The Tremendous 10 link roundup, #135

1. ZINES HAD IT RIGHT ALL ALONG | “Zines have an enormous variety. They’re experimental and diverse. This gives them a freshness and surprise. They’re anti-formalist. They’re relatable.”
2. The “True Size” Maps Shows You the Real Size of Every Country (and Will Change Your Mental Picture of the World) | “Though Mercator’s world-mapping method came as a revolution, it has also given generation after generation after generation very much the wrong idea about how big the world’s countries actually are. “
3. How Vice Crushed One Agency’s Dreams–Then Inspired Its Best Work | “The boutique agency Gretel did the branding for Viceland — a design that isn’t so much a culmination of Gretel’s work, as a repudiation of it.”
4. The 10 best journalism movies | “The Washington Post’s critics picked their favorites and then asked Katie Couric, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Chris Matthews and others to weigh in on what these films reveal about the profession.”
5. Where Did the English Language Come From?: An Animated Introduction | “If you’ve ever deliberately studied the English language — or, even worse, taught it — you know that bottomless aggravation awaits anyone foolish enough to try to explain its “rules.” What makes English so apparently strange and different from other languages, and how could such a language go on to get so much traction all over the world?”
6. Colorized Math Equations | “Most ideas aren’t inherently confusing, but their technical description can be (e.g., reading sheet music vs. hearing the song.) My learning strategy is to find what actually helps when learning a concept, and do more of it. Not the stodgy description in the textbook — what made it click for you? The checklist of what I need is ADEPT: Analogy, Diagram, Example, Plain-English Definition, and Technical Definition.”
7. Good Design Does Have Economic Value—No Matter What Critics of Contemporary Architecture Say | “By and large, architects and designers are not sufficiently trained to understand the impact of their actions. If there is a “crisis” in contemporary architecture, as D’Aprile and Rennix and Robinson suggest, it is not merely that too many buildings are “ugly” or that architecture and capitalism don’t mix—it’s that architects fail to grasp the relationships between those things.”
8. My Must-Have Mac Apps, 2017 Edition | “Just over two months into working from home, I’ve begun to reevaluate how I use the Mac. I expect to continue evolving how I work on macOS throughout 2018 as I feel my way around the best ways to be productive. Still, a couple of overarching themes can be seen in my picks below that I expect will continue to guide me in 2018.”
9. The uproar over the New Yorker short story “Cat Person,” explained | “How a short story about a bad date sparked a conversation about gender, sex, and privilege.”
10. Merry Last Christmas, Jack Dorsey. | “Twitter isn’t a technology company. It’s a human interaction company. I’m not sure they’ve ever understood that. And that’s the generous assumption. More likely, and alarmingly, they understand that but don’t care.”

Image: photo illustration by John Hanawalt, via Mike Monteiro (link #10).