O ne of the most persistent myths in design is that “the best designs are invisible.” There have even been books written about how to make your design more invisible, claiming the best User Interface (UI) is no UI . All of these books seem to spring from the Don’t Make Me Think school, where…

They have a surprisingly decent graphics department over in Crazyland. Photo: Anonymous A new conspiracy theory called “The Storm” has taken the grimiest parts of the internet by, well, storm. Like Pizzagate, the Storm conspiracy features secret cabals, a child sex-trafficking ring led (in part) by…

In the new millennium, science fiction films continue to flourish, commanding massive box office receipts, inspiring our dreams, and all while making technological innovations along the way. Franchises remain popular, and so many of the big event films have SF underpinnings, but so too, do creative…

Harrison Ford on a payphone in a scene from the 1993 film The Fugitive Warner Bros. / Getty Images This movie was not supposed to be good. Here’s the plot: A middle-aged cardiovascular surgeon’s wife is killed by a one-armed man, and said surgeon is sent to death row. But his bus crashes on the way…

It’s a picture-perfect day on Martha’s Vineyard. Families stream by on a heavily foot-trafficked thoroughfare, while white men in cargo shorts dock their boats and crack open their beers. In the middle of it all is Spike Lee, sitting on a bench, delivering an earful of Saturday-afternoon real talk.…

Lexi Alexander is easy enough to spot on a set: She’s the one in the middle of the huddle, surrounded on all sides by men—cameramen, stuntmen, sound guys, lighting guys, even a Guy Holding a Fake But Very Real-Looking Gun—and throwing punches around. Alexander is a film and television director, and…

BURBANK, Calif. — Everything ends, even if it might not feel that way right now for Joe and Anthony Russo. More than a year into the making of “Avengers: Infinity War,” these directing brothers were shuttling around the Walt Disney Studios here one evening in March, putting the finishing touches on…

Trace Lysette and Jamie Clayton, two of the most high profile transgender actresses working today, took to Twitter in the aftermath of Scarlett Johansson being cast in a transgender role to slam Hollywood for continuing to allow cisgender actors the chance to play transgender characters. Johansson…

‘Naively adolescent’ … Linda Lawson and Dennis Hopper in the 1961 film Night Tide – streaming soon at byNWR.com.Photograph: Ronald Grand Archive T his is a frightening time to be alive. For the past six months, I’ve been shooting in America, and it seems increasingly clear we’re now living in a…

SAN FRANCISCO — Souvla , a Greek restaurant with a devoted following, serves spit-fired meat two ways: in a photogenic sandwich, or on a photogenic salad, either available with a glass of Greek wine. The garnishes are thoughtful: pea shoots, harissa-spiked yogurt, mizithra cheese. The small menu is…

Kamasi Washington, the wisest man on Earth The O.G. saxophonist made his name in jazz, but he’s bigger than genre. Fashion by Tiffany Wright of Alice and Louie Photographer Chantal Anderson Buy a copy of The FADER's Summer Issue. ADVERTISEMENT Shortly before getting on the phone with the effusive…

In scrambling to ramp up production of its Model 3 electric car, Tesla has run into trouble with robots and automated machinery, a need for more workers and a shortage of battery packs. Now Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, suspects his company might have a more unusual problem: sabotage. In an…

A merican music is black music — and vice versa. We can’t begin to comprehend the complexity of the American musical tradition, at least within the past 125 years, without breaking down the contributions of black musicians. Music is born through a ripple effect, a call-and-response method of…

The New York State attorney general’s office filed a scathingly worded lawsuit on Thursday taking aim at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, accusing the charity and the Trump family of sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign.…

Might be a new direction in information warfare Three months after being indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice, the notorious Russian troll factory known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA) has launched a new media venture targeting Americans. This time, however, there’s reason to believe the…

What do you remember about Lily Allen’s 2014 record Sheezus ? Maybe you remember the well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous rollout of lead single “Hard Out Here”, an early example of internet callout culture (rightfully) criticised for using black women as props . Or the strange, watered down…

The company behind tiny food delivery robots has admitted that people are kicking its machines — and it's an early insight into how cruel humans could be to robots. Starship Technologies was launched in 2014 by Skype cofounders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis. It makes 22-inch tall robots that roll…

North Korea has arrived as a nuclear power, and there is no going back. Once the reality-show theatrics of the Singapore summit meeting subside, we are left with the reality that North Korea was just recognized as a de facto nuclear weapons power. President Trump went to the meeting with Kim Jong-un…

Illustration: Angelica Alzona Last December, a 22-year old modder who calls himself Ted52 purged the Steam forums for his Hearts of Iron IV mod, Millennium Dawn. Steam’s infrastructure made it difficult to remove unsavory threads individually, and he tells me he has more control of things over at…

Valve has stopped trying. Today’s blog post makes something explicit that many of us have seen for a while: The company doesn’t really care about the content on its platform. It doesn’t want to be put in the sticky situation of being responsible for the things being sold through Steam, so it won’t…

Rebekah Valentine Staff Writer Tuesday 5th June 2018 Share this article Recommend The challenges of independent development are real and numerous, but in the right circumstances those challenges can provide the perfect environment for creativity to blossom. That was the case for Minit, a game that…

In a 1970 TV commercial, a group of child actors portraying Louis Armstrong, Fiorello La Guardia, and Barney Pressman as kids are sitting on a New York City stoop and asking each other what they hope to be one day. Armstrong says he wants to be a musician. La Guardia says he wants to be mayor of New…

Glover takes an ambivalent view of his widespread acclaim. “People accept me now because I have power, but they still think, Oh, he thinks he’s the golden flower of the black community, thinks he’s so different,” he said. “But I am, though!” Photographs by Awol Erizku for The New Yorker Audio:…

Convenience is the most underestimated and least understood force in the world today. As a driver of human decisions, it may not offer the illicit thrill of Freud’s unconscious sexual desires or the mathematical elegance of the economist’s incentives. Convenience is boring. But boring is not the…

MIAMI — Florida lawmakers gave final passage to a $400 million gun control and school safety bill on Wednesday in defiance of the National Rifle Association, which opposed the legislation’s firearm restrictions. The bipartisan vote came three weeks after a gunman killed 17 people in a rampage at…

The Afsluitdijk is a 20-mile dam that has been protecting the low-lying Netherlands from the force of the ocean for decades. According to Daan Roosegaarde, a Dutch artist who works in urban environments, it’s quite famous in the country because “basically, it protects us from drowning.” Roosegaarde…

In the new world of on-demand everything, you’re either pampered, isolated royalty — or you’re a 21st century servant. By Lauren Smiley Angel the concierge stands behind a lobby desk at a luxe apartment building in downtown San Francisco, and describes the residents of this imperial, 37-story tower.…

When I couldn’t buy a smart mirror and made one instead Sometime late last year I realized that I wanted my ordinary bathroom mirror to be more like the future we were promised in the movies . There doesn’t seem to be anyone selling the product I was looking for. The individual parts, however, were…

Earlier this year I wrote about the lack of nuance on our social media feeds and why so many people were trying to step away from it . And, taking my own good advice, I attempted to spend less time on my accounts. I used an app called Feedly to follow my favorite writers and publications via RSS…

Screenshot: NBC/Paramount Pictures, Graphic: Nicole Antonuccio. Welcome back to AVQ&A , where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to…

A slice of the data that Facebook keeps on the author: ‘This information has millions of nefarious uses.’Photograph: Dylan Curran W ant to freak yourself out? I’m going to show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it. Google…

Some people are better at being themselves than others are. They're the ones at home instantly in any untried environment, the way a cloud looks just right no matter where it is in the sky. They seem to keep slightly better rhythm with the beat of the universe than other people—noticing things…

Daniel Pesina promoting Mortal Kombat competitor BloodStorm Scott Morrison/Incredible Technologies This story originally ran in 2012. We’re reposting it to coincide with Mortal Kombat 2’s 25th anniversary. This past school year, Columbia student Kenny Voong wanted to make a videogame. He just didn’t…

“Right, Who’s next.” Over the last few days, I’ve said this line to myself hundreds of times. I’ve scrolled through name after name, studied bios, examined photographs, and then I’ve put pen to paper and started drawing a seemingly endless stream of stick figures. But first, let’s briefly go back to…

“Just recently we passed $70 billion paid out to developers, 30% of that in the last year alone.” — Phil Schiller, Apple SVP @ WWDC 2017 It’s far easier than you think. No luck or perseverance necessary. At WWDC, Apple reported that they’ve paid out $70 billion to developers, with 30% of that ($21…

A group of Republican state legislators in South Carolina introduced a measure Thursday that would allow the state to secede from the United States if the federal government began to seize legally purchased firearms in the state. The bill , which was referred to the state House Judiciary Committee…