The cursed universes of Dana Sibera

February 27, 2023 7:59 PM

The #1 adjective others seem to put under her creations routinely and casually shared on Mastodon is cursed. Sibera seems to think likewise. “They are terrible for the most part, but better out of my head than in,” she wrote when I asked. Marcin Wichary writes 2400 words with lots of pictures for the newsletter Shift Happens. [via lobste.rs]
posted by cgc373 (20 comments total)

Sure, Jan.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:13 PM on February 27, 2023

That was a ride! So much fun stuff, I had to share the C64 extended with my friends of a certain age.
posted by Harald74 at 9:34 PM on February 27, 2023

Screens should be based on the form of a sheet of paper (read in portrait). Prove the statement wrong.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:34 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

ISO 216, ofc.
posted by clew at 10:38 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

A very fine collection of objects leaking in from alternate universes. Some of those alternate arrow key designs look really cool.
posted by crossswords at 10:46 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Screens should be based on the form of a sheet of paper (read in portrait). Prove the statement wrong.

Landscape screens fit the shape of the human field of vision much better. In fact, while there seems to be some disagreement on this, according to several sources, the aspect ratio of the human field of vision is somewhere in the range of 1.66:1 to 1.8:1, which is quite close to the 16:9 (1.78:1) of HD screens (although it's oval, not rectangular).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:10 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Apple KeyChange Keyboard, English version. All versions of this innovative keyboard have keys resized to approximate their frequency of use in the keyboard’s language, allowing for smoother and more accurate typing

I totally want one of these.
posted by chavenet at 2:38 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Dang, I wish they'd been able to interview her and find out more about her. Her stuff is good, so I don't mind seeing it again in listicle format, but I wish it had added more to it than just a list of good ones from her with captions that were basically like "Hey, this is a good one."
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 4:54 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Fun stuff! Calling shenanigans on that "CRT" though. As a proud current user of one, that thing is only about a third as deep as it should be.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:10 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

The text works great as a separator--don't read it, just let it delay you a bit until you scroll to the next image! The foldable one brought Lenovo's silly rollable to mind.
posted by mittens at 5:14 AM on February 28, 2023

I still maintain that it is a deep shame and damning of the industry in general that L-shaped displays failed to catch on
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:14 AM on February 28, 2023

This seems a good place to drop the latest iteration of the previously posted Rotary Un-Smartphone from Justine Haupt.
posted by brachiopod at 6:04 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oh! I've seen some of her stuff, and I'm glad to see more of it. Delightfully cursed, indeed.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:13 AM on February 28, 2023

These are great. Not exactly the distraction I need this morning, but I'll be back!
posted by mollweide at 6:30 AM on February 28, 2023

Screens should be based on the form of a sheet of paper (read in portrait). Prove the statement wrong.

Thing is, when there's a lot of information, we tend to bind these sheets of paper into groupings of sheets that tend toward a two-column landscape format. Where we've gone wrong with computers is letting text flow all the way across the screen while our resolutions and screen sizes have continued to expand. Window management has not caught up to LCD technology.
posted by rikschell at 6:58 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

we tend to bind these sheets of paper into groupings of sheets

So the ideal monitor is a series of thin, flexible screens that are bound together, that we can flip through? I mean, I'm on-board, I just think we need a prototype to look at.
posted by mittens at 7:11 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

These are marvelous! But then so many of the older form factors (at least the keyboards) are so close to what I remember existing that I can't quite bridge the mental gap to see what's wrong about them. It felt like there was a time in the early/mid-90's when everyone not on a Mac had a different keyboard, so I'd believe anything.

Meanwhile, are these actual models she's built, or beautifully rendered images that look real? If they're actual objects, where do they live in real life? Is there a place / gallery / museum you can see them?
posted by Mchelly at 8:32 AM on February 28, 2023

They're all renders! The only thing that is actually real is set of 2 shaped objects which you can buy from Australian K-Mart.
posted by rouftop at 9:46 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

> Dang, I wish they'd been able to interview her and find out more about her.

You may be interested in her "why am I like this" twitter thread.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:28 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of the clamshell reader device in It Follows. (← The movie is scary, but the link in this comment is just to a non-scary picture of the device shared on reddit)

I remember reading or hearing a pretty interesting discussion about how the filmmaker included things in the movie like that clamshell reader device that could not be properly placed in time, hoping (and in my view, succeeding) to disorient viewers.
posted by msbrauer at 12:48 PM on February 28, 2023