Foomandoonian

Oh, and the slogan 'We know' is incredibly sinister. :D

This seems poorly thought out in a lot of respects, but I think specifying "unusual people" is emblematic.

The kinds of people who describe them selves as 'unusual' brings to mind very conventional folks trying to project an image of 'wackiness', or otherwise people who have adopted a genuinely rare or controversial lifestyle... like freegans, nomads, cultists, furries or people with other strange kinks, etc etc. Not exactly communities with much in common!

On the other hand, those with mental health issues often don't want to be considered 'unusual'. People take great comfort in knowing, for example, that depression and anxiety are actually incredibly common.

After talking about the mental health features you're planning, you say "maybe you're a real geek", which again is conflating to wildly different types of 'unusual'. (Besides, in these days of superhero blockbusters is being a geek even unusual anymore?)

If you want to be a site for people with mental health issues, then you need to understand that:

1) Though there's an overlap between this and niche interest subjects; the two things are VERY different, and, 2) Language is INCREDIBLY important if you want to be accepting of everyone and project that you truly understand these diverse conditions and are properly committed to supporting them.

The Medium Design blog is a great resource if you want to unpick their design. They talk in great detail about the various typefaces they have chosen over the years, and why. https://medium.design/

Butterick’s Practical Typography is the best beginner's guide to type on the web that I know about. If you want to know how to lay out pages with good typography, this takes you through everything in easily digestible chapters. https://practicaltypography.com/

I really want a fully-featured podcast player that syncs with an app on my phone. I want to be able to manage subscriptions, ask about new episodes, play episodes at different speeds and generally use the kinds of features that the good podcast apps have.

As if the ergonomics of laptops weren't bad enough already. Makes my neck tense just looking at it.

New when? The 90s? I'd rather just use plain text.

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living." -- Buckminster Fuller, 1930

See also ReMarkdown: http://fvsch.com/code/remarkdown/

I'm sure there was another one too. I was going to make a WordPress theme with it at the time, but never got around to it.

You can go in the opposite direction with markdown.css too: http://kevinburke.bitbucket.org/markdowncss/

I was wondering this recently. It's hard to imagine this happening here in the UK. The thought of police in riot gear kicking down doors and waving guns around sounds beyond crazy to me.

Ironically when I read this on my iPhone the text size was much smaller than an average novel. (Also, the line-heights need some TLC).

I like larger text, but I find this too big (when I read it on a computer). And I think for valid reasons beyond just personal preference. For starters, it's hard to scan or keep track of where you are in the post. I don't think Nielsen would hold this up as a great example of scanability - on my 11" Air I get just about two paragraphs on screen at the same time.

I agree. If I don't want to be interrupted, I close down the client. I don't really see how this is much different to manually setting my status to 'busy'.

Relevant: 'Here’s how central London would look if the Tube map was geographically correct' http://www.mapfodder.com/london.html

Same here. In addition, I usually attempt to perform an action that will result in a visible response, like scrolling or selecting text, so that if/when the app does start responding again, I'll see.

I also sometimes move the window or switch to another window to see if it's the app or a bigger problem.

The Wired PR one is too much. I read WIR :D PR.

I quite like the idea of having a smiley in a company name actually…

The idea needs a lot of development - and a name better than a 'thinkerspace'.

Math and music? What about philosophy, literature, other branches of science? I can think and write with my flouncy fountain pen at home, so what are the merits of me going to a collaborative space? I'm sure there could be many, but these aren't elaborated upon at all. Conversation? About what? Will it be structured? Themed? How? Or why not?

Tea but no coffee? Bookbinding but no typewriters? Blackboards but no wifi? Why is technology unwelcome in this context? Are these important distinctions? I've no idea.

Sounds like you need a manifesto. And I would suggest you try very hard to make it as unpretentious as possible.

Short answer: Nope.

[Wondering aloud] Would a better approach be to activate the sharing icons on mouseover? Sure, users would do this accidentally, but those concerned about privacy could learn to avoid those areas of blogs. Those who don't care (or pay attention) would get a one-click experience.

Touch users woud presumably still have to tap twice.

And I don't think the site has improved in any meaningful way. Someone should fork it and make something better.

(Also, the headline should be 'Dark Patterns: Are They Ethical?' not 'Is It Ethical'.)

I could have written this myself! I wish I had some answers for you...

Unexpectedly awesome!

I kinda wish you could navigate from it though. Eg: When I click on the TED laptop, load the talk in below.

Dropbox should rename mods 'Support Volunteers' or something, just so users know what kind of help they're getting.

I don't understand why the mods were so quick to defend DB, especially since they don't appear to have access to any privileged info. Dropbox has over 200 employees now and whatever precautions they take an occasional slip-up seems entirely possible.

Like a priority inbox for Twitter. I've wanted this since very early on. Some of the best tweeters get drowned out.

It says a lot that Twitter basically gave this power to advertisers (promoted tweets) for them to put themselves in front of us more visibly.

SMS will never take off. Why would anyone fiddle with a tiny keyboard when they could just use the same phone to call someone?

Vive la revolution!

Kudos.

Gruber once mentioned that he'd like to have Thurott on The Talk Show. I'd love to hear that.

Same as ReMarkdown? http://fvsch.com/code/remarkdown/

I've uploaded a screenshot for anyone who just wants a peek: http://decodering.com/post/41361083824/helium

(I tweaked the padding too.)

Agreed. It was the very first thing I looked for.

Even if there aren't enough ratings to be meaningful, seeing movies higher up or lower down than fans think they should be will encourage them to jump in and 'fix' things. :)

I have my own headphone rule: If I can hear your headphones over my headphones, then your headphones are too loud.

I'm always sad when people treat open source as a dumping ground for abandoned/old/unprofitable projects. The rest of my sympathy went away when he misspelled 'substantial' and signed off with an all-caps 'GO TO HELL'. Classy.

I'm probably just a snob.