This weekend, while I was out for a walk, my Apple Watch sent me a notification - actually buzzed my arm to let me know - that I was unfit. I had two reactions: firstly, how rude, and secondly, how bad did the situation have to be for it to ...
January 31, 2022
Building a platform that requires just enough thought ...
January 30, 2022
Every artist has the right to choose where their work is listed. ...
January 29, 2022
It’s no secret that I’ve been pretty stressed out.
Someone I trust said that my writing lately has given the impression of “a man on the edge”. I think of it slightly differently - there’s a lot going on and I feel like I’m dealing with it in good humor - ...
January 29, 2022
I was always a pretty good kid: good-natured, good in school, imaginative, and curious. I’d get up early every day to draw comic books before school; during the breaks between lessons on the school playground, I’d pretend I was putting on plays for astronauts. Afterwards, I’d muck about on our ...
January 23, 2022
I’ve added two links to the bottom of every page on my website.
The first is to the IndieWeb webring: a directory of personal websites from people who are a part of the indieweb movement. These sites run the gamut of topics, but they’re mostly personal profiles from people who like ...
January 22, 2022
I’m posting Fairness Fridays: a new community social justice organization each week. I donate to each featured organization. If you feel so inclined, please join me.
This week I’m donating to Harmony Health Clinic. Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, Harmony Health Clinic “seeks to understand and serve the health and wellness ...
January 21, 2022
Something I’ve learned over the last decade is that I have a very different relationship to place than many - perhaps even most - people.
I come by it honestly. In my nuclear family growing up, each of us had a slightly different accent, shaped by our respective journeys. My dad’s ...
January 19, 2022
I’d like to informally join the list of technologists who support the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. Here’s the full text of the bill.
Specifically, the bill would prevent “covered platforms” from prioritizing their products and services over those provided by other vendors in a way that would harm competition ...
January 19, 2022
I’m 90% convinced that most tech workers are going to be working remotely for the duration of 2022. Omicron has pushed out much-fanfare returns to the office, and there’s nothing to say that there won’t be another wave after that. It’s simply not safe, and it won’t be safe for ...
January 15, 2022
Let's focus on people over profit. ...
January 14, 2022
I’m posting Fairness Fridays: a new community social justice organization each week. I donate to each featured organization. If you feel so inclined, please join me.
This week I’m donating to Project HOME. Based in Philadelphia, Project HOME aims to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty in the Philly area.
It ...
January 14, 2022
Last year, I drove across the country, twice.
We were always going to go to the east coast. One of the last clear things my mother said to me, over a Zoom link to the hospital because I wasn’t allowed into her room because of covid protocols (until her situation got ...
January 11, 2022
If you’d asked me a few years ago who won the browser wars, I would have said open standards: web pages were finally opening and rendering well no matter which browser you chose to use. There was a significant choice between rendering engines, chromes, and parent companies to pick from, ...
January 9, 2022
I slept for over ten hours last night, which felt like a miracle after a very long, stressful week. There’s a lot going on, and a lot going wrong, so the act of breathing and resting feels good. And biologically necessary.
My targeted ads lately have been focused on art, I ...
January 8, 2022
Today is my birthday. Last year I wrote 42 admissions: things I feel uncomfortable about that are worth discussing. In the end, I posted it a little after my actual birthday, because it turns out there are more important things to talk about during an insurrection. It’s a piece of ...
January 7, 2022
It’s only been a year since the attempted fascist coup by a coalition of the stupid. I don’t know how long it’ll be until the next time someone tries this.
Two things are particularly remarkable to me. The first is that it’s only been a year; it seems like decades ago, ...
January 6, 2022
It’s really easy to be cynical about upcoming technology.
Blockchain? Environmentally disastrous, full of terrible libertarians, NFTs are being used to launder money in huge numbers.
VR? You have to wear a giant thing on your face, it gives people motion sickness and nausea, all the commentary on the metaverse is nonsensical.
I ...
January 5, 2022
I spent a lot of my early career in educational technology. My work “origin story”, such as it is, is that I started to work on virtual learning environments in 2002, realized that everyone involved (teachers, administrators, learners, potentially the developers) absolutely despised them, then applied the principles of the ...
January 5, 2022
This year I’m interested in taking on some advisory roles. These could look like informal advisor relationships, or, for the right organizations, they could look like more formal board positions.
I have a demanding day job, but I like the idea of helping a wider set of companies - and particularly ...
January 3, 2022
Thoughts
I can’t believe that CES is still happening in person.
In November, I drove back to California from the east coast with my sister: a risky move during a pandemic. We took precautions and managed not to contract anything nasty. But the diciest part of our trip, by far, was Las ...
January 3, 2022
Matt Mullenweg asks people to blog for his birthday. It’s a lovely idea! And I might as well use his post to discuss one of my resolutions for the new year.
I’m going to post reflections on my own site at least once a day. As I’ve mentioned before, email subscribers ...
January 3, 2022
This is my monthly roundup of the books, articles, and streaming media I found interesting. Here's my list for December, 2021.
Books
Foundation, by Isaac Asimov. This was a groundbreaking, genre-defining book when it was written, and some of the ideas remain outstanding. Reading it this year was an exercise in uncovering ...
January 1, 2022