The Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “There is no great genius without a tincture of madness.” We’ve all intuitively understood that people who are geniuses are often a little bit crazy. We accept it, even if we don’t know exactly why it’s so.
Thanks to the work of visionaries like Bill Moggridge, David Kelley, and Steve Jobs, people want user-devoted, frictionless experiences in their interactions with technology. Jobs’ influence is especially pronounced. Perhaps no single product has reshaped what people expect of designed technology more than the iPhone. Ever since its release a decade ago, consumer demand for useful, beautiful product experiences have grown more insistent.
On the first day of seventh grade last fall, Caitlin Dolan lined up for lunch at her school in Canonsburg, Pa. But when the cashier discovered she had an unpaid food bill from last year, the tray of pizza, cucumber slices, an apple and chocolate milk was thrown in the trash. “I was so embarrassed,” said Caitlin, who said other students had stared. “It’s really weird being denied food in front of everyone. They all talk about you.”
Facebook’s secretive advertising practices became a little more public on Monday thanks to a leak out of the company’s Australian office. This 23-page document discovered by The Australian (paywall), details in particular how Facebook executives promote advertising campaigns that exploit Facebook users’ emotional states—and how these are aimed at users as young as 14 years old.
In the new film adaptation of Dave Eggers’ satirical novel The Circle, Tom Hanks says his character is “neither” and “both” a hero and a villain. Hanks plays Eamon Bailey, co-founder of a giant social media and tech company. In a tech-obsessed culture, the company has a creepy mantra of “Sharing is caring.”
if you were wondering why The Force Awakens just … worked, where Rogue One didn’t, here is an excellent deconstruction by YouTube’s Lessons from the Screenplay, which highlights the storytelling flaws in both films and why Rogue One’s were worse.
If future anthropologists want to study the rubble of early-21st-century retail, a good place to start will be what Amazon.com did to apparel shopping in the few years before and after 2017.
