Kevin Rothermel

When you work for a massive state university, you’ll find your inbox full of well-intentioned broadcast emails. Well-intentioned daily broadcast newsletters, of at least 1000, densely-packed, words.

You’ll also get a number of emails pleading for you to “please read” in the subject line.

I don’t know how successful the newsletters are, and I can’t prove that the “please read” emails are implicating the sender’s entire email body of work, but I do get the sense that a lot of information is being emailed and never seen again.

This post at Audacious Fox is right on:

Similarly, Nobody Reads… Bad Copy. If nobody is reading your copy, it means you need to work on the text more so the reader can work less.

Generally, the following attributes contribute to bad copy: too long, filled with jargon, without actionable steps, visually unfriendly.

Content is filler. The emphasis is on filling the space. Checking off the talking-points. Making something that looks very complete and impressive and real and professional to the people that are in charge. It is hardly ever written to communicate.

Self-driving technology allows GUIDO to weave through the built environment, responding to bookings from a customer app. As orders are placed through the app, GUIDO sources the cocktail’s components from bottles stored on the counter, and prepares the drink on site. GUIDO’s system also performs ID age verification and supports paying via mobile phone.

Not a post about booze or robots so much as a post about the “application of a city-on-demand paradigm.”

Via Arch Daily

From Fast Company:

Pentagram partner Yuri Suzuki–who immigrated to London a decade ago himself–has spearheaded a fascinating new project, a freely sharable protest kit called Acid Brexit. Acid Brexit is basically a brand built to protest Brexit, consisting of music, images, and videos that the public is free to reproduce, recut, and redistribute at will.

I love this. Check out the full project page on Pentagram’s site .

I’ve got a fine collection of weather apps in my life. And for that, I am thankful.

Weather Underground uses local weather stations for uncomfortably local reporting of conditions.

Weather Line is great at visualizing changes in conditions.

I’ve heard about Carrot for years. People like its salty personality, but I’ve also heard great things about the design and feature set.

Power users have always wanted to control sound volume, temperament and political leanings of their weather app. That dream is reality.

How abusive would you like your weather reports? Adjust personality here:

 

Tired of apolitical weather apps? Me too. Now you can get your weather from a card carrying communist, fancy anarchist libertarian, or sleepy, agreeable centrist.

 

I think setting the politics led to this when I found the White House on the location search game:

There are a lot of interesting capabilities baked into this thing. Here’s a couple:

 

And it’s really good at being a weather app. A foul mouthed, angry, hateful weather app.

Highly recommended. It can do a lot of really cool stuff.

It’s not free, and it shouldn’t be. It’s too good.