Award-winning, modular public restrooms
“[Design is] using good deliberation, understanding, resulting in deliberate desire to be carried out with cleverness.”
— ARISTOTLE
This time we’re colliding award-winning bathrooms, nuclear control rooms, hummingbirds, underwater cities and enclosed horses.
Please skip around, read what you want to. Find something interesting in your own internet travels? Send me a link
—JH
A Curiosity & Delight
Go ahead, play for yourself
Called up to the majors from mentioned link last issue to write-up feature this issue—Enclose Horse. It’s a browser game where you try to enclose the horse in as large a pen as possible.
27 years ago, I was playing Kirby’s Dreamland 2 on my GameBoy Color past lights-out. It was hard but basic. Fast-paced side-scrolling sections gave way to contained areas I had to solve like a puzzle to break out of. I’ve missed it.
But now, Enclose Horse scratches and itch I’d gotten so used to having that I didn’t realize it was still there. Between calls or 25-minute focus sessions, I try to enclose the titular horse. I think you’d like it too.
A few tips from me, a woefully experienced player:
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After placing a wall, you can click it again to un-place it.
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Apples are worth extra, bees cost points.
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Think in weird shapes.
10 curious links that would have killed the cat
🚽 Staten Island bathroom wins major architectural award. It’s a modular design that would be easy to deliver and setup anywhere in the city.
Gothamist ∙ News
😰 Stop stressing about self-improvement or getting on top of things this year. I like the idea of finding things that are good for you—mind, body, feelings, etc.—that are just plain more interesting. I’m cooking through a Mediterranean cookbook this year and kinda loving it. (Also, a spiral-bound printed cookbook is quietly changing my life.)
The Guardian ∙ Article
🐦 Bird feeders have caused a dramatic evolution of California hummingbirds. “Artificial feeders have allowed the birds to expand their range out of Southern California up to the state’s northern end. They have also driven a transformation of the birds themselves. Over just a few generations, their beaks have dramatically changed in size and shape.” Fascinating!
Science ∙ News
💻 Web Design Museum curates old websites. I remember old Netflix! Check out the makeover Apple gets transitioning from its 2006 iPod era to its 2007 iPhone era.
Web Design Museum ∙ Website
📄 Notchie gives your MacBook a tiny teleprompter for Zoom meetings. It doesn’t show up on the call—just for you. It’s $30 but might be worth it if you’re in presentations a lot.
Notchie ∙ App
Every color in a nuclear control room is by design
☢️ Why so many nuclear control rooms were a very specific Seafoam Green. Designer Beth Mathews sheds some irradiated light in the form of Faber Birren, color theory, and industrial interior design. I really enjoyed this one.
Beth Mathews ∙ Article
🕳️ Freakpages is a community-curated directory of esoteric articles across the internet. A person could get lost in any of these rabbit holes. I had to keep saying to myself, “Interesting idea, but who likes it—and why?” Especially about the ideological entries.
Freakpages ∙ Website
🤔 7,000-year-old underwater wall raises questions about ancient engineering and lost-city legends. “Scientists have identified a stone wall nearly 400 feet long, lying 30 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. It was built by hunter-gatherers more than 7,000 years ago, though its purpose remains uncertain.”
Big Think ∙ Article
🎶 I listened to the soundtrack for Wilding as I worked last week. Mellow and meditative. If you liked this, follow it up with Jon Hopkins’s Music for Psychedelic Therapy.
Music ∙ Recommendation
🐝 Bees use a map of the sky to give precise directions on where to find food to each other. Nature is incredible.
The Action Lab ∙ Video
in Greenville, SC
Our developer Joe recently refactored Notes (one of our best-kept secrets) and made a few improvements to make note-taking smoother for you and your learners:
Notes now…
⬆️ Keeps unsaved changes
If you're writing a new note or editing an existing one and navigate away, your work is saved automatically.
⬆️ Remembers
Adding or editing a note remembers your last used visibility setting and retains your scroll position in the list — so you can jump back to where you were working without losing your place.
⬆️ Responds faster
Viewing, creating, and editing Notes is more responsive and fast, making them better to use than ever.
I wrote this edition on Friday last week, right before we got walloped with winter storms. Now, as I put on the finished touches, it’s Monday morning. I’m looking out my window at a bush in my front lawn whose leaves are each encased in a half inch of ice. My driveway needs shoveling—I’ll get to it in an hour once it’s above freezing.
We’re all working at my house. My kids are on their Chromebooks for an eLearning day. My partner is on Zoom with Engineering classes. My dog is in her crate after eating someone’s unattended muffin off the kitchen counter. Everyone’s got something to do.
I hope this one finds you warm and dry too.
High five,
Justin Hall
Editor, Partner at Pathwright