In pursuit of decent coffee

All of this may sound a bit ridiculous. It is just coffee, after all. But while jokes about $10 lattes and millennials who will never be able to afford homes might persist, I do think there is something special about the way we are able to make little parts of our life better. We turned what was once gulping out sludge to get out of bed into a truly culinary activity in the morning—and of course you are still able to drink the sludge if you prefer it.

January 30, 2023 coffee

The infrastructure behind ATMs

Everything you ever wanted to know about ATMs and payment rails

And so the most common transaction at an ATM is not a withdrawal so much as it is a sale. You are buying some paper with a mystical property associated with it, in return for money, and often paying a convenience fee.

January 13, 2023 money payments

The Style Guide for America’s Highways

The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. This is beautiful 😍. I’m partial to the Standard Alphabet — probably a function of growing up with it.

signs

January 12, 2023 design typography

The internet wants to be fragmented

Noah Smith:

Humanity does not want to be a global hive mind.

People call Twitter an indispensable public space because it’s the “town square”, but in the real world there isn’t just one town square, because there isn’t just one town. There are many. And the internet works when you can exit — when you can move to a different town if you don’t like the mayor or the local culture.

January 8, 2023 internet social media privacy twitter