-of-bitcoin">Politics of Bitcoin</a></li> </ul> <p></p> <h3>Culture</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/670089.The_Fourth_Turning">The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30724899-radical-technologies">Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36739320-because-internet">Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7546.Cesar_s_Way">Cesar’s Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696047-dangerous-personalities">Dangerous Personalities: An FBI Profiler Shows You How to Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People</a></li> </ul> <h3>Fiction</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61271429-the-suitcase-clone">The Suitcase Clone</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44279110-my-year-of-rest-and-relaxation">My Year of Rest and Relaxation</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52397.Parable_of_the_Sower">Parable of the Sower</a></li> </ul>Burning Man Catharsishttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/01/burning-man-catharsis/https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/01/burning-man-catharsis/Sat, 28 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>The city’s too crowded, no one goes there anymore.</p> <p>In the midst of our astronomical rent prices across all major cities, we have fewer and fewer creative communities. Cheap rent is a prerequisite for artists, musicians, and other creative folks to settle down. These full-time corporate jobs suck the life out of you, you ideally want a location where you can get by on a part-time job. A little bit of freelance here and there. Ample time and space to focus on your creative practice.</p> <p>Enter the small art town, the utopic vision of cheap land, cheap rent, and empty buildings that are ripe for a pop-up party. A small community of people who care for each other, and collaborate on some pretty sick projects. In our modern loneliness epidemic, who isn’t seduced by the idea of living on a commune?</p> <p>There’s a joke on leftist-transit twitter that Disneyland is popular because it offers Americans the opportunity to experience a walkable city in their own country. I would argue that Burning Man has turned into a similarly placating fantasy for corporate workers, yearning to experience life on a village scale.</p> <p>Take one week a year to get out of your stressed urban life and slow it down, man, take a stroll around the dusty city and get to know your neighbors. Help your campmates build out infrastructure, cook some communal meals, and immerse yourself in art and music. LARP that you are a full-time creative person, and no you’d didn’t rush-order your whole outfit off of Amazon the week before.</p> <p>Carnival season has historically been tolerated by the Catholic church because it acts as a pressure-release valve for the faithful. Do a little sinning, once a year in a time-boxed way, and it makes it easier to follow the rules the rest of the time. Burning Man offers that catharsis, a week of wild revelry that makes it easier to accept going back to the rest of your life. The rent keeps going up, and the workday keeps getting longer.</p> <p>The last two friends I’ve brought to Bombay Beach have both said to me, “wow! this is just like Burning Man!” No, friend, Burning Man is just giving you a taste of what life could be like in a vibrant small community. I wish it wasn’t such a rare and exotic thing!</p>Lunar Timehttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/01/lunar-time/https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/01/lunar-time/Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>I read <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00185-z">an article in Nature</a> today about the difficulties of establishing a lunar standard time. Riveting! There are a few pieces of this that I think are interesting to consider:</p> <h3>Lunar Time Zones</h3> <p>The first question would be to decide whether or not to use lunar time zones. Depending on the number of lunar bases, and how far apart they are, it might make sense just to have one single lunar standard time. Similarly to how the entirety of China is one timezone — this is certainly the quickest solution for establishing ground truth.</p> <h3>Determining Precise Time</h3> <p>If we do decide to go with time zones, however, then we have the challenge of determining a person’s longitude on the moon, in order to determine which zone to place them in. There have been a number of delightful books about establishing earth’s UTC (<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4806.Longitude">1</a>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58721072-a-brief-history-of-timekeeping">2</a>) but in our modern age this is solved by using GPS satellites. On the moon, however, we don’t have enough satellites to guarantee accurate triangulation for all locations!</p> <h3>Extraplanetary Timekeeping</h3> <p>To date, we don’t have a standard way of tracking “the time” on other planets, because we don’t have other humans living on planets. On Mars, for example, each rover has its own epoch time, starting from the moment the spacecraft landed on the planet. So we have highly relative calendars on a per-machine basis. It would be tempting to define lunar time by a similar metric, i.e. the first human to set up shop for a bit gets to define 00:00 on the 0th day. We’re going to have multiple countries sending missions to the moon, however, and given how well humans have got along with each other historically… it will be interesting to see how they will converge on a shared calendar system.</p> <h3>Just keep it in Earthtime</h3> <p>For the beginning, this will be the simplest solution. A lunar day lasts 24 hours and 50 minutes, which is definitely off-kilter enough to drive people crazy if they tried to stay on earth time. Martian days are 37 minutes longer than earth days — when the MSL rover was first landing on Mars, JPL operators lived on Martian time to maximize the available window of sunlight and data processing on the rover. It drove people crazyyyyy to be shifting out of sync with the rest of their loved ones, 37 minutes at a time!</p>Why the hell am I trying to get back into writing when ChatGPT just got announcedhttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/01/writing-chatgpt/https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/01/writing-chatgpt/Sat, 28 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>…and other questions I ask myself in trying to get this blog Up And Running.</p> <p>I studied mathematics in college, which followed a rigorous high school math education, and even participation in math competitions (solo and group!) To me, math describes the elegant nature of our reality, one knows they have correctly solved a mathematical proof when the answer has a simplistic beauty to it. Beauty is isomorphic to truth.</p> <p>Imagine my chagrin, then, to realize that a career in mathematics was not going to be financially feasible. Computer programming was the closest viable option, relative to where I was living at the time. The mental transition from mathematics to programing was painful for me; to switch from elegant proofs to raw brute-force. Change your thought patterns to suite the machine.</p> <p>I am reminded of this, now, with the advent of ChatGPT and general AI tools to automate creative practice. Don’t bother with the hassle of writing an essay out yourself, simply suggest to the machine how you would like to output to appear. We already have job reqs for “prompt engineers,” and anyone who has taken AI tooling seriously has learned the linguistic tricks that result in the most compelling outputs.</p> <p>I haven’t written regularly since college, but I’ve been trying to get back into it with this blogging project. Part of me wonders if it would be a better use of time to get Real Good with AI but I am wagering it will still benefit me long-term to shore up my writing skills again. To borrow from the karate kid, these posts are me painting the fence.</p> <p>Wax on, wax off.</p>The Unbearable Sameness of the Modern Webhttps://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/02/unbearable-sameness/https://blog.rachelbinx.com/2023/02/unbearable-sameness/Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>Today I went digging back in my portfolio and tried to pin down when I switched over to using UI frameworks, instead of rolling my own components. Misty-eyed, I rolled around the thought “there’s always a last time a parent picks up their child” but, you know, focusing on me and how I’ve given up on coding up my own UI components.</p> <p></p> <p>I think it happened around 2017-2018. It’s a pretty stark demarkation in my projects — from dense, angular, monochromatic UI to large amounts of padding, rounded corners, and peeks of color. It also looks… well, sloppy. Everything’s too spaced out, and you can clearly pick out which UI framework I’m using.</p> <p></p> <p>Ah, but think of the time savings of using a framework! Yes of course. When I was working at Netflix, I was building internal tools where the important thing was speed &amp; insights, with visual design polish much further down on the priorities. Antd served me well for data-dense UIs, and I didn’t give it much thought.</p> <p>Templatized website builders have proliferated on the web, which is mostly a really good thing! Everyone who wants their own website should be able to make one, even if it does look, well, squarespace-y. Any tech company worth their weight these days has their own design system, a nice little component library built on top of some master framework, with small tweaks for the specific business use case.</p> <p>Also, it’s BORING. It’s BORING AS HELL. Guh, bring back interesting websites, bring back the creativity that the web offers. Bring back frontend devs who aren’t afraid to get down with the mouse event handlers!!</p> <p>There is so much room for creative expression on the web! Standardizing UIs makes sense for large software companies — but please, let’s hold the line with the WWW also being a space for you and me to make weird little sites.</p> <blockquote> <p>I was thinking to do blobs, but then I realized everyone’s doing blobs. So I decided to go as garish as possible.</p> <p>— <cite><a href="https://unraveling.systems/">Ingrid Burrington</a></cite></p> </blockquote> <p><em>sickos voice</em> yes, YES!!</p>
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