Jesse Weaver says we don’t need more designers who can code:

Saying designers should code creates a sense that we should all be pushing commits to production environments. Or that design teams and development teams are somehow destined to merge into one team of superhuman, full-stack internet monsters.

Let’s get real here. Design and development (both front end and back end) are highly specialized professions. Each takes years and countless hours to master. To expect that someone is going to become an expert in more than one is foolhardy.

Here’s what we really need: designers who can design the hell out of things and developers who can develop the hell out of things. And we need them all to work together seamlessly.

This requires one key element: empathy.

What we should be saying is that we need more designers who know about code.

A-FUCKING-MEN.

Ten years ago I had decent front-end development chops, but I eventually came to terms with the fact that I was not a developer and would never be one. I’m a designer (who happens to have an aptitude for technical things).

I know about conditionals and loops and arrays and variable typing, but I use it to talk with developers, not to write my own code.

The world’s most popular languages

via my Instagram

—Jon Favreau, The Master Creator – How Jon Favreau Went from Swingers to Elf to Ironman to Chef

The privacy costs involved for consumers who pay for ‘free’ services by consenting to invasive surveillance of what they say, where they go, who they know, what they like, what they watch, what they buy, have never been made clear by the companies involved in big data mining. But costs are becoming more apparent, as glimpses of the extent of commercial tracking activities leak out.

And as more questions are asked the discrepancy between the claim that there’s ‘nothing to see here’ vs the reality of sleepless surveillance apparatus peering over your shoulder, logging your pulse rate, reading your messages, noting what you look at, for how long and what you do next — and doing so to optimize the lifting of money out of your wallet — then the true consumer cost of ‘free’ becomes more visible than it has ever been.

—The Online Privacy Lie Is Unraveling

“The history of the album cover is so much richer and so superior to the history of the film poster,” Sagmeister told Dezeen. “The average film poster basically takes its strengths from being attached to some cultural phenomenon.”

“People like the Star Wars poster because they like the film,” he continued. “But the poster itself is ultimately a piece of shit. It’s a realistic illustration with some typeface on it related to what’s happening in the film.”

—Stefan Sagmeister talking to Dezeen

Stephen Hackett’s thoughts on WWDC 2015:

That’s not to say there isn’t news to be talk about. As someone whose tablet is basically a Netflix machine most weeks, I’m excited Apple finally realized they can do cool things with it. Unshackling the iPad from the iPhone’s feature set is a huge change with tradition, and one I welcome.

Bingo. Unshackling the iPad from the iPhone’s feature set.

I think this is a big reason I’ve neglected my iPad 3 as much as I have.

I have an iPhone 6 Plus because I wanted even more of a reason to disregard my iPad, but now Apple goes and makes the iPad more useful(well, not my iPad, since many of the new multitasking features only work on the iPad Air 2 due to processor requirements).

Damn you, Apple.

This constricted medium turned good artists into problem solvers. Good artists looked at the display like a mosaic artist, and not so good artists looked at it like a rock and chisel.

—from A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art by Blake Reynolds

—e.e. cummings

Jellyfish Lake:

Video here.

Researchers have grown a partially functioning rat limb in a lab.

Really.

Hey, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee is back with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

I have a thing for her. Man is she cute. And funny.

NYTimes: New Research Says Robots Are Unlikely to Eat Our Jobs:

The McKinsey study analyzes and forecasts the potential impact of so-called digital talent platforms. The report looks at three types of such platforms: job-finding and employee-seeking websites (such as Monster.com and LinkedIn); marketplaces for services (Uber and Upwork, for example); and data-driven talent discovery tools (like Evolv and Knack).

By 2025, McKinsey estimates, these digital talent platforms could add $2.7 trillion a year to global gross domestic product, which would be the equivalent of adding another Britain to the world economy. And the digital tools, the report states, could benefit as many as 540 million people in various ways, including better matches of their skills with jobs, higher wages and shorter stints of unemployment.

Bull-fucking-shit.

I was going to say ‘read between the lines’, but you don’t even need to.

This article is highlighting the macro-economic benefits to companies, not how much people are likely to make (or not make).

I’d like to invite any of the heads of these companies to see how much they can make on these marketplace and talent discovery websites where it’s usually a race to the bottom. Who can do my job the cheapest? Any takers?!

If you can’t tell that’s Adam Horovitz AKA Ad-Rock (Beastie Boys) front-and-center with the smirk on his face. Behind him, Mike Diamond AKA Mike D (Beastie Boys) and behind him, Adam Yauch AKA MCA (Beastie Boys). To the right of Mike D is Def Jam Recordings founder, Rick Rubin.

The dude in the front with the white Kangol hat is Joseph Simmons, AKA DJ Run (Run-D.M.C.). To the right of him is Darryl McDaniels AKA D.M.C. (Run-D.M.C.). I’m not seeing Jam Master Jay and I don’t know who the other dudes are.

via YIMMY YAYO