Buzz right TF OFF! — WTF is the Nielsen/Norman Group? And is this the best they can do with helpful advice? “Improving Usability for Lower-Literacy Users The main and most obvious advice is to simplify the text: use text aimed at a 6th-grade reading level on the homepage, important category pages, and landing pages. …

Gazing fondly through the haze of an unreliable memory — There’s a certain supremely talented writer — Bev Potter — here on Medium who just happens to live where I grew up, rural(ish) Northeastern(ish) Ohio, and a recent piece she wrote brought tears to my eyes. Tears of nostalgic laughter remembering choking on cheap green pot in truckstop parking lots. American Sideshow Who needs reality TV when you can go to the truck stop?bevpotter.medium.com

$500 a plate tasting menu when people are starving? Stop it! — Show of hands. Who had never heard of René Redzepi and his Best Restaurant in The World, Noma, until this past month or so when he announced that he is closing this Best Restaurant in the World? Ok, so I’m no stranger to fine dining. Even though I can’t afford…

Well, yeah, but not all the time. — At the dark, glinting heart of every stereotype and cliche, there exists a truth. And the truth about New Yorkers is that, yes, we’re always in a hurry and that can make us seem rude. That certainly was the case with that SOB bus driver earlier who blew right past…

And Morris Hirschfield still ran circles around half the surrealists — What could an old man from Poland who had retired from the rag trade in New York City in 1935 have to offer the world of surrealism? It turns out, quite a lot. Morris Hirschfield didn’t start painting until he was 65 and had been forced to retire from the…

Life After the Grind and Satisfaction of Freelance — Editor’s note: The following article is the unedited result of an emailed Q&A with Tammy Remington, writing as Remington Write. Tell me about your writing life: How much do you write in a day? Are you, or do you aspire to be a professional writer? Do you make money from it to a significant degree? How do you keep the lights on? It varies. I’ve generally got two or three stories in various stages of completion going, as well as at least one that I’m reworking to move to another platform.

365 days of missing one little cat — It’s been exactly one year since we took my little silver and gray tabby, J.J., to the 24-hour animal medical clinic down at 62nd and York to let her go. She was 16 and had been fading for the better part of a year. When she stopped eating, it was…

The coming shock to American Consumers — Admit it. Much of this country — The United States of America we’re talking about here — is spoiled rotten. Even those of us from working-class backgrounds who know what it’s like to have the gas or the lights or the telephone cut off because we didn’t (couldn’t?) …

I got a bone to pick with you — I am an urban animal, through and through in spite of having been born and lived in the real-life version of Mayberry until I was 18. …