Blogroll

Sat, 22 Jul 2017

Started a blogroll today on the front page. I plan to add two or three at a time. Here's a start:

Donny Truong: Donny and I used to work together at Vassar College, in the web design group. He's maintained a personal website for years, with subjects ranging from parenting, to web development, to jazz, to typography. Reading his updates is a nice way to keep in touch. I've learned a lot from Donny over the years.

Jason Kottke: My fingers make this twitching motion a few times each day: cmd-T, k, o, return. My browser autocompletes kottke.org, one of the oldest blogs on the web. I have been a reader for longer than I can remember. Jason and his occasional guests always come up with interesting things. Today, long overdue, I became a member.

Resilient Web Design

Sat, 22 Jul 2017

A little while ago, while I mowed the lawn, I listened to Jeremy Keith’s excellent Resilient Web Design. Jeremy often tells good stories about how the web came to be, and here he has distilled those into a great one, citing specific people’s contributions to the web’s existence and complexion, and using history as a means of laying out fundamental principles that ensure the web’s continued success — which is to say, human achievement.

On collaboration over time:

The history of human civilisation is a tale of cumulative effort. Each generation builds upon the work of their forebears. Sometimes the work takes a backward step. Sometimes we wander down dead ends. But we struggle on.

On control:

Relinquishing control does not mean relinquishing quality. Quite the opposite. In acknowledging the many unknowns involved in designing for the web, designers can craft in a resilient flexible way that is true to the medium.

On progressive enhancement:

This layered approach to the web allows the same content to be served up to a wide variety of people. But this doesn’t mean that everyone gets the same experience.

On the future:

I wish I could predict the future. The only thing that I can predict for sure is that things are going to change. I don’t know what kind of devices people will be using on the web. I don’t know what kind of software people will be using on the web. The future, like the web, is unknown.

The Earthseed Series

Mon, 10 Jul 2017

Great books. Very engaging pace, no boring spots. Reminded me of The Godfather movies, how the first book was the main story and the second book was a combination of flashbacks and present day. Such a shame about Lauren’s daughter and Marc. I felt bad about that, but if the story had wrapped up with a happier ending it wouldn’t have felt right.

Aside from being a good story, there was a lot to think about.

Like how Lauren cared about her idea more than her ego:

I’m not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them. If it happens that there are other people outside somewhere preaching my truth, I’ll join them. Sower, p. 125

And how she absorbed storytelling from her father. Story was critical to gathering support for her ideas:

My father loved parables—stories that taught, stories that presented ideas and morals in ways that made pictures in people’s minds. … Because he believed stories were so important as teaching tools, I learned to pay more attention to them than I might have otherwise. Talents, p. 14

But could story have helped even more? Could she have spread her ideas differently? She wonders about this early in Talents, and I was thrilled to see where that went toward the end of the book.

My “talent,” going back to the parable of the talents, is Earthseed. And although I haven’t buried it in the ground, I have buried it here in these coastal mountains, where it can grow at about the same speed as our redwood trees. But what else could I have done? Talents, p. 21

It was interesting to see how Lauren planned for disruption:

We can get ready. That’s what we’ve got to do now. Get ready for what’s going to happen, get ready to survive it, get ready to make a life afterward. Get focused on arranging to survive so that we can do more than just get batted around by crazy people, desperate people, thugs, and leaders who don’t know what they’re doing!” Sower, p. 55

And her reflection on survival:

We’ve become very competent makers and repairers of small tools. We’ve survived as well as we have because we keep learning.

They serve as part of our thorn fence. Cactus by cactus, thornbush by thornbush, we’ve planted a living wall in the hills around Acorn. … It will, when it’s working well, encourage people to approach us by the easiest routes, and those we guard 24 hours a day. It’s always best to keep an eye on visitors. Talents, pp. 27–28

Related to survival, Lauren’s thoughts on hiding from the news:

Gray and Emery Mora and one or two others say news bullets are enough. They say detailed news doesn’t matter. Since we can’t change the stupid, greedy, vicious things that powerful people do, they think we should try to ignore them. No matter how many times we’re forced to admit we can’t really hide, some of us still find ways to try. Well, we can’t hide. So it’s best to pay attention to what goes on. The more we know, the better able we’ll be to survive. Talents, p. 81

These novels were published in the 90’s. Jarret is a candidate for US President. Take a look at the phrase he uses:

Jarret insists on being a throwback to some earlier, “simpler” time. Now does not suit him. Religious tolerance does not suit him. The current state of the country does not suit him. ... “Help us to make America great again.” Talents, pp. 19–20

And Lauren’s take on the mindset of older people:

Our adults haven’t been wiped out by a plague so they’re still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back. Sower, p. 57

While we’re at it, here’s some more older-person thinking. Very similar to the vibe I got from older family members when I was trying to get my first design job — they hadn’t seen it done before, and had more faith in traditional institutions:

Bankole isn’t the only one of us who doesn’t see the possibility of doing anything he hasn’t seen done by others. And…although Bankole would never say this, I suspect that somewhere inside himself, he believes that large, important things are done only by powerful people in high positions far away from here. Therefore, what we do is, by definition, small and unimportant. Talents, p. 71

But it’s not just older folks. Some young folks grow up expecting a certain kind of success. When they don’t achieve it (because they can’t, because it’s an unreasonable expectation), they get depressed.

She wants a future she can understand and depend on—a future that looks a lot like her parents’ present. I don’t think that’s possible. Things are changing too much, too fast. Sower, p. 128

There’s an intriguing concept in the novels about company-towns — towns purchased and run by corporations. They appeal to people because of their relative stability and safety, but it comes at the cost of freedom.

That’s an old company-town trick—get people into debt, hang on to them, and work them harder. Debt slavery. That might work in Christopher Donner’s America. Labor laws, state and federal, are not what they once were. Sower, p. 121

And this devastatingly, unfortunately, prescient observation about private education leading to widespread violence. America is headed this way, unless we revitalize public schools and pay teachers much greater respect:

And no one thought about what kind of society we were building with such stupid decisions. People who could afford to educate their children in private schools were glad to see the government finally stop wasting their tax money, educating other people’s children. They seemed to think they lived on Mars. They imagined that a country filled with poor, uneducated, unemployable people somehow wouldn’t hurt them!” Talents, p. 368

Lastly, shelter is good:

That night, I lay awake beside Bankole, listening to the sounds of the sea and the wind. They’re good sounds as long as you don’t have to be outside. Talents, p. 141

Thanks to Mandy Brown for recommending these books.

My friend’s daughter

Mon, 26 Jun 2017

Today I sent this email to my family:

Hi family,

My friend Eric Meyer, who founded and runs An Event Apart with Zeldman, lost his daughter to cancer on her sixth birthday. It was heartbreaking. Eileen will tell you how upset it made me. Rebecca was Kate’s age.

Over the ten months following her sudden onset of cancer, the total cost of coverage was 1.6 million dollars. Eric’s and his wife’s small business insurance paid $991k. Without that insurance, he would have gone bankrupt and lost his home.

This could happen to any of us, and it will happen to many people if the senate passes their health bill, which is in truth a tax cut for rich people. Thankfully our democratic senators in New York are forcefully opposed to this bill.

Please, if you know people in other states, encourage them to demand that their republican senators vote NO. Encourage them to threaten with their future votes. Suggest this website, which makes calling your representatives super easy: http://5calls.org

Please do this even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Shout it on Facebook. Email people. Spread the word about Eric’s story. Your action will mean the difference between life and death, health and hardship, for families and children all over this country.

Don’t let me down.

Tim

Reading and sharing

Fri, 23 Jun 2017

I love to read. But taking time off work this week (to help my wife around the house as we prepare for our new baby) has given me a chance to reflect on how little reading I do.

When I am reading and sharing ideas about what I have read, I feel like my best self. I want more of that feeling. I want my children to see me reading, and I want to show respect to others by sharing my experiences.

I enjoy fiction, philosophy, and ideas about why the world is the way it is and what might happen next. Some books, I can’t put down. I read them in a day or two. Others are what I call “sipping” books, and I’ve been working on them for years.

Some of my favorite books are written in a kind of journal entry format. It follows that I enjoy keeping up with friends’ blogs. I study typography- and web-related books and blog posts, many of which are meant to be referenced or worked through, rather than read, but still give me the opportunity to think and share.

Got a Kindle this year. It’s a struggle to decide whether to read physical books (the feel, the sound, the smell), or read them on the Kindle (dictionary, highlights, access, no clutter). One thing I like about a physical book is that if I enjoy it I then have a reminder on the shelf, and something tangible to share with family and friends.

I’m wondering if acknowledging what I read, along with a substantial visual (a book cover image?) and any highlights or notes, could feel just as good as having a physical book. Mandy Brown’s A Working Library and Donny Truong’s book reviews are inspirational. I also like Marcin Wichary’s photos of piles of books.

Maybe I could list my piles of books here on my website, and link them to blog post entries with highlights/notes. Maybe I could even print some of those out, to keep on my shelf and share with others. That might make a pretty nice gift — a physical book or gift card, plus a printout of my highlights/notes from that book, and a word about why I think the person might enjoy it.