Labor

  This video from NPR highlights the changes in mass production of potato chips and how the manufacturing workforce of the past century has evolved with automation.
  I've spent some time in an industrial bakery while growing up and it would constantly amaze me how automatons would streamline the bake cycles.  The first human contact was usually in packaging and that seems to be the same for these chips.


Secrets From The Potato Chip Factory from Planet Money on Vimeo.

  On a related note, here is a good TED Talk concerning labor, creation, ownership, and pride.  Living in the world of mass manufacturing, there is an interesting dynamic beween efficiency and individual ownership.

Esslinger

  One of my favorite designers who I have the utmost admiration for gives advise to designers in this piece. As expected, it is bold and direct and it makes me want to find the courage to be more so in my work.
  So many of his designs have been so correct in execution that they've become ubiquitous and accepted to the point that you no longer remember any other way it could be.



From the Frog Design Site