Ross Hori

writer | designer | photographer

Notes

Notes, images and thoughts. Sometimes they evolve into longer pieces, sometimes not.

When the Earth and Moon fall into sync

Article
Monday, November 27th, 2023

Eventually we'll reach a state where the same bit of Earth stares at the same bit of Moon. Just like we only see one bit of the Moon, stand up there and you'll only see the same bit of the Earth.

So if it happens the Western Hemisphere gets stared at by our only satellite, in the East they will never see the Moon in the sky. Just hear stories about it. Maybe flickering [keep reading...]

Graphic showing the Earth and Moon looking at one another

Calvin and Hobbes: bucking the merch craze and staying special

Article
Tuesday, October 17th, 2023

I love Calvin and Hobbes because it meanders effortlessly between keenly observed commentary on human nature and farce. Sometimes it makes me think, and sometimes I snigger just because it's funny.

But while Bart Simpson had a hit record and you can stay in a Charlie Brown hotel (no, really, there's a Peanuts hotel here in Kobe), the naughty boy and his tiger never appeared on merch. Not official stuff anyway. If you've got a Calvin and [keep reading...]

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I now write notes on my iPhone. Lots of them…

Update
Saturday, October 14th, 2023

Black and white photograph of a Landscape. In the foreground are white apartment blocks partly obscured by trees

Half a dozen alone this morning while I sat in a park. All typed with my thumbs in Apple Notes. They were curated when I got home to a bigger screen and a keyboard. A couple merged, one discarded. This is my new normal based on the past month.

I haven’t decided whether this is a consequence of setting aside “work” for a while to focus on creative writing or the iPhone connecting me directly to my usual repository of ideas (aka Apple Notes).

I shall continue to observe…

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Is a 15 second attention span really a Gen Z thing?

Article
Tuesday, October 10th, 2023

Confession: I've been watching scenes from films and TV shows on YouTube.

Not the whole show, just a few minutes. Like the bar fight in Jack Reacher, or the coin trick two-hander between Patrick Jane and Dr Steiner on The Mentalist. It's a condensed hit of entertainment where I know I'm going to enjoy it. 5 minutes well spent, not 2 hours [keep reading...]

Illustration of a black woman sitting in a chair watching a TV show on her phone

The selfie post on LinkedIn

Update
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023

I think I’m going “selfie blind”.

I barely notice them now as they drift past the timeline.

Experience has taught me the post is likely to be self-indulgent, shallow and lacking in any real insight. The poster is chasing “engagement” through pithy self-revelation that lacks any meaning or depth. Far more effective if they happen to be young, “conventionally attractive”, female.

There’s more insight in the posts that share charts, illustrations and photos of work completed.

Which begs the question…

Is it just me, or has the age of the selfie started to wane?

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Experimenting with Bing’s AI

Article
Saturday, May 13th, 2023

I've been playing with Microsoft's Bing AI tools and I have a few thoughts...

SEO rules. I asked for information on a couple of industries and what came back was what I'd already found on Page 1 of Google. Deeper diving locked me into a loop of the same information being resurfaced [keep reading...]

AI generated image of a child riding a bicycle with a father figure beside her

Not-for-profit email marketing stats

Article
Tuesday, May 9th, 2023

Prompted by a discussion on fundraising emails in the not-for-profit space. As you might expect, I went digging.

This is from the 2022 Benchmark report by Campaign Monitor. It's a little out of date as they analysed messages sent over 2021, but I think it's a [keep reading...]

Chart showing the relative performance of email marketing for charities compared to other sectors

Smart funnel management doesn’t involve blocking “free” email services

Article
Saturday, April 29th, 2023

An amusing 30 seconds started with: "Download our [keep reading...]

Photograph of a no-entry sign with a figure stenciled on it as if kneeling in stocks

Snapshot from my design workflow

Article
Tuesday, April 25th, 2023

Most of my work starts as a sketch somewhere on my iPad. They'll find their way to Affinity Designer, get resketched and then I fill in the blanks.

I usually do a side-by-side, so have my sketch artboard to refer to, then duplicate it and "trace over the top." By the [keep reading...]

Screenshot showing how I design an infographic from rough sketch in Affinity Designer to completed product

Trust issues?

Update
Tuesday, April 18th, 2023

Screenshot from a LinkedIn survey showing how the anonymous contribution can be seen by the author

I’ve had long and heated discussions about why “anonymous survey” means I’m not telling you who said what. Nor am I letting you look at the handwriting so you can second-guess who said it.

Which is why trust issues are so easy to create when you promise responses are anonymous, and the platform says otherwise.

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Why can’t I say “no” to an ad?

Article
Thursday, April 13th, 2023

I blocked Post It Forward on Tumblr. Nothing against their work or them personally, just their promoted image. It was using an image of a woman who reminded me of someone I knew who sadly died of Covid.

I couldn't see any other way. No option to tell Tumblr to tweak this ad or that I didn't want to see it [keep reading...]

My backups failed. Don’t panic!

Update
Tuesday, April 11th, 2023

Photograph of a pair of Western Digital backup disks on a desk

Both of my Western Digital backup disks decided to break a few months back. Fortunately I also backup on the cloud, so could recover much of what was lost. 

Except for my collection of films and TV shows purchased on Apple iTunes over the years. Now lost after a region changed rendered them ‘unavailable in your location’.

I sometimes wonder what archeologists three or four thousand years from now will think of our society when it’s been lost to endless upgrades, tech glitches and takeovers.

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