sean

I'm sending it to 1520 Sedgwick ave in the Bronx on August 11, 1973

I'm sending it to 1520 Sedgwick ave in the Bronx on August 11, 1973

graphic design

good mail day @crossroadsfolk.bsky.social

my current ”if you can't find it, build it" rabbit hole. existing map apps are either way overpowered for my needs, or have terrible ux. point data is GeoJSON, map is OSM tiles via Leaflet (map lib not atproto blog). backend reads/writes location metadata. frontend searches/filters + map styling.

UI mood sketch. more music references. digital or physical, many controls in a small space + labels => boxy containers + tiny caps. the appalachian pattern through pennsylvania just looks cool.

my current ”if you can't find it, build it" rabbit hole. existing map apps are either way overpowered for my needs, or have terrible ux. point data is GeoJSON, map is OSM tiles via Leaflet (map lib not atproto blog). backend reads/writes location metadata. frontend searches/filters + map styling.

most fun part of designing the interface: - tiny ui patterns influenced by decades of using Ableton Live - using svg filter effects to heavily alter the free OSM tiles, modifying and filtering color channels to get cheap isolation of roads, topology, etc from a single map tile png

watching "AI" discourse stuck in a "it's useful" vs "it's harmful” loop, after a lifetime of witnessing the same in topics of alternative transportation advocacy/car dependency

cars are a classic example of the false dichotomy justification: if utility of the tech is deemed sufficiently high, people will treat dead kids as an acceptable inevitable trade-off, even though the contention is not over whether cars are useful. lowering speed limits becomes out of the question.

what is I resent most is that unlike physical places, the internet is big enough to contain infinitely many libraries or stores. it's only due to transparent greed and control that free information become scarce here.

I remember when wikipedia was like the low-trust floor for reliable-ish information on the internet. everyone used it, but it didn't hold much weight as a source. that it's now nearly the ceiling shows how much has been lost.

pattern gradient

pattern gradient

meta (not that meta)

camera roll "boat" etc. you can camp on your own whole island in the Adirondacks. which is basically what it takes to get away from noisy neighbors on the dense east coast, even in the "wilderness"

pattern gradient

meta (not that meta)

I mostly just feel bad for people like this, who feel like art is some elitist pursuit they were being gatekept from, weirdly conflating creativity with output.

More than anything it's just sad how people gatekeep themselves from such fun, then mistake automating the fun part as participation. I put a lot of blame for this confusion on deprioritizing art in education so much that some people can't see that it's one of the few things accessible to anyone.

I mostly just feel bad for people like this, who feel like art is some elitist pursuit they were being gatekept from, weirdly conflating creativity with output.

Most of it is not very good, and I've thrown out way more than I've kept. Making it was the fun part. Making it was the point. The output was secondary. Art is filling an entire sketchbook end to end, just trying to draw hands with a pencil.

I mostly just feel bad for people like this, who feel like art is some elitist pursuit they were being gatekept from, weirdly conflating creativity with output.