Links #131

Mandy Brown responds to Alan Jacobs, including a compelling peasant woodland metaphor borrowed from Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World (which I need to read). “A peasant woodland is one in which human participation and activity help the woods become more productive for humans and wildlife both—not through anything shaped like a plan but rather through a kind of call and response, an improvisation in which all the critters and creatures of the forest are players among us.” This way of thinking about the web seems healthy.

Helena Zhang’s Departure Mono, a monospaced pixel font. Fun.

Nathaniel Roy on Knopf’s logo variations. Also fun. I wish more publishers did this. (Maybe they do.)

Naz Hamid on being content with an older iPhone. I used to upgrade my phone consistently every two years, but this is the first year where I don’t feel like I need to. Freeing.

Devin Kate Pope on fearing home cooks. “The U.S. food system disconnects people from their food and each other. […] We, the people, are really remarkably capable of cooking everything and anything. Why am I more comfortable buying frozen tamales made by a corporation flown into my town than from the lady up the street? Who is the suspicion serving? Who profits when people are scared to eat food made by their neighbors?” Good point, one I hadn’t thought of much before. (Even though my favorite food in other countries is typically street food sold by small vendors, which is close to the same thing.)

Gareth Edwards on the imminent disappearance of the .io domain because of the sovereignty transfer.

Mandy Brown on staying in the gap, referring to Ira Glass’s taste gap story about creative work. I think of the original quote quite often and like this expansion of the idea. “The gap between your abilities and your taste is not a gap to be crossed but one to be cultivated.”