In this analytical work, Anthony illustrates how the poor design of everyday things can lead to frustrations and serious consequences including injuries and deaths. From toys to glass staircases to restrooms to healthcare environments to digital experiences, design plays a crucial role in our lives. As designers, we have the responsibility to make sure that our design is smart, safe, and inclusive. This book highlights both good and bad designs to learn from. It’s a must-read for designers.

Asshole
Bigot
Creep
Demagogue
Egotistic
Facist
Grotesque
Hypocrite
Idiot
Jerk
Kleptocrat
Liar
Moron
Narcissist
Oppressor
Pussy-grabber
Querulous
Racist
Sexist
Thoughtless
Unfit
Vulgar
White Supremacist
Xenophobic
Yokelish
Zany

At this point, nothing he says can be shocking anymore. The media is giving way too much attention. The more outrageous words come out of his foul mouth, the more galvanizing his base gets. He has nothing to lose and so much to gain. I have learned to ignore what he says and tweets. His words no longer get to me. I am shocked or mad. Nothing he says is unthinkable, unimaginable, and unspeakable. I won’t fall into his word trap anymore. I still love America and I still believe in our strong democracy. He will go down and out.

Để thay đổi không khí sau khi đọc hai quyển tiếng Anh khá dày (hơn 350 trang một cuốn) liên tục, tôi chuyển qua tập truyện ngắn của Trương Văn Tuấn. Câu chuyện đầu nói lên sự đau đớn của người chồng sau khi người vợ mang thai bị chết đuối. Câu chuyên kế tiếp kể về một cô làm gái trên xe lửa. Tất cả 19 câu chuyện có những nội dung đau buồn trong cuộc sống hằng ngày. Sách ngắn (dưới 200 trang) đọc cũng tạm được.

After reading Prum’s close observations of animal sexual activities, I have a different perspective on ducks. Lady ducks, I have tremendous respect for you. Stay strong and away from the rapists. Male ducks, if I ever catch you gang-rape a female duck, I will turn you into my blood soup (tiết canh). All joking aside, this book is a compelling scientific study of the evolution of animal sexuality and how it teaches us about our own sexuality. Let’s face it. Appearance matters. Female birds and ducks choose attractive mates to give them the best offsprings. Male Bowerbirds have to create beautiful bowers in order to get the female Bowerbirds to lek. As for the Great Argus, his only job is to make love. After that, the female takes over the responsibility of giving birth and raising the children. Wouldn’t men want to be Bowerbirds? This book is so fascinating that I read almost nonstop in the past two nights. Now I can’t get the image of the duck penis out of my head. A must-read for anyone interested in the science and beauty of sex.

Some notes

On duck rapes (p.157):

Forced copulations are pervasively common in many species of ducks, which might suggest that there’s something routine and ordinary about them, but they are also violent, ugly, dangerous, and even deadly. Female ducks are conspicuous in resisting them and will attempt to fly or swim away from their attackers; if they do not manage to escape, they mount vigorous struggles to try to repel their attackers. This can be extraordinarily difficult to do, because in many duck species forced copulation is often socially organized. Groups of males travel together and attack a single female in a form of gang rape. By attacking her in concert, males increase the chance that one of them will be able to overcome her resistance, and thwart her mate’s attempts to defend her, than if they acted alone.

The cost to females of forced copulations is very high. Females are often injured, and not infrequently killed in the process.

On duck penis (p.161):

Alternatively, [Kevin] McCracken also hypothesized that the male somehow uses his superlong penis to remove the sperm of the other competing males from the female’s reproductive tract.

Nhiều lúc căng thẳng trong công việc và mệt nhọc với con cái khiến tôi hay quạu quọ hoặc nhăn nhó. Năm nay tôi muốn mình sống cởi mở hơn.

Đi làm cho dù không muốn xã giao tôi cũng cố gắng hỏi thăm qua lại. Vợ luôn nhắt nhở, “Anh bây giờ là giám đốc rồi phải ra cử chỉ một giám đốc.” Tuy chỉ có cái tên gọi thôi nhưng cũng rán. Vui vẻ được càng nhiều người thì công việc cũng sẽ dễ dàng hơn. Nghiêm ngặt quá làm gì cho mệt bản thân. Công việc cũng chỉ là công việc.

Ở nhà cũng thế nên sống nhẹ nhàng với vợ con. Hôm qua trước khi đi ngủ cả Đạo và Đán cùng nói nó vẫn yêu ba cho dù bị ba rầy la. Hai thằng này lúc nào cũng giỡn được cả. Lúc súc miệng thì hai thằng thi nhau phun từ ở sink lên gương rồi cười giỡn coi đứa nào phun cao hơn. Tôi bắt hai đứa lau cho khô rồi đi ngủ. Tụi nó cũng biết sai nên bị la mà vẫn nói là yêu ba.

Còn vợ chồng thì cũng đã sống với nhau gần 10 năm rồi nên hiểu nhau và cũng biết tật xấu của nhau. Tuy không nói nhưng tôi hiểu tình cảm vợ dành cho tôi. Vợ có thể làm cho tôi bất cứ cái gì nên tôi rất yêu và kính trọng vợ. Em là ánh sáng của đời tôi.

Về gia đình, tôi cần cố gắng gần gủi hơn. Những chuyện không vui nên bỏ qua. Tránh va chạm, tranh cãi, và nói xấu nhau. Người trong gia đình nên gắn bó và giúp đỡ nhau. Vì không biết ngày mai có còn cơ hội hay không.

Trong bạn bè, tôi cần cố gắng nhiều hơn để liên lạc với nhau. Giờ vì quá bận rộn với con cái tôi đã không còn qua lại với ai cả. Tình bạn bè rồi phôi pha theo ngày tháng.

Tan’s beautiful, poignant memoir reveals her writing process, her love for language, her frightful experience with and appreciation for music, and her family conflicts and tragedies. Tan’s relationships with her immigrant parents, in particular, are powerful and heartbreaking. She writes about her dad: “Among fathers, he was a great father. But I also realize this painful truth: he loved God far more than he loved me.” She speaks her mind on religion:

His fear did not turn me way from God. It made me reject the notion that God must be constantly pleased and feared. If my father were alive, I would try to talk to him in his framework of Christianity. I would tell him that I can’t worship a God who is synonymous with prohibition and the threat of punishment. Fear, I think, is the worst element of religions of all kinds. It is used to justify more fear, as well as hatred, lack of compassion, intolerance, and war.

On politics, Tan speaks eloquently from an Asian-American voice:

Today, the day after the 2016 presidential election, I am disillusioned—devastated and angry. My party lost, and the unthinkable has happened. America has changed overnight. It has already shown that it will be governed under an openly racist agenda, one that sees immigrants as the cause of economic woes, crime, and terrorism. A significant percentage of the public are expressing their antipathy to anyone who does not look like he or she is white, heterosexual, and conservative.

Although the book is a bit too long, it is an engaging and thoughtful read.

This year I will put all my eggs in one blog. That’s right, I try to refrain from posting on Twitter and Facebook as much as I could. So you’ll expect to see more short posts on here rather than on social media. Let’s get into some of the podcasts I have listened to lately.

As the New Yorker lover, I started to listen to “The New Yorker Radio Hour.” Here’s an enjoyable one interview with Jon Hamm and a hilarious one with Jerry Seinfeld.

As a book lover, I started to listen to “What Should I Read Next?” with Anne Bogel. Episode 112 with Laura Vanderkam, in particular, is intriguing. They talked about finding the time to read.

As a typographic lover, I started to listen to The Weekly Typographic by The League of Moveable Type. The hosts do a nice job of sharing the latest news in type design community.

As a design nerd, I also started listening to Design Notes by Google. As I was searching for Design Notes, I learned about Method podcast also from Google Design. I’ll give that a shot as well.

What’s else? I am still on the sideline about Design Recharge. I am giving it a few more episodes to see if it is for me.

You probably already noticed the little square at the top left corner on this site. Yes, it is indeed a new logo for Visualgui. Why a logo now and what does it mean?

Since the launched of this site in 2004, I have always struggled with designing a logo for it. I had designed countless versions and none had met my satisfaction. It got to the point where I just pick a typeface and let it go. In the past few weeks during winter break, I started to play around with it again. I wanted to define what Visualgui is.

When I first decided on my domain name, I loved the site called SK Visual. The site surprisingly still exists; however, its earlier version was much nicer. I just loved the word visual. Then I saw some domain names that were on sell, including one called chunkygui.com. I thought it was kind of funny so I put the two together and ended up with Visualgui. Although Visualgui intended as a visual/design guy, the GUI part has a double entendre of Graphical User Interface. I just ran with it without a clear definition. At first, the site was meant to be my design portfolio. It changed completely when I started to blog. Only two years ago, I decided to separate my personal blog from my professional portfolio. Only this year I have my own name for my domain.

For Visualgui, I wanted to keep it as my blog for as long as I can. Does it really need a logo? Probably not. Who cares? No one, but myself. So it is more or less for me. Because of the name, I wanted to be as legible as possible because Visualgui is really vague. Using a sans serif typeface would solve that issue, but then it is not that unique. So I wanted to experiment with a bit with using squares in a grid. In the previous version, I played around with nine squares (similar to a Rubik’s Cube) and added Futura in each square to spell out Visualgui. It looked kind of cool, but without the letters, they were just nine squares. Then I remember Fit by David Jonathan Ross, which I had helped him a bit on Vietnamese diacritics. With Fit, I could fit each letter into each square. At a large size, each letter looks great. The small size, however, is not so legible. The letters started to look like shapes, but they are not the same. I like the ambiguousness of it just like the name of the site.

There are many opportunities I can do with this logo. I wish I could do the whole branding exercise for it just like what I have done in grad school, but I just don’t have the time at the moment. I also want to spend some more time with it too see if I am going to change it again in the near future. For now, it works for me.

Oprah Winfrey:

For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up.

Winfrey’s 9-minute speech at the 2018 Golden Globes is worth-watching.

Masha Gessen:

To think that a madman could be running the world’s most powerful country, to think that the Commander-in-Chief would use Twitter to mouth off about whose nuclear button is bigger or to call himself a “very stable genius,” verges on the impossible. If the word “unthinkable” had a literal meaning, this would be it.

At this point, nothing about this president is unimaginable, unthinkable, and unspeakable. I have to change my view on American politics to keep me from going crazy.