Nothing new here but this video is a nice clear explanation of how dark patterns work. They're everywhere, and companies using them don't realise how much goodwill they lose from their visitors.
A long read, but worth it, on how technology reviews have pretty much turned into design fetishism rather than proper evaluation of functionality. It's true that bad reviews have become exceedingly rare.
This report argues that consumer technology reviewers have failed their basic nominal purpose of critiquing tools. Instead, inspired by values introduced by Apple in the late 1990s, the tech review industry prioritizes aesthetic lust as the primary critical factor for evaluating objects. The reification of these values in their scoring system is transmitted to consumers and manufacturers alike. Like other prurient things, the objects designed within this paradigm are optimized not for usefulness but for photogenic and telegenic properties, a framework that finds its fullest realization in YouTube reviews and unboxing videos.
Emmit Fenn's "Who Dat" video shows a pigeon with pretty impressive moves. Nice use of CGI by Patrick Jean.
In the thirties, William Bushnell Stout designed the egyptian-inspired and art-deco-feeling scarab automobile.
The New York Times has an interesting article on, among other things, the balance between design and price; how design, now becoming a commodity, is something you look through, not at.
When I manage to gather enough courage to drift through local shopping areas, all I see are signs of a long and twisted road to pervasive design.