diff --git a/bin/backup b/bin/backup index a3f6e24..583e691 100755 --- a/bin/backup +++ b/bin/backup @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ puts "references:" urls.each do |url| page_content = `curl -s #{url}` - text_content = `w3m #{url}` + text_content = `lynx -dump --display_charset=utf-8 #{url}` begin title = page_content diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/craigmod-com-avmku7.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/craigmod-com-avmku7.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1d5b0d6..0000000 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/craigmod-com-avmku7.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,350 +0,0 @@ - -About Craig -Books & Essays -Talks -Membership -Shop! -β€œSpecial Projects” Membership -Podcasts:🎧 On Margins & SW945 -Newsletters:πŸ“© Roden & Ridgeline - - -Header image for Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life - - -Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life - -Reflections on eighteen months of electric bike ownership - - - -My electric bike sings, emits a nearly imperceptible hum from its tiny motor. I -love its song. A song of peace and magic. Has money ever bought as much delight -as the delight of an electric bike? - -The first time I rode one was nearly a decade ago, in Kyoto. The electric bike -I rented was huge and unwieldy, but that tug of its motor never left my mind. I -went to climb a hill and it felt as if a giant had gently placed his hand on my -back and pushed me forward. That stupid smile has been on my face ever since. - -Two years ago I rented another one. This one smaller, lighter, the motor more -powerful. I was convinced. This is the way. Eighteen months ago, in the heart -of the pandemic, I committed and bought my first electric bike and have never -looked back. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - -Indulge me β€” a summer afternoon: Soaring down the coast, the ocean to one side -and a strand of old pines to the other. The afternoon sun beats down but it -feels cool and there’s something irrationally stirring β€” downright emotional β€” -about the efficiency of this dumb machine beneath my body. The motor looks too -small β€” just a black cylinder on the hub of the wheel. And yet it moves. It -sings that song. A subtle hum. A beautiful hum. It makes me want to ride and -ride, ridiculous distances, nonsensical distances. I don’t want to get to where -I’m going because I want the ride to last longer. I want to linger in this -space as long as possible, this space of smooth and efficient movement through -the world, gliding in near total mechanical silence, just the sound of rubber -on the pavement, wind in my ears, breaking waves, salt, the smell of pine. This -is what electric bikes do: They drive you insane with the poetry of the world. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ -A strange trio A few of my old bikes: A mamachari, carbon fiber road bike, and -Kalavinka - -#So Many Bikes - -All my standing life, I’ve biked. As a kid I rode a K-Mart Huffy to a rusted -nub and then managed to nab a Haro Group 1. As an adult, bikes have been one of -my few material indulgences (unwittingly, organically). In the past twenty -years alone I’ve owned some fifteen bikes. I’ve had aluminum and carbon Bianchi -road bikes. I’ve had steel Kalavinka keirin bikes with gorgeous head badges. -I’ve had folding Dahon and Birdy BD-1s. I’ve had a handful of beloved brandless -throwaway mamacharis β€” shopping bikes β€” that have proven hearty and fun in -their own ways, and have each died uniquely. I’ve gone out of my way to get a -handmade Arrow cruiser from a builder in Ogikubo. I still have a custom orange -Moulton that I’ve modified into a single-speed city bomber that goes remarkably -fast while floating atop its simple suspension. - -And on and on β€” bikes. Why? Because as any bike lover will tell you, to be -ensorcelled by the bike is to crave one and only one thing: More bike. Each new -bike is like riding once again for the first time. Exploring a city on a -mamachari is different than a BD-1 is different than a Moulton. All thrilling. -The bikes change, and so, too does your relationship to the pavement. My love -for bikes has no categorical allegiances; if it has two wheels, and pedals, I’m -interested. I want to ride them all. - -A Moulton Tiny, but fast, nearly flawless as a city machine β€” a Moulton with -converted stem, Sugino cranks, coaster brake -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - -Summers in most of Japan have never been easy. The temperatures England flirted -with in 2022 are temperatures Tokyoites have contended with for centuries (and -now contend with ones even higher). Crushing heat coupled with suffocating -humidity. A three-shower-a-day kinda summer. Watch an Ozu film and observe the -languid and supine impulse of its inhabitants during summertime scenesΒ β€” that’s -not affect, it’s survival. In Japan’s August, you simply can’t walk a block -without losing most of your moisture. - -Bikes have always helped. A bicycle generates a microclimate with minimal -effort. Standing on a street corner you may be soaked, but on a bike, the wind -whooshing past, you are crisp(er) and dry(er). An electric bike only amplifies -the effect. - -When I was a child I dreamt of having a personal helicopter. Powered by my feet -and a bit of magic (certainly not gasoline, oddly, thinking back on it now). I -imagined quietly gliding over the city in this tiny contraption, floating from -home to video rental shop to diner, stopping by a friend’s house along the way. -An electric bike gets me most of the way to this feeling. - -In the past eighteen months I’ve put several thousand kilometers on my electric -bikes. It feels like cheating in every best possible way. I live in a seaside -town south of Tokyo and traffic can get ridiculous, its ancient roads sized for -horses, not cars. The electric bike swoops between and alongside these stale -processions of heat and burning fuel. Drifting behind a gas-powered scooter or -moped feels like observing some Victorian contraption β€” inefficient and loud -and clunky and burdensome and pollutant. And not much faster (often much -slower) or more useful than an electric bike. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ -A Vanmoof and a BESV My friend's S3 and my BESV (the X3 looks like a slightly -smaller version of the S3) - -#Electrics - -I own two electric bikes. My first purchase was the strangely named BESV PSA1 β€” -which is a smaller wheeled (20"), rear-wheel drive machine, with mostly -off-the-shelf components allowing you to customize it to your liking. ^1 And -then, because I was so enamored by the BESV β€” so seduced by its small motor of -umph, so wanting more and different electric bike experiences β€” I went and -picked up a front-wheel drive Vanmoof X3 β€” the smaller-wheeled brother (24") to -Vanmoof’s (quite frankly) giant S3 β€” just a few months later. - -I love them both like damaged brothers, because both of these bikes are flawed -in frustrating ways. - -The electronic brain on the BESV is as dumb as they come.^2 The settings reset -each time you turn the bike on. The acceleration curves feel unrefined β€” -herky-jerky, you might say. Its app is the worst app I have on my phone β€” badly -designed, nearly functionally useless, clearly engineered without love. And -yet. Despite these flaws I put hundreds of kilometers on this thing in the -first month. The front and rear suspension turn every road to glass, and are -even fine for dirt trails; I find myself hunting down paths through parks I’d -never otherwise think about. Suddenly every hilly road is a thing demanding to -be explored. Up up up the little machine yells, and you follow its command. - -Guests who stay at my studio are given the BESV to ride. We take it down the -coast. It never fails to amaze. One friend felt compelled to pet it upon -dismount, saying, Good job, buddy, so quick and deep was the affection for the -thing. - -The Vanmoof is much smarter β€” the brain and software within it are refined, the -app good, the acceleration curves smooth β€” but the bike is all custom -components, and they aren’t the highest quality at that. The automatic shifting -mechanism on mine failed twice in the first two months, requiring shipping the -bike to the Vanmoof store.^3 The seat post bolt broke off in the post. The -original plastic pedals felt cheap and flimsy (pedals are one of the few things -you can swap for your own). The aluminum frame is too stiff for the speed the -bike generates β€” it can feel like you’ve been rattled to death after a bumpy -road. (And stiffness mitigation by lowering tire pressure seems to only -increase possibility of puncture.) But, more than all that, the design of the -bike has a dangerous fundamental flaw: The bottom bracket is simply too low. - -Of all my many, many bikes, I’ve never had a pedal bottom out. On this Vanmoof -X3? Dozens of times. Most critically during a turn at speed β€” the pedal hit the -pavement, jumped the bike sideways, and sent me flying. It’s the only bad crash -I’ve had in decades. So I’ve had to modify the way I ride β€” no pedaling into or -out of turns, hyper awareness of deviations in lateral road slope β€” because, -despite all this, I can’t stop riding this stupid thing. It sings β€” that hum. -It is joy. I reach for it daily and it takes me around the peninsula and makes -me happy to be alive. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ -BESV @ Lee's Bread, Oiso I've written about three electric bike rides for -Papersky Magazine: Misaki, Oiso, and Yokosuka. - -Allow me to share a dirty secret: More often than not, at midnight I can’t -repress the impulse β€” I have to take a bike out. Out the bike comes and -together we head into the empty streets of my town and hum our way all over, -visiting temples in total silence. There are no cars. Often no people. It feels -illicit β€” this slipping around town, this sliding into temple parking lots in -the shroud of the night, looking at their old beams, feeling ten years old and -grateful for both the ability and awareness to be doing just this very thing at -this very moment. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - -I’ve long since posited world peace could be achieved if you bought everyone in -the world a bike, but now I want those bikes to be electric. I want everyone to -feel this silliness, this punch-drunk stupidity of pure love, this sense of -cheating the rules, the norms, this sense of ever-present delight. At our -worst, humans mindlessly consume, sear the earth and each other, fill our -bodies with poisons. At our best we invent electric bikes. Batteries have -gotten more efficient, motors smaller and more powerful. The last decade has -brought great efficiency to these machines, and the next ten years will only -double down on these gains. Electric bike numbers are up, year over year over -year. Tremendously so. Those who know, proselytize. We can’t help it. The charm -is too great. The game non- zero sum. The more people who know, the better the -world. It’s a wild notion, this sense of goodness to be had if you just reach -out for it. Goodness with no real downside. Like solar panels or wind turbines, -electric bikes are machines that buoy the spirit and the earth. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - -Buy the best electric bike you can within your budget. Stretch if possible. -Usually, the more you spend the lighter the machine, the more powerful the -motor, the longer-lasting the battery. Depending on which country you live in -top speeds will differ. In Japan the bike’s are capped at 24km/h. In America, -32km/h. Some places only allow for pedal-assist β€” meaning the motor only works -when pedaling. Others allow throttles, blurring the line between bike and -scooter. Laws will change in the coming years as more people adopt the machines -and cities themselves adapt. This is just the start. Ten years ago it was -fairly rare to see an electric bike around Tokyo. Today, it seems as if every -parent hauling their kids is doing so electrically. - -A good strategy: Find a local bike shop that will let you try out several -electric bikes. Some have front-hub motors, others rear-hub motors. Others, the -motor sits in the center, between the cranks. Each has a subtly different feel. -Going up a hill, a front-motor’d machine may skip or slip as you pull back on -the handlebars, but on flat land will feel more like being tugged through the -world. - -Sure, electric bikes aren’t cheap. But I believe they’re a rare object to be -well worth the cost. This in spite of their annoying flaws, their often bad -software, their defective geometries. Because they open the world. Whatever -world may have been nearby, an electric bike brings it nearer. This is worth -more than you might estimate. These bikes sing their little songs and the smile -on your face makes you look like a village idiot, but what a wonderful idiot to -be. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - -A summer night: Biking home alongside a river. The air is thick with humidity -and cicadas vibrate wildly in the distance. The moon is out. My choices: -straight home along the shimmering moonlit river, or take a detour, up into the -dark mountains, doubling the distance. To my surprise, I choose the mountains -almost every time. More! That tiny child who fantasized about helicopters -yells. More of this, whatever this is. More more more. And so I feed that -impulse, an impulse generated and nurtured by the electric bike. Into the -shadow mountains we go, up, pushed by the hand of that giant, always present, -always ready to help. It is a ridiculous thing. A thing of peace and magic. An -owl hoots. The smile has never left my face. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - -#Noted: - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - - 1. I upgraded my BESV to an SRAM drivetrain and Paul brake levers and Klamper - disc calipers, some MKS pedals, and a set of Brooks grips and saddle and it - feels wonderful through and through. These Paul Klampers are mechanical. - The Vanmoof uses (generic?) hydraulic brakes. After thousands of - kilometers, my conclusion is: hydraulics feel nice, but they are fussy (and - perhaps Vanmoof’s chosen components are sub-optimal) and difficult (?) to - tune on your own. In the end, I just don’t think they’re worth it. Too - β€œdelicate.” The Pauls feel as fresh today as the day I put them on, whereas - the hydraulics have required much bikeshop tuning over the course of the - last eighteen months. Were the Vanmoof more flexible, I’d happily swap out - for mechanicals. This lack of flexibility is a bummer because, unlike an - Apple iPhone, for example, where the components tend to be best of class - (think: modem, CPU, camera unit, etc), the physical components on a Vanmoof - most definitely aren’t β€” nor do they offer the option to pay more to get - better components. β†©οΈŽ - - 2. Oh, how I wish this thing was open source, hackable β€” because it’s so close - to great. Sadly β€” and I don’t know how else to frame this β€” it feels like - the engineers behind the software don’t ride bikes. At least not this one. - The software flaws are so fundamentally obvious, that anyone who had a) - access to the code, and b) rode the bike, couldn’t NOT fix these obvious - issues. What I really wish, though, is that I could slap the Vanmoof brain - onto the BESV body and, well, then we’d be in Electric Bike Elysium. β†©οΈŽ - - 3. I’ve since learned β€” the drive train of the Vanmoof is not to be β€œridden” - like a β€œbike” but rather, β€œfeathered” like a delicate sand castle β€” assume - the gears could explode at any moment and apply the least amount of - pressure you can; the motor is strong enough to take care of most of the - rest. In this way, the Vanmoof feels more like a moped that uses β€œpedal - assist” as a suggestion than a pure electric-assist bike β€” a smart way to - get around motorcycle laws in most countries, which I assume is the main - point. Not to say you don’t get a workout on the Vanmoof, you do, but not - nearly as much as the more classically committed BESV β€” which really does - require you to pedal. - - Maybe this is a good place to bring up the question: Why not just get an - electric scooter? I think it mainly comes down to flexibility and - philosophy. With a pedal assist bike (even if the pedaling required is - minimal) you simply have more flexibility in parking, in riding, in - β€œlightness” of transportation, than with an electric scooter. Also: - Insurance costs, maintenance, and higher base cost. And philosophically, - being able to still use the bike as a β€œbike” without power feels like an - aspect of these machines we shouldn’t be so quick to toss aside. β†©οΈŽ - - - -This essay, published September 2022. Thoughts? Email me@craigmod.com. - -Craig Mod, his head, floating at the bottom of the article - -Craig Mod is a writer and photographer based in Japan. He's the author of Kissa -by Kissa and a MacDowell, Ragdale, and VCCA writing fellow. His essays and -articles have appeared in Eater, The Atlantic, California Sunday Magazine, -Wired, Aeon, New Scientist, Virginia Quarterly Review, The New Yorker, The New -York Times, The Morning News, Codex: Journal of Typography, and elsewhere. He -writes newsletters, oh yes, newsletters: Roden & Ridgeline. - -The work on this site is supported in part by paid memberships. - -Whatever you do, don't follow @craigmod on Twitter or Instagram. - -Subscribe to my newsletters - -Join some ~30,000 other subscribers. - -Roden: photography Γ— literature Γ— tech Γ— film (monthly) -Ridgeline: walking Γ— Japan (weekly) - -Always one-click to unsubscribe. - -[ ] -[*] Roden (monthly) -[*] Ridgeline (weekly) -Subscribe -Popular Essays - - - - -Walking Venice - -Notes on a week of walking Venice, an incredibly beautiful city that feels -totally cursed - - - - -Brando’s Room - -Traveling space, if not time, to say hello to Capote and Brando - - - - -Zero milestone - -From where everything is measured - - - - -A Few Feet Above the Earth - -On balance and the inner ear - -[ ] - -Β© 2001 - 2023, Craig Mod - -Twitter Instagram Mastodon RSS - -[piwik] - diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/craigmod-com-xfi1ge.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/craigmod-com-xfi1ge.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c79f5c --- /dev/null +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/craigmod-com-xfi1ge.txt @@ -0,0 +1,403 @@ + #[1]Craig Mod β€” Writer + Photographer + + [2]About Craig + [3]Books & [4]Essays + [5]Talks + [6]Membership + [7]Shop! + [8]β€œSpecial Projects” Membership + Podcasts:🎧 [9]On Margins & [10]SW945 + Newsletters:πŸ“© [11]Roden & [12]Ridgeline + + Header image for Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life + + +Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life + +Reflections on eighteen months of electric bike ownership + + + My electric bike sings, emits a nearly imperceptible hum from its tiny + motor. I love its song. A song of peace and magic. Has money ever + bought as much delight as the delight of an electric bike? + + The first time I rode one was nearly a decade ago, in Kyoto. The + electric bike I rented was huge and unwieldy, but that tug of its motor + never left my mind. I went to climb a hill and it felt as if a giant + had gently placed his hand on my back and pushed me forward. That + stupid smile has been on my face ever since. + + Two years ago I rented another one. This one smaller, lighter, the + motor more powerful. I was convinced. This is the way. Eighteen months + ago, in the heart of the pandemic, I committed and bought my first + electric bike and have never looked back. + __________________________________________________________________ + + Indulge me β€” a summer afternoon: Soaring down the coast, the ocean to + one side and a strand of old pines to the other. The afternoon sun + beats down but it feels cool and there’s something irrationally + stirring β€” downright emotional β€” about the efficiency of this dumb + machine beneath my body. The motor looks too small β€” just a black + cylinder on the hub of the wheel. And yet it moves. It sings that song. + A subtle hum. A beautiful hum. It makes me want to ride and ride, + ridiculous distances, nonsensical distances. I don’t want to get to + where I’m going because I want the ride to last longer. I want to + linger in this space as long as possible, this space of smooth and + efficient movement through the world, gliding in near total mechanical + silence, just the sound of rubber on the pavement, wind in my ears, + breaking waves, salt, the smell of pine. This is what electric bikes + do: They drive you insane with the poetry of the world. + __________________________________________________________________ + + A strange trio A few of my old bikes: A mamachari, carbon fiber road + bike, and Kalavinka + +[13]#So Many Bikes + + All my standing life, I’ve biked. As a kid I rode a K-Mart Huffy to a + rusted nub and then managed to nab a Haro Group 1. As an adult, bikes + have been one of my few material indulgences (unwittingly, + organically). In the past twenty years alone I’ve owned some fifteen + bikes. I’ve had aluminum and carbon Bianchi road bikes. I’ve had steel + Kalavinka keirin bikes with gorgeous head badges. I’ve had folding + Dahon and Birdy BD-1s. I’ve had a handful of beloved brandless + throwaway mamacharis β€” shopping bikes β€” that have proven hearty and fun + in their own ways, and have each died uniquely. I’ve gone out of my way + to get a handmade Arrow cruiser from a builder in Ogikubo. I still have + a custom orange Moulton that I’ve modified into a single-speed city + bomber that goes remarkably fast while floating atop its simple + suspension. + + And on and on β€” bikes. Why? Because as any bike lover will tell you, to + be ensorcelled by the bike is to crave one and only one thing: More + bike. Each new bike is like riding once again for the first time. + Exploring a city on a mamachari is different than a BD-1 is different + than a Moulton. All thrilling. The bikes change, and so, too does your + relationship to the pavement. My love for bikes has no categorical + allegiances; if it has two wheels, and pedals, I’m interested. I want + to ride them all. + A Moulton Tiny, but fast, nearly flawless as a city machine β€” a Moulton + with converted stem, Sugino cranks, coaster brake + __________________________________________________________________ + + Summers in most of Japan have never been easy. The temperatures England + flirted with in 2022 are temperatures Tokyoites have contended with for + centuries (and now contend with ones even higher). Crushing heat + coupled with suffocating humidity. A three-shower-a-day kinda summer. + Watch an Ozu film and observe the languid and supine impulse of its + inhabitants during summertime scenes β€” that’s not affect, it’s + survival. In Japan’s August, you simply can’t walk a block without + losing most of your moisture. + + Bikes have always helped. A bicycle generates a microclimate with + minimal effort. Standing on a street corner you may be soaked, but on a + bike, the wind whooshing past, you are crisp(er) and dry(er). An + electric bike only amplifies the effect. + + When I was a child I dreamt of having a personal helicopter. Powered by + my feet and a bit of magic (certainly not gasoline, oddly, thinking + back on it now). I imagined quietly gliding over the city in this tiny + contraption, floating from home to video rental shop to diner, stopping + by a friend’s house along the way. An electric bike gets me most of the + way to this feeling. + + In the past eighteen months I’ve put several thousand kilometers on my + electric bikes. It feels like cheating in every best possible way. I + live in a seaside town south of Tokyo and traffic can get ridiculous, + its ancient roads sized for horses, not cars. The electric bike swoops + between and alongside these stale processions of heat and burning fuel. + Drifting behind a gas-powered scooter or moped feels like observing + some Victorian contraption β€” inefficient and loud and clunky and + burdensome and pollutant. And not much faster (often much slower) or + more useful than an electric bike. + __________________________________________________________________ + + A Vanmoof and a BESV My friend's S3 and my BESV (the X3 looks like a + slightly smaller version of the S3) + +[14]#Electrics + + I own two electric bikes. My first purchase was the strangely named + BESV PSA1 β€” which is a smaller wheeled (20"), rear-wheel drive machine, + with mostly off-the-shelf components allowing you to customize it to + your liking. ^[15]1 And then, because I was so enamored by the BESV β€” + so seduced by its small motor of umph, so wanting more and different + electric bike experiences β€” I went and picked up a front-wheel drive + Vanmoof X3 β€” the smaller-wheeled brother (24") to Vanmoof’s (quite + frankly) giant S3 β€” just a few months later. + + I love them both like damaged brothers, because both of these bikes are + flawed in frustrating ways. + + The electronic brain on the BESV is as dumb as they come.^[16]2 The + settings reset each time you turn the bike on. The acceleration curves + feel unrefined β€” herky-jerky, you might say. Its app is the worst app I + have on my phone β€” badly designed, nearly functionally useless, clearly + engineered without love. And yet. Despite these flaws I put hundreds of + kilometers on this thing in the first month. The front and rear + suspension turn every road to glass, and are even fine for dirt trails; + I find myself hunting down paths through parks I’d never otherwise + think about. Suddenly every hilly road is a thing demanding to be + explored. Up up up the little machine yells, and you follow its + command. + + Guests who stay at my studio are given the BESV to ride. We take it + down the coast. It never fails to amaze. One friend felt compelled to + pet it upon dismount, saying, Good job, buddy, so quick and deep was + the affection for the thing. + + The Vanmoof is much smarter β€” the brain and software within it are + refined, the app good, the acceleration curves smooth β€” but the bike is + all custom components, and they aren’t the highest quality at that. The + automatic shifting mechanism on mine failed twice in the first two + months, requiring shipping the bike to the Vanmoof store.^[17]3 The + seat post bolt broke off in the post. The original plastic pedals felt + cheap and flimsy (pedals are one of the few things you can swap for + your own). The aluminum frame is too stiff for the speed the bike + generates β€” it can feel like you’ve been rattled to death after a bumpy + road. (And stiffness mitigation by lowering tire pressure seems to only + increase possibility of puncture.) But, more than all that, the design + of the bike has a dangerous fundamental flaw: The bottom bracket is + simply too low. + + Of all my many, many bikes, I’ve never had a pedal bottom out. On this + Vanmoof X3? Dozens of times. Most critically during a turn at speed β€” + the pedal hit the pavement, jumped the bike sideways, and sent me + flying. It’s the only bad crash I’ve had in decades. So I’ve had to + modify the way I ride β€” no pedaling into or out of turns, hyper + awareness of deviations in lateral road slope β€” because, despite all + this, I can’t stop riding this stupid thing. It sings β€” that hum. It is + joy. I reach for it daily and it takes me around the peninsula and + makes me happy to be alive. + __________________________________________________________________ + + BESV @ Lee's Bread, Oiso I've written about three electric bike rides + for Papersky Magazine: Misaki, Oiso, and Yokosuka. + + Allow me to share a dirty secret: More often than not, at midnight I + can’t repress the impulse β€” I have to take a bike out. Out the bike + comes and together we head into the empty streets of my town and hum + our way all over, visiting temples in total silence. There are no cars. + Often no people. It feels illicit β€” this slipping around town, this + sliding into temple parking lots in the shroud of the night, looking at + their old beams, feeling ten years old and grateful for both the + ability and awareness to be doing just this very thing at this very + moment. + __________________________________________________________________ + + I’ve long since posited world peace could be achieved if you bought + everyone in the world a bike, but now I want those bikes to be + electric. I want everyone to feel this silliness, this punch-drunk + stupidity of pure love, this sense of cheating the rules, the norms, + this sense of ever-present delight. At our worst, humans mindlessly + consume, sear the earth and each other, fill our bodies with poisons. + At our best we invent electric bikes. Batteries have gotten more + efficient, motors smaller and more powerful. The last decade has + brought great efficiency to these machines, and the next ten years will + only double down on these gains. Electric bike numbers are up, year + over year over year. Tremendously so. Those who know, proselytize. We + can’t help it. The charm is too great. The game non- zero sum. The more + people who know, the better the world. It’s a wild notion, this sense + of goodness to be had if you just reach out for it. Goodness with no + real downside. Like solar panels or wind turbines, electric bikes are + machines that buoy the spirit and the earth. + __________________________________________________________________ + + Buy the best electric bike you can within your budget. Stretch if + possible. Usually, the more you spend the lighter the machine, the more + powerful the motor, the longer-lasting the battery. Depending on which + country you live in top speeds will differ. In Japan the bike’s are + capped at 24km/h. In America, 32km/h. Some places only allow for + pedal-assist β€” meaning the motor only works when pedaling. Others allow + throttles, blurring the line between bike and scooter. Laws will change + in the coming years as more people adopt the machines and cities + themselves adapt. This is just the start. Ten years ago it was fairly + rare to see an electric bike around Tokyo. Today, it seems as if every + parent hauling their kids is doing so electrically. + + A good strategy: Find a local bike shop that will let you try out + several electric bikes. Some have front-hub motors, others rear-hub + motors. Others, the motor sits in the center, between the cranks. Each + has a subtly different feel. Going up a hill, a front-motor’d machine + may skip or slip as you pull back on the handlebars, but on flat land + will feel more like being tugged through the world. + + Sure, electric bikes aren’t cheap. But I believe they’re a rare object + to be well worth the cost. This in spite of their annoying flaws, their + often bad software, their defective geometries. Because they open the + world. Whatever world may have been nearby, an electric bike brings it + nearer. This is worth more than you might estimate. These bikes sing + their little songs and the smile on your face makes you look like a + village idiot, but what a wonderful idiot to be. + __________________________________________________________________ + + A summer night: Biking home alongside a river. The air is thick with + humidity and cicadas vibrate wildly in the distance. The moon is out. + My choices: straight home along the shimmering moonlit river, or take a + detour, up into the dark mountains, doubling the distance. To my + surprise, I choose the mountains almost every time. More! That tiny + child who fantasized about helicopters yells. More of this, whatever + this is. More more more. And so I feed that impulse, an impulse + generated and nurtured by the electric bike. Into the shadow mountains + we go, up, pushed by the hand of that giant, always present, always + ready to help. It is a ridiculous thing. A thing of peace and magic. An + owl hoots. The smile has never left my face. + __________________________________________________________________ + +[18]#Noted: + __________________________________________________________________ + + 1. I upgraded my BESV to an SRAM drivetrain and Paul brake levers and + Klamper disc calipers, some MKS pedals, and a set of Brooks grips + and saddle and it feels wonderful through and through. These Paul + Klampers are mechanical. The Vanmoof uses (generic?) hydraulic + brakes. After thousands of kilometers, my conclusion is: hydraulics + feel nice, but they are fussy (and perhaps Vanmoof’s chosen + components are sub-optimal) and difficult (?) to tune on your own. + In the end, I just don’t think they’re worth it. Too β€œdelicate.” + The Pauls feel as fresh today as the day I put them on, whereas the + hydraulics have required much bikeshop tuning over the course of + the last eighteen months. Were the Vanmoof more flexible, I’d + happily swap out for mechanicals. This lack of flexibility is a + bummer because, unlike an Apple iPhone, for example, where the + components tend to be best of class (think: modem, CPU, camera + unit, etc), the physical components on a Vanmoof most definitely + aren’t β€” nor do they offer the option to pay more to get better + components. [19]β†©οΈŽ + 2. Oh, how I wish this thing was open source, hackable β€” because it’s + so close to great. Sadly β€” and I don’t know how else to frame this + β€” it feels like the engineers behind the software don’t ride bikes. + At least not this one. The software flaws are so fundamentally + obvious, that anyone who had a) access to the code, and b) rode the + bike, couldn’t NOT fix these obvious issues. What I really wish, + though, is that I could slap the Vanmoof brain onto the BESV body + and, well, then we’d be in Electric Bike Elysium. [20]β†©οΈŽ + 3. I’ve since learned β€” the drive train of the Vanmoof is not to be + β€œridden” like a β€œbike” but rather, β€œfeathered” like a delicate sand + castle β€” assume the gears could explode at any moment and apply the + least amount of pressure you can; the motor is strong enough to + take care of most of the rest. In this way, the Vanmoof feels more + like a moped that uses β€œpedal assist” as a suggestion than a pure + electric-assist bike β€” a smart way to get around motorcycle laws in + most countries, which I assume is the main point. Not to say you + don’t get a workout on the Vanmoof, you do, but not nearly as much + as the more classically committed BESV β€” which really does require + you to pedal. + Maybe this is a good place to bring up the question: Why not just + get an electric scooter? I think it mainly comes down to + flexibility and philosophy. With a pedal assist bike (even if the + pedaling required is minimal) you simply have more flexibility in + parking, in riding, in β€œlightness” of transportation, than with an + electric scooter. Also: Insurance costs, maintenance, and higher + base cost. And philosophically, being able to still use the bike as + a β€œbike” without power feels like an aspect of these machines we + shouldn’t be so quick to toss aside. [21]β†©οΈŽ + + This essay, published September 2022. Thoughts? Email + [22]me@craigmod.com. + [23]Craig Mod, his head, floating at the bottom of the article + + [24]Craig Mod is a writer and photographer based in Japan. He's the + author of [25]Kissa by Kissa and a MacDowell, Ragdale, and VCCA writing + fellow. His essays and articles have appeared in Eater, The Atlantic, + California Sunday Magazine, Wired, Aeon, New Scientist, Virginia + Quarterly Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Morning News, + Codex: Journal of Typography, and elsewhere. He writes newsletters, oh + yes, [26]newsletters: [27]Roden & [28]Ridgeline. + + The work on this site is supported in part by [29]paid memberships. + + Whatever you do, don't follow @craigmod on [30]Twitter or + [31]Instagram. + +Subscribe to my newsletters + + Join some ~30,000 other subscribers. + [32]Roden: photography Γ— literature Γ— tech Γ— film (monthly) + [33]Ridgeline: walking Γ— Japan (weekly) + Always one-click to unsubscribe. + ____________________ + [X] Roden (monthly) + [X] Ridgeline (weekly) + (BUTTON) Subscribe + +Popular Essays + + +Pop-Up Walk + +What does a pop-up walk look like? + + +Self-Improvement and the Big Walk + +Every day a change to be better + + +Upon this Wrist + +A week with Apple Watch + + +A Walk is a Tool and a Platform + +My talk from Figma's Config conference + + ____________________ + + Β© 2001 - 2023, [34]Craig Mod + + [35]Twitter [36]Instagram [37]Mastodon [38]RSS + +References + + Visible links: + 1. https://craigmod.com/index.xml + 2. https://craigmod.com/about/ + 3. https://craigmod.com/books/ + 4. https://craigmod.com/essays/ + 5. https://craigmod.com/talks/ + 6. https://craigmod.com/membership/ + 7. https://shop.specialprojects.jp/ + 8. https://craigmod.com/membership/ + 9. https://craigmod.com/onmargins/ + 10. https://sw945.craigmod.com/ + 11. https://craigmod.com/roden/ + 12. https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/ + 13. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#so-many-bikes + 14. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#electrics + 15. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#fn:1 + 16. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#fn:2 + 17. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#fn:3 + 18. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#noted + 19. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#fnref:1 + 20. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#fnref:2 + 21. https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/#fnref:3 + 22. mailto:me@craigmod.com + 23. https://craigmod.com/about/ + 24. https://craigmod.com/about/ + 25. https://shop.specialprojects.jp/products/kissa-by-kissa-4th-ed + 26. https://craigmod.com/newsletters + 27. https://craigmod.com/explorers/ + 28. https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/ + 29. https://craigmod.com/membership/ + 30. http://twitter.com/craigmod/ + 31. http://instagram.com/craigmod + 32. https://craigmod.com/roden/ + 33. https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/ + 34. https://craigmod.com/about/ + 35. http://twitter.com/craigmod + 36. http://instagram.com/craigmod + 37. https://mastodon.social/@craigmod + 38. https://craigmod.com/index.xml + + Hidden links: + 40. https://craigmod.com/ + 41. https://twitter.com/craigmod/ + 42. https://instagram.com/craigmod/ + 43. mailto:?subject=From%20craigmod.com:%20Electric%20Bike%2c%20Stupid%20Love%20of%20My%20Life&body=I%20think%20you%20might%20enjoy%20this%20article:%0D%0Ahttps%3a%2f%2fcraigmod.com%2fessays%2felectric_bikes%2f%20%0D%0A + 44. https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Electric%20Bike,%20Stupid%20Love%20of%20My%20Life+https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/ + 45. https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/047/ + 46. https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/091/ + 47. https://craigmod.com/essays/upon_this_wrist/ + 48. https://craigmod.com/ridgeline/058/ diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/index.md b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/index.md index 7379ccf..3f6b35d 100644 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/index.md +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/index.md @@ -8,16 +8,16 @@ tags: references: - title: "Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life β€” by Craig Mod" url: https://craigmod.com/essays/electric_bikes/ - date: 2023-04-04T23:47:24Z - file: craigmod-com-avmku7.txt + date: 2023-04-05T14:58:16Z + file: craigmod-com-xfi1ge.txt - title: "Programming is a Pop Culture – Baldur Bjarnason" url: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/programming-is-a-pop-culture/ - date: 2023-04-04T23:47:24Z - file: www-baldurbjarnason-com-7p5031.txt + date: 2023-04-05T14:58:17Z + file: www-baldurbjarnason-com-uaaq9d.txt - title: "Julia Cameron Wants You to Do Your Morning Pages - The New York Times" url: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/style/julia-cameron-the-artists-way.html - date: 2023-04-04T23:47:25Z - file: www-nytimes-com-tq2xdi.txt + date: 2023-04-05T14:58:18Z + file: www-nytimes-com-gvijqf.txt --- With the warm winter we've been having in NC, I've gotten to take Nev to and from daycare on the e-bike a whole bunch, which has been just fantastic. I'm wary of becoming too much of an evangelist, but it really does feel like they can replace cars for a lot of folks, and they're fun as hell. diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-baldurbjarnason-com-7p5031.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-baldurbjarnason-com-7p5031.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a197c54..0000000 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-baldurbjarnason-com-7p5031.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,610 +0,0 @@ - β€’ Essays - β€’ Newsletter - β€’ Ebook - β€’ Contact - -Baldur Bjarnason - -Web dev at the end of the world, from HveragerΓ°i, Iceland - -I’m available as a consultant. I also have a book out. - -21 November 2022 - -Programming is a Pop Culture - -(What follows is an extract from Out of the Software Crisis, lightly edited to -work as a blog post.) - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - - - So I think what happened is computing has turned into pop culture and the - universities are not helping in general, at least not in the US. - - So, Cicero---anybody know a good Cicero quote having to do with the present - and past? Let's check your classical education here. So, you know who - Cicero was. He was one of those old Roman guys. - - So, Cicero once wrote: 'He who knows only his own generation remains - forever a child.' - -Programming and Scaling (Alan Kay, 2011) - -The programming pop culture defines changeβ€”any changeβ€”as progress. Most -developers, myself included, have a fascination with novelty. If it’s new, then -it must be an improvement. You even hear this stated outright as an argument by -developers: it’s newer and therefore better. Trends in software development are -rarely based on objective observation or sensible practice. This endless -chasing of trends leads to projects being needlessly rewritten, code being -abandoned, and new projects being started when fixing the bugs in an old -project would have done the same. The stocks of the software development system -are flushed out at a moment’s notice simply because the developers found -something shinier. - -Experienced developers are aware of this tendency in themselves and work to -mitigate it, but younger developers are often under the mistaken impression -that this is how software development works. Unless they can pare back this -tendency or are matched with teammates who hold them back, this tendency can -lead to immense destruction of value for an organisation. - -Pop cultures favour the visual aesthetic of the day. We all know what sort of -aesthetic designers commonly favour. Small, low-contrast text, lots of -whitespace, no pure whites or pure blacks (just greys). The details vary with -fashion, but each generation of designers has a preferred visual aesthetic. -That aesthetic tests poorly; the text is illegible; the layout doesn’t have -enough contrast. The information density is so sparse it’s effectively -non-existent. - -Looks pretty, though. - -Coders have a similar tendency, their preferred aesthetic is just a bit -different, but as with designers, it tests horribly when put in front of -genuine users. The exact details of the preferred aesthetic tend to vary from -generation to generation. One group prefers light-on-dark text (despite not -suffering from conditions that benefit from dark mode) and unusable -hyper-complex layouts where everything is configurable. Another group goes for -ultra-minimalism where nothing is shown by default. You constantly scrub around -and hunt for a button, a widgetβ€”anything that even vaguely resembles an -affordance. This is usually not an issue if you have designers on the team. If -you’re letting the programmers design the user interface or are a programmer -designing a user interface, you need to be aware of it. - -But this adherence to a specific aesthetic isn’t limited to designs. It’s also -an issue when it comes to the code itself. - -The programming pop culture favours specific code aesthetics based on the -trends of the day. I’m not talking about code style or formatting. The code in -a project should adhere to a single style, simple as that. The issue is that -the programming pop culture demands that code exhibit the latest popular -aesthetics of rigour, formality, and cleverness. Whether the code actually is -rigorous, formal, or clever matters less. A few years ago, as the popularity of -the Ruby programming language peaked, a certain dynamism and trickery were en -vogue. It didn’t matter if you were writing in Ruby, JavaScript, or -Objective-C. Your code had to have a level of β€œmagic” to it. Metaprogramming, -syntax-hacking languages to create ad hoc Domain-Specific Languages, tricks -with extreme late binding, and more were frequent topics on developer weblogs -and forums. Even a phrase like β€œobjective-c runtime metaprogramming” will date -you to a specific generation of native app developers almost down to a single -year. - -As with all of these pop culture trends in programming, this led to unreadable -code that was impossible to work with or fix as soon as it faded from popular -consciousness. - -The current trend is towards the aesthetics of correctness. Everything has to -look like it has strong or static typing. It doesn’t have to really have static -typing. That can all be made up after the fact in a declaration file. It merely -needs to have the aesthetics of types. Type annotations everywhere, -implementing logic through type system trickery, and forcing any and all -dynamism out of the system in the name of correctness is the name of the game. - -A part of this trend is the unpopularity of the approaches and languages that -are seen as less rigorous. CSS is dropped in favour of statically typed -CSS-in-JS approaches. HTML is dropped in favour of a strict inline XML-like -markup format called JSX. Just a few years ago, everybody in web development -hated and dropped XML and XHTML specifically because it was too strict and felt -less dynamic and flexible than HTML. At some point, pop culture will bore of -this and swing its attention back the other way. - -It’s a fashion industry. Trends come; trends go. The lack of historical -awareness is considered by most to be a feature. - -This rigour is useful in moderation. Static typing does prevent bugs. Usually, -they are the same sort of bugs unit testing prevents. Both have immense value -as tools to manage your software development. Currently, the fashion is to -favour static typing over unit testing for establishing a certain base level of -correctness in your code. At some point, they are likely to switch again. They -have a couple of times in the past. That you could use both at the same time -and get the benefits of both doesn’t enter the discourse. Static typing with -compile-time correctness checks has its uses. So do dynamism, extreme late -binding, and metaprogramming. Most of these approaches can be used together, -but that isn’t how pop culture works. Pop culture demands there be only one -winner at a time. Choose one, not whichever works the best at each time. - -Product development can’t indulge in being pop culture. Be wary of these -popularity contests. - -These issues with programming culture aren’t new. - -Jamie Zawinski calls it the β€œCascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers” model. We -can’t do much to change the nature of the field by nowβ€”Alan Kay has certainly -triedβ€”but we can mitigate the harm done by the trend-seeking. We can work to -ensure that everybody on the team, programmers and designers, is aligned, and -have the same understanding of what matters and how to accomplish it. - -For that, you need everybody to understand the context they are working inβ€”the -works of their field and how they are received. You need to develop taste and -understanding. - -You need research. - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - -Bonus Alan Kay quote on programming as a pop culture that I didn’t include in -the book: - - But pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about - identity and feeling like you’re participating. It has nothing to do with - cooperation, the past or the futureβ€”it’s living in the present. I think the - same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea - where [their culture came from]β€”and the Internet was done so well that most - people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather - than something that was man-made. - -Alan Kay, Dr. Dobb’s Interview with Alan Kay - -━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - -Out of the Software Crisis - -Out of the Software Crisis by Baldur Bjarnason - -Software projects keep failing, not because we don’t have the right team or -tools but because our software development system is broken. Out of the -Software Crisis is a guide to fixing your software projects with -systems-thinking making them more resilient to change and less likely to fail. - -Systems-Thinking For Software Projects - -WTF is a Framework? - -The response to Out of the Software Crisis has been amazing - -Join the Newsletter - -Subscribe to the Out of the Software Crisis newsletter to get my weekly (at -least) essays on how to avoid or get out of software development crises. - -Join now and get a free PDF of three bonus essays from Out of the Software -Crisis. - -[ ] -Subscribe - -We respect your privacy. - -Unsubscribe at any time. - -Archive - -Writing - - β€’ GDPR and American AIs 3 April 2023 - β€’ Regulating AI (plus links & notes) 27 March 2023 - β€’ AI summaries and AI healthcare (links & notes) 20 March 2023 - β€’ Keeping up with and assessing AI research (links & notes) 13 March 2023 - β€’ Waiting for the AI Godot (Links & Notes) 6 March 2023 - β€’ Copyright, Situating Search, and other links & notes 27 February 2023 - β€’ Deno, Shakespeare's Emoticon, Return to Office, and other links and notes - 20 February 2023 - β€’ Book production, AI, Single-Page-Apps, and other links and notes 13 - February 2023 - β€’ Some thoughts on how to make a book, three months after I made one 10 - February 2023 - β€’ AI is a Hail Mary pass and other links & notes 6 February 2023 - β€’ EU and copyright protections for AI-generated works and other notes 30 - January 2023 - β€’ On the Layoffs, Narcissists, and Other Links & Notes 23 January 2023 - β€’ Madeline, Existential Terror and other links & notes 16 January 2023 - β€’ Out of the Software Crisis Available on Kindle 28 December 2022 - β€’ A lot can happen in a month: on AI art and the fediverse 16 December 2022 - β€’ The response to Out of the Software Crisis has been amazing 5 December 2022 - β€’ Programming is a Pop Culture 21 November 2022 - β€’ WTF is a Framework? 18 November 2022 - β€’ Theory-building and why employee churn is lethal to software companies 16 - November 2022 - β€’ Great apps are rare 15 November 2022 - β€’ (Released!) Out of the Software Crisis: Systems-Thinking for Software - Projects 14 November 2022 - β€’ Out of the Software Crisis: the ebook is imminent! 11 November 2022 - β€’ I wrote a book – now you must suffer with me 26 October 2022 - β€’ I’m offering research, writing, and notetaking coaching for techies and - programmers 17 October 2022 - β€’ Playacting genius: the performative logic of reasoning from first - principles 18 September 2022 - β€’ I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps 4 July 2022 - β€’ Essay Archive 2 June 2022 - β€’ On online collaboration and our obligations as makers of software 2 June - 2022 - β€’ The different kinds of notes 6 May 2022 - β€’ What I learned about markdown from interviewing a bunch of people 6 May - 2022 - β€’ The Colophon Cards User Survey 2 February 2022 - β€’ How to keep up with web development without falling into despair 31 January - 2022 - β€’ Let's just not talk about 2021 and look forward instead 5 January 2022 - β€’ Making Colophon Cards 29 November 2021 - β€’ What do I need to read to be a great at CSS? 19 October 2021 - β€’ The event listening toolkit: five ways to get out of an event handling mess - 11 October 2021 - β€’ FormData and fetch, why is serialising a form such a pain? 29 September - 2021 - β€’ The Single-Page-App Morality Play 6 September 2021 - β€’ Software Crisis 2.0 25 August 2021 - β€’ Lessons in Interactivity, 2021 redux 13 August 2021 - β€’ Nobody gives a hoot about groupthink 29 July 2021 - β€’ Spontant: in praise of grey 26 July 2021 - β€’ Ways of reading without the influence of community 6 July 2021 - β€’ The Open-Source Software bubble that is and the blogging bubble that was 11 - May 2021 - β€’ You are what you do, not what you say or write 4 May 2021 - β€’ The Curious Case Of The Crashing Conic Gradient And How I Used A Technique - I Learned In The 90s To Fix It 28 April 2021 - β€’ 136 facts every web dev should know before they burn out and turn to - landscape painting or nude modelling 21 April 2021 - β€’ I’m available for projects and other work 20 April 2021 - β€’ Which type of novelty-seeking web developer are you? 31 March 2021 - β€’ Every Day; a Fair Warning (You Should Read These Articles) 3 March 2020 - β€’ Weeknote 3 - Resistance and the dull blade 10 February 2020 - β€’ Weeknote 2 (2020) - News, Bad News, and Star Wars 2 February 2020 - β€’ Weeknote 1 (2020) - Ending the hiatus 26 January 2020 - β€’ The Ed Tech Conundrum 2 January 2020 - β€’ Thinking about the past, present, and future of web development 1 January - 2020 - β€’ The Web Falls Apart 3 November 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 19 ─ blog redesign and changes at work 27 October 2019 - β€’ When life hands you lemonades, sit down and contemplate the meaning of life - 10 September 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 18 - Uncertainty and Discomfort 11 August 2019 - β€’ Web Dev: The Red Queen Wire Mommy of Modern Tech 6 August 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 16 – Vacation 29 July 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 15 - Counting Down the Days 1 July 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 14 - Shadows and DOMs 25 June 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 13 - The weight of deadlines 16 June 2019 - β€’ That Web Dev Thing Where Everybody Says Something Clever Involving Toast 15 - June 2019 - β€’ SwiftUI, Privacy, macOS, and the Web 9 June 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 12 - The genres of web media 5 June 2019 - β€’ The Aesthetics of Concentration 3 June 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 11 - do I have focus? 29 May 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 10 - A clear view and more reading 20 May 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 9 - Being contemplative, finishing a photo project 12 May 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 8 – Moving, Endgame, and more musings on colour 5 May 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 7 - Story length and that thing about colour 29 April 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 6 – Star Trek, rest and spring finally arrives 22 April 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 5 – Stuff, comics, superheroes, and other nonsense 14 April 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 4 – TV week with The Expanse 7 April 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 3 β€” MVPs, fatigue, and emotional crutches 31 March 2019 - β€’ Web Development: with great power comes the ability to make great mistakes - 24 March 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 2 - Web Development Mistakes, Mary Sues, and Icy Spring 24 March - 2019 - β€’ Weeknote 1 18 March 2019 - β€’ Hitchcock and the author construct 12 February 2019 - β€’ Seams, Stitches, And The Decline Of The Mac 3 November 2018 - β€’ Neither Paper Nor Digital Does Active Reading Well 3 September 2018 - β€’ Focusing on market share blinds you to growth 7 January 2018 - β€’ The future of Software Development: Just Business Logic 7 January 2018 - β€’ Remote work is a completely different beast 7 January 2018 - β€’ Hypertext is still the fundamental model of the web 7 January 2018 - β€’ Leftover Thoughts From 2017 7 January 2018 - β€’ Over-engineering is under-engineering 25 November 2017 - β€’ The process is the thing 23 March 2017 - β€’ Von Be Don: A few notes on a recent digital publishing project in Iceland - 19 February 2017 - β€’ W3C and EME: it isn't about preventing DRM but saving the W3C 14 February - 2017 - β€’ Unpopular opinion: dismissing indirect pointers is a mistake 4 February - 2017 - β€’ Anger feels like poison 24 January 2017 - β€’ Is JavaScript more fragile? 7 December 2016 - β€’ Debating Progressive Enhancement 5 December 2016 - β€’ The downside of believing in Apple 1 November 2016 - β€’ A short primer on Icelandic politics on the day of the 2016 election 29 - October 2016 - β€’ The Tragedy/Farce of the Open Web according to journalists 18 October 2016 - β€’ Notes on debating for the web development community 17 October 2016 - β€’ Addendum on loose coupling and the iOS App Store 11 October 2016 - β€’ Idle thoughts on modularity and loose coupling in digital media 9 October - 2016 - β€’ When fear is rational 24 June 2016 - β€’ Once upon a time, I couldn't imagine a better word processor than Word 7 - June 2016 - β€’ A thought to consider 24 May 2016 - β€’ A few thoughts on standardisation, W3C, and the IDPF 16 May 2016 - β€’ Filling in the gaps – the dynamics of zero marginal cost 21 April 2016 - β€’ Which CMS/blog system would you choose? 12 April 2016 - β€’ A few simplified points on web and document security 30 March 2016 - β€’ Judge the work 21 January 2016 - β€’ Why did Paul Graham argue against equality? 13 January 2016 - β€’ Purpose, Joy, Capability 4 January 2016 - β€’ You can't fix the App Store, so here's how you fix it 20 November 2015 - β€’ Why I am worried about Twitter and why you should be too 4 November 2015 - β€’ The crossroads or the wilderness 23 October 2015 - β€’ You can't solve people problems with software 28 September 2015 - β€’ The discussion about ad blocking is very dumb (but not in the way you - think) 18 September 2015 - β€’ This is not a book, but it is a podcast 10 September 2015 - β€’ A week of 'This is not a book' 7 September 2015 - β€’ Launching "This is not a book" – what it is and why you should be - interested 1 September 2015 - β€’ My kingdom for a new bookstore 28 August 2015 - β€’ Modern software sucks 26 August 2015 - β€’ The cost versus benefits of disorganised programming power 25 August 2015 - β€’ Who benefits the most from Open Source Software? 25 August 2015 - β€’ Sex Apocalypse Later 24 August 2015 - β€’ Random thoughts on work and that Amazon thing 23 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – UI flaws and other great capers 14 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – learnable programming 13 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – More money for open-source 12 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – Leaving bosses 11 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – Promoting other people's work 10 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – What Would Kamala Khan Do? 7 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – Trickle down golden geese 6 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – Hateviews are us 5 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – Milk it 4 August 2015 - β€’ Iterating the web away: - losing the next generation 4 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – You haven't been paying attention 3 August 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – It's a note card world, we just live in it 31 July 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – Just call it Smylfeste 30 July 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – That one is shaped like an idiot 29 July 2015 - β€’ Blogger nostalgia 28 July 2015 - β€’ Bookmarks – Make it simpler 28 July 2015 - β€’ Wet streets cause rain and criminal responsibility 27 July 2015 - β€’ Tweet bookmarks galore 26 July 2015 - β€’ Random links that catch my fancy, part four of ∞ 23 July 2015 - β€’ Random links that catch my fancy, part three of ∞ 22 July 2015 - β€’ Mythic visions of sexuality 21 July 2015 - β€’ Random links that catch my fancy, part two of ∞ 21 July 2015 - β€’ Random links that catch my fancy, part one of ∞ 20 July 2015 - β€’ An exercise for the reader in integration and modularity 17 July 2015 - β€’ How to read my nonsense 17 July 2015 - β€’ Is it distributed or just a disorganised hierarchy? 10 July 2015 - β€’ On the vaunted robustness of the web 10 July 2015 - β€’ The rules of the game have changed for RSS 10 July 2015 - β€’ The web app developer's lament 6 July 2015 - β€’ Other people write about digital media 25 June 2015 - β€’ The plural of 'Medium' is clearly 'clusterfuck' 25 June 2015 - β€’ Burnout 24 June 2015 - β€’ The files Steven Pressfield works with 24 June 2015 - β€’ iOS 9 content blocking extensions are not a mobile advertising armageddon - 14 June 2015 - β€’ Writing the Other: - a book that's useful to all writers 3 June 2015 - β€’ Should I make a WWDC prediction? - Yes, let's 3 June 2015 - β€’ Grim Meathook Present #2 2 June 2015 - β€’ Other people discuss software quality (spoiler: it sucks) 2 June 2015 - β€’ Other people talk about startups and entrepreneurship 2 June 2015 - β€’ A few quick links and thoughts on big web problems 29 May 2015 - β€’ I really want the Supergirl TV show to be fun 25 May 2015 - β€’ Our Grim Meathook Present 25 May 2015 - β€’ The new age of HTML: - the web is being torn apart 20 May 2015 - β€’ Her movie, his name; - Mad Max: Fury Road 19 May 2015 - β€’ We are a violent species 19 May 2015 - β€’ Toxic environments: - inequality in tech is a symptom of something worse 18 May 2015 - β€’ Where I write about Facebook's Instant Articles 16 May 2015 - β€’ Facebook and the media: - united, they attack the web 15 May 2015 - β€’ Speeding up decision cycles with rules and heuristics 14 May 2015 - β€’ You are here #5: - UX, design, and CSS as a parasite 14 May 2015 - β€’ You are here #4: - an epic journey through app dev and male bodies 13 May 2015 - β€’ You are here #3: - the glorious wonders of online reading await you 12 May 2015 - β€’ 2015-05-11-18-39-16 11 May 2015 - β€’ You are here #2: - an artisanal curation of reading material 11 May 2015 - β€’ You are here #1: - a selection of fine links and tweets for your pleasure 10 May 2015 - β€’ 2015-05-07-00-59-18 7 May 2015 - β€’ Five publishing-related thoughts on a Friday afternoon 4 May 2015 - β€’ Why should people read more books? 4 May 2015 - β€’ How is taxing ebooks as print books supposed to work? 4 May 2015 - β€’ Kathy Sierra's Badass: Making Users Awesome – the book you all should read - 4 March 2015 - β€’ Idle Sunday thoughts about web trends 1 March 2015 - β€’ Repetition only works in fiction 1 March 2015 - β€’ The web has covered the basicsβ€Šβ€”β€Šthat’s why it’ll get harder from now 1 - March 2015 - β€’ A draft of a chapter of some thoughts on things. 9 January 2015 - β€’ Taking stock of 2013 and 2014 31 December 2014 - β€’ The weather, of course 17 December 2014 - β€’ Publishing business ideas are a dime a dozen 3 December 2014 - β€’ EU VAT changes shift the digital landscape 25 November 2014 - β€’ Money is a poor measure of value 25 November 2014 - β€’ On conferences 13 November 2014 - β€’ Crushed by multinationals 12 November 2014 - β€’ Software as a strategy: prefabricated publishers 7 November 2014 - β€’ Software as strategy in the ebook world 6 November 2014 - β€’ The five types of unpublished books 5 November 2014 - β€’ Four hundred words from Anita Elberse's book "Blockbusters" 4 November 2014 - β€’ The splintered author 4 November 2014 - β€’ There is no war between Amazon and Traditional Publishing 3 November 2014 - β€’ Ebooks suck for learning 10 October 2014 - β€’ The Poisoning of Social Media: A Reading List 9 September 2014 - β€’ Wobbly Amazon 10 August 2014 - β€’ This week's must-read post 24 July 2014 - β€’ Friends don’t let their friends become authors 10 July 2014 - β€’ Both at the same time 4 July 2014 - β€’ So I had to make an ebook cover... 15 April 2014 - β€’ So long, Readmill, and thanks for all the fish 31 March 2014 - β€’ What ebook production problems are self-publishers facing? 24 March 2014 - β€’ Many stories, many truths 13 March 2014 - β€’ Problem statements for digital publishing research 28 February 2014 - β€’ To do, to do 21 February 2014 - β€’ iBooks Author tempts you with bling 20 February 2014 - β€’ Microsoft Word is a liability 19 February 2014 - β€’ The print design mentality 18 February 2014 - β€’ Book contracts 12 February 2014 - β€’ Intermission: sorting through the banal 5 February 2014 - β€’ How to create value with a new thing 30 January 2014 - β€’ HTML is too complex 29 January 2014 - β€’ The ebook as an API 28 January 2014 - β€’ My last word on DRM 27 January 2014 - β€’ Except, except, except 23 January 2014 - β€’ A thought exercise 22 January 2014 - β€’ Losing faith in yourself 21 January 2014 - β€’ Changing your readership mix 20 January 2014 - β€’ Sex, education, readers, and futures: what works, what doesn't 18 January - 2014 - β€’ The various types of readers 17 January 2014 - β€’ The unevenly distributed ebook future 16 January 2014 - β€’ Sex, violence, and stΓ­lbrot 15 January 2014 - β€’ Recipe for pundit response to Hugh Howey’s suggestions 14 January 2014 - β€’ Bling it up for education 13 January 2014 - β€’ Blogging has trained me to assume you’re stupid 9 January 2014 - β€’ Ergodic literature 8 January 2014 - β€’ What I thought I wanted versus what I really wanted 7 January 2014 - β€’ The mistake of 'enhancing' novels 6 January 2014 - β€’ Pessimistic ramblings and other fun links (week overview + further reading) - 4 January 2014 - β€’ Stumbling into publishing 3 January 2014 - β€’ The publishing industry's new product categories 2 January 2014 - β€’ The last two Knights and Necromancers stories 1 January 2014 - β€’ Random, loosely connected, thoughts on the future 31 December 2013 - β€’ Old photos posted without context: ReykjavΓ­k Cats 29 December 2013 - β€’ Old photos posted without context: Sweep After Use 22 December 2013 - β€’ The Checklist: fix iBooks image handling 20 December 2013 - β€’ Great text transcends nothing 17 December 2013 - β€’ Quarantine all ebooks 17 October 2013 - β€’ The self-publisher's perspective of the ebook market 17 October 2013 - β€’ Light evening trauma 10 October 2013 - β€’ Just say no to ebook CSS and JS 2 October 2013 - β€’ The Google Wave Heuristic 17 September 2013 - β€’ Amazon's biggest ally is Apple 12 September 2013 - β€’ Readmill versus Kindle – Readmill is worth the hassle 26 August 2013 - β€’ Proprietary ebook formats versus DRM 19 August 2013 - β€’ Publishing has catered to dumb for a long while 16 August 2013 - β€’ Computers are too difficult and people are computer illiterate 14 August - 2013 - β€’ Why disruption goes unchecked 12 August 2013 - β€’ Make ebooks worth it 9 August 2013 - β€’ Ebooks and cognitive mapping 8 August 2013 - β€’ Ebook silos, update 7 August 2013 - β€’ Ebook silos and missed opportunities 6 August 2013 - β€’ Technology is not inherently good 5 August 2013 - β€’ Administrative note on baldurbjarnason.com and feeds 29 July 2013 - β€’ Posted without comment 29 July 2013 - β€’ The inefficiencies of joy 24 July 2013 - β€’ Winner takes all versus the Matthew effect 23 July 2013 - β€’ What you people read (on my websites) 22 July 2013 - β€’ Tolerating the heat, noticing the water 19 July 2013 - β€’ If the Kindle fails so will ebooks 18 July 2013 - β€’ Followup to 'this ebook is a lemon' 16 July 2013 - β€’ This ebook is a lemon 12 July 2013 - β€’ Caught between madmen and mercenaries 10 July 2013 - β€’ Major update to Studio Tendra's Oz project 3 July 2013 - β€’ What are self-publishing's biggest pain points? 1 July 2013 - β€’ Intellectual terrain 1 July 2013 - β€’ Good books don't win 26 June 2013 - β€’ Why does it matter? 10 May 2013 - β€’ The OZ Reading Club: Books three and four 7 May 2013 - β€’ Which kind of innovation? 3 May 2013 - β€’ Books and Print Showcase 2 May 2013 - β€’ Peasants 30 April 2013 - β€’ For the love 14 April 2013 - β€’ The idiocies of young men 5 April 2013 - β€’ Studio Tendra's grand and marvellous Oz Reading Club 2 April 2013 - β€’ Iceland’s β€˜crowd-sourced’ constitution is dead 29 March 2013 - β€’ The B&N fallacy 27 February 2013 - β€’ Hire me! 19 February 2013 - β€’ A question only you can answer 15 February 2013 - β€’ Respect the reader 6 February 2013 - β€’ 33 observations on the year 2012 5 February 2013 - β€’ Knights and Necromancers: new books and megapacks! 4 February 2013 - β€’ The falcon's shriek 2 January 2013 - β€’ What is actually going on in Iceland 29 December 2012 - β€’ Merry Christmas! 25 December 2012 - β€’ Tag soup is history 21 December 2012 - β€’ Schlock 15 December 2012 - β€’ Strange definitions of 'nice' 5 December 2012 - β€’ Books of Christmas Past 4 December 2012 - β€’ Using IDs in CSS 26 November 2012 - β€’ Design highlights from the Icelandic book season 22 November 2012 - β€’ News, updates, and the Icelandic book market 19 November 2012 - β€’ A response, of sorts 15 November 2012 - β€’ High tide and a room of your own 8 November 2012 - β€’ Knights and Necromancers 2 has been released 6 November 2012 - β€’ The comment-fiction challenge post-mortem 30 October 2012 - β€’ Fantasy, Collapse, and a sense of history 29 October 2012 - β€’ Two questions on putting books on the web 26 October 2012 - β€’ iBooks 3.0 25 October 2012 - β€’ Perceptions of society 22 October 2012 - β€’ What I've been up to 19 October 2012 - β€’ The Readmill comment fiction challenge 1 October 2012 - β€’ Is it safe? 27 September 2012 - β€’ The time work takes 24 September 2012 - β€’ I need your help 21 September 2012 - β€’ Designing the covers 19 September 2012 - β€’ Free Kindle version 19 September 2012 - β€’ What is this? 17 September 2012 - β€’ The stillborn creature 1 August 2012 - β€’ EPUB javascript security 27 July 2012 - β€’ I be writing 21 July 2012 - β€’ Farce 16 July 2012 - β€’ Bad writing 19 June 2012 - β€’ A few random points on DRM 7 June 2012 - β€’ The web and ebooks have little in common 7 May 2012 - β€’ The end of ebook development 26 April 2012 - β€’ Aftermath – notes on the Amazon post 20 April 2012 - β€’ Today is not tomorrow (or, how to beat Amazon) 15 April 2012 - β€’ Bits, bobs, and anecdata 3 April 2012 - β€’ Lessons in interactivity 29 March 2012 - β€’ Hierarchies of ebook design 20 March 2012 - β€’ It's time to treat ebook developers as developers 12 March 2012 - β€’ Code doesn't change minds 7 March 2012 - β€’ Game over, Amazon wins 3 March 2012 - β€’ On CSS Page Templates 2 March 2012 - β€’ Javascript in ebooks 29 February 2012 - β€’ Explanatory windows 20 February 2012 - β€’ Readium and other good intentions 13 February 2012 - β€’ ePub windows and widgets – a proposal 10 February 2012 - β€’ The semantics of ebook widgets 4 February 2012 - β€’ iBooks widgets – to javascript or not to javascript 1 February 2012 - β€’ What do we want from the Kindle platform? 1 February 2012 - β€’ Disruptive crap 27 January 2012 - β€’ Me, elsewhere 26 January 2012 - β€’ The pros and cons of the iBooks 2.0 textbook format 21 January 2012 - β€’ The iBooks 2.0 built-in widgets 20 January 2012 - β€’ The iBooks 2.0 textbook format 19 January 2012 - β€’ The publishing animal 17 January 2012 - β€’ A day of innovation on the future of the book 8 December 2011 - β€’ What a publisher does 30 November 2011 - β€’ Design pseudoscience 8 November 2011 - β€’ A tale of three blog posts 28 October 2011 - β€’ CSS and ebook design 24 October 2011 - β€’ The loss of ambient intimacy 15 September 2011 - β€’ Friday links and reading 26 August 2011 - β€’ Convert or engage 4 August 2011 - β€’ CSS3 Hyphens 30 July 2011 - β€’ Just you & Google 29 July 2011 - β€’ Knowledge is not adoption 24 July 2011 - β€’ HTML5 history API 23 July 2011 - β€’ Your friends, in boxes 17 July 2011 - β€’ Localstorage & messaging in ePub 27 January 2011 - β€’ Javascript in epub 26 January 2011 - β€’ An epub experiment 25 January 2011 - β€’ What is an ebook? 21 December 2010 - β€’ Hypotheses and testing 25 October 2010 - β€’ Identifying publishing innovators 7 October 2010 - β€’ On quality in publishing 7 October 2010 - β€’ An interesting discussion 28 June 2010 - -You can also find me on Mastodon and Twitter diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-baldurbjarnason-com-uaaq9d.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-baldurbjarnason-com-uaaq9d.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..947ccde --- /dev/null +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-baldurbjarnason-com-uaaq9d.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1076 @@ + #[1]All posts for Baldur Bjarnason + + * [2]Essays + * [3]Newsletter + * [4]Ebook + * [5]Contact + + [6]Baldur Bjarnason + + Web dev at the end of the world, from HveragerΓ°i, Iceland + + I’m available [7]as a consultant. I also have [8]a book out. + + 21 November 2022 + +Programming is a Pop Culture + + (What follows is an extract from [9]Out of the Software Crisis, lightly + edited to work as a blog post.) + __________________________________________________________________ + + So I think what happened is computing has turned into pop culture + and the universities are not helping in general, at least not in the + US. + + So, Cicero---anybody know a good Cicero quote having to do with the + present and past? Let's check your classical education here. So, you + know who Cicero was. He was one of those old Roman guys. + + So, Cicero once wrote: 'He who knows only his own generation remains + forever a child.' + + [10]Programming and Scaling (Alan Kay, 2011) + + The programming pop culture defines changeβ€”any changeβ€”as progress. Most + developers, myself included, have a fascination with novelty. If it’s + new, then it must be an improvement. You even hear this stated outright + as an argument by developers: it’s newer and therefore better. Trends + in software development are rarely based on objective observation or + sensible practice. This endless chasing of trends leads to projects + being needlessly rewritten, code being abandoned, and new projects + being started when fixing the bugs in an old project would have done + the same. The stocks of the software development system are flushed out + at a moment’s notice simply because the developers found something + shinier. + + Experienced developers are aware of this tendency in themselves and + work to mitigate it, but younger developers are often under the + mistaken impression that this is how software development works. Unless + they can pare back this tendency or are matched with teammates who hold + them back, this tendency can lead to immense destruction of value for + an organisation. + + Pop cultures favour the visual aesthetic of the day. We all know what + sort of aesthetic designers commonly favour. Small, low-contrast text, + lots of whitespace, no pure whites or pure blacks (just greys). The + details vary with fashion, but each generation of designers has a + preferred visual aesthetic. That aesthetic tests poorly; the text is + illegible; the layout doesn’t have enough contrast. The information + density is so sparse it’s effectively non-existent. + + Looks pretty, though. + + Coders have a similar tendency, their preferred aesthetic is just a bit + different, but as with designers, it tests horribly when put in front + of genuine users. The exact details of the preferred aesthetic tend to + vary from generation to generation. One group prefers light-on-dark + text (despite not suffering from conditions that benefit from dark + mode) and unusable hyper-complex layouts where everything is + configurable. Another group goes for ultra-minimalism where nothing is + shown by default. You constantly scrub around and hunt for a button, a + widgetβ€”anything that even vaguely resembles an affordance. This is + usually not an issue if you have designers on the team. If you’re + letting the programmers design the user interface or are a programmer + designing a user interface, you need to be aware of it. + + But this adherence to a specific aesthetic isn’t limited to designs. + It’s also an issue when it comes to the code itself. + + The programming pop culture favours specific code aesthetics based on + the trends of the day. I’m not talking about code style or formatting. + The code in a project should adhere to a single style, simple as that. + The issue is that the programming pop culture demands that code exhibit + the latest popular aesthetics of rigour, formality, and cleverness. + Whether the code actually is rigorous, formal, or clever matters less. + A few years ago, as the popularity of the Ruby programming language + peaked, a certain dynamism and trickery were en vogue. It didn’t matter + if you were writing in Ruby, JavaScript, or Objective-C. Your code had + to have a level of β€œmagic” to it. Metaprogramming, syntax-hacking + languages to create ad hoc Domain-Specific Languages, tricks with + extreme late binding, and more were frequent topics on developer + weblogs and forums. Even a phrase like β€œobjective-c runtime + metaprogramming” will date you to a specific generation of native app + developers almost down to a single year. + + As with all of these pop culture trends in programming, this led to + unreadable code that was impossible to work with or fix as soon as it + faded from popular consciousness. + + The current trend is towards the aesthetics of correctness. Everything + has to look like it has strong or static typing. It doesn’t have to + really have static typing. That can all be made up after the fact in a + declaration file. It merely needs to have the aesthetics of types. Type + annotations everywhere, implementing logic through type system + trickery, and forcing any and all dynamism out of the system in the + name of correctness is the name of the game. + + A part of this trend is the unpopularity of the approaches and + languages that are seen as less rigorous. CSS is dropped in favour of + statically typed CSS-in-JS approaches. HTML is dropped in favour of a + strict inline XML-like markup format called JSX. Just a few years ago, + everybody in web development hated and dropped XML and XHTML + specifically because it was too strict and felt less dynamic and + flexible than HTML. At some point, pop culture will bore of this and + swing its attention back the other way. + + It’s a fashion industry. Trends come; trends go. The lack of historical + awareness is considered by most to be a feature. + + This rigour is useful in moderation. Static typing does prevent bugs. + Usually, they are the same sort of bugs unit testing prevents. Both + have immense value as tools to manage your software development. + Currently, the fashion is to favour static typing over unit testing for + establishing a certain base level of correctness in your code. At some + point, they are likely to switch again. They have a couple of times in + the past. That you could use both at the same time and get the benefits + of both doesn’t enter the discourse. Static typing with compile-time + correctness checks has its uses. So do dynamism, extreme late binding, + and metaprogramming. Most of these approaches can be used together, but + that isn’t how pop culture works. Pop culture demands there be only one + winner at a time. Choose one, not whichever works the best at each + time. + + Product development can’t indulge in being pop culture. Be wary of + these popularity contests. + + These issues with programming culture aren’t new. + + Jamie Zawinski calls it the [11]β€œCascade of Attention-Deficit + Teenagers” model. We can’t do much to change the nature of the field by + nowβ€”Alan Kay has certainly triedβ€”but we can mitigate the harm done by + the trend-seeking. We can work to ensure that everybody on the team, + programmers and designers, is aligned, and have the same understanding + of what matters and how to accomplish it. + + For that, you need everybody to understand the context they are working + inβ€”the works of their field and how they are received. You need to + develop taste and understanding. + + You need research. + __________________________________________________________________ + + Bonus Alan Kay quote on programming as a pop culture that I didn’t + include in the book: + + But pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all + about identity and feeling like you’re participating. It has nothing + to do with cooperation, the past or the futureβ€”it’s living in the + present. I think the same is true of most people who write code for + money. They have no idea where [their culture came from]β€”and the + Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural + resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was + man-made. + + Alan Kay, [12]Dr. Dobb’s Interview with Alan Kay + __________________________________________________________________ + +[13]Out of the Software Crisis + + [14]Out of the Software Crisis by Baldur Bjarnason + + Software projects keep failing, not because we don’t have the right + team or tools but because our software development system is broken. + Out of the Software Crisis is a guide to fixing your software projects + with systems-thinking making them more resilient to change and less + likely to fail. + + [15]Systems-Thinking For Software Projects + + [16]WTF is a Framework? + + [17]The response to Out of the Software Crisis has been amazing + +Join the Newsletter + + Subscribe to the [18]Out of the Software Crisis newsletter to get my + weekly (at least) essays on how to avoid or get out of software + development crises. + + Join now and get a free PDF of three bonus essays from Out of the + Software Crisis. + + ____________________ + (BUTTON) + Subscribe + + We respect your privacy. + + Unsubscribe at any time. + + Archive + +Writing + + * [19]GDPR and American AIs 3 April 2023 + * [20]Regulating AI (plus links & notes) 27 March 2023 + * [21]AI summaries and AI healthcare (links & notes) 20 March 2023 + * [22]Keeping up with and assessing AI research (links & notes) 13 + March 2023 + * [23]Waiting for the AI Godot (Links & Notes) 6 March 2023 + * [24]Copyright, Situating Search, and other links & notes 27 + February 2023 + * [25]Deno, Shakespeare's Emoticon, Return to Office, and other links + and notes 20 February 2023 + * [26]Book production, AI, Single-Page-Apps, and other links and + notes 13 February 2023 + * [27]Some thoughts on how to make a book, three months after I made + one 10 February 2023 + * [28]AI is a Hail Mary pass and other links & notes 6 February 2023 + * [29]EU and copyright protections for AI-generated works and other + notes 30 January 2023 + * [30]On the Layoffs, Narcissists, and Other Links & Notes 23 January + 2023 + * [31]Madeline, Existential Terror and other links & notes 16 January + 2023 + * [32]Out of the Software Crisis Available on Kindle 28 December 2022 + * [33]A lot can happen in a month: on AI art and the fediverse 16 + December 2022 + * [34]The response to Out of the Software Crisis has been amazing 5 + December 2022 + * [35]Programming is a Pop Culture 21 November 2022 + * [36]WTF is a Framework? 18 November 2022 + * [37]Theory-building and why employee churn is lethal to software + companies 16 November 2022 + * [38]Great apps are rare 15 November 2022 + * [39](Released!) Out of the Software Crisis: Systems-Thinking for + Software Projects 14 November 2022 + * [40]Out of the Software Crisis: the ebook is imminent! 11 November + 2022 + * [41]I wrote a book – now you must suffer with me 26 October 2022 + * [42]I’m offering research, writing, and notetaking coaching for + techies and programmers 17 October 2022 + * [43]Playacting genius: the performative logic of reasoning from + first principles 18 September 2022 + * [44]I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps + 4 July 2022 + * [45]Essay Archive 2 June 2022 + * [46]On online collaboration and our obligations as makers of + software 2 June 2022 + * [47]The different kinds of notes 6 May 2022 + * [48]What I learned about markdown from interviewing a bunch of + people 6 May 2022 + * [49]The Colophon Cards User Survey 2 February 2022 + * [50]How to keep up with web development without falling into + despair 31 January 2022 + * [51]Let's just not talk about 2021 and look forward instead 5 + January 2022 + * [52]Making Colophon Cards 29 November 2021 + * [53]What do I need to read to be a great at CSS? 19 October 2021 + * [54]The event listening toolkit: five ways to get out of an event + handling mess 11 October 2021 + * [55]FormData and fetch, why is serialising a form such a pain? 29 + September 2021 + * [56]The Single-Page-App Morality Play 6 September 2021 + * [57]Software Crisis 2.0 25 August 2021 + * [58]Lessons in Interactivity, 2021 redux 13 August 2021 + * [59]Nobody gives a hoot about groupthink 29 July 2021 + * [60]Spontant: in praise of grey 26 July 2021 + * [61]Ways of reading without the influence of community 6 July 2021 + * [62]The Open-Source Software bubble that is and the blogging bubble + that was 11 May 2021 + * [63]You are what you do, not what you say or write 4 May 2021 + * [64]The Curious Case Of The Crashing Conic Gradient And How I Used + A Technique I Learned In The 90s To Fix It 28 April 2021 + * [65]136 facts every web dev should know before they burn out and + turn to landscape painting or nude modelling 21 April 2021 + * [66]I’m available for projects and other work 20 April 2021 + * [67]Which type of novelty-seeking web developer are you? 31 March + 2021 + * [68]Every Day; a Fair Warning (You Should Read These Articles) 3 + March 2020 + * [69]Weeknote 3 - Resistance and the dull blade 10 February 2020 + * [70]Weeknote 2 (2020) - News, Bad News, and Star Wars 2 February + 2020 + * [71]Weeknote 1 (2020) - Ending the hiatus 26 January 2020 + * [72]The Ed Tech Conundrum 2 January 2020 + * [73]Thinking about the past, present, and future of web development + 1 January 2020 + * [74]The Web Falls Apart 3 November 2019 + * [75]Weeknote 19 ─ blog redesign and changes at work 27 October 2019 + * [76]When life hands you lemonades, sit down and contemplate the + meaning of life 10 September 2019 + * [77]Weeknote 18 - Uncertainty and Discomfort 11 August 2019 + * [78]Web Dev: The Red Queen Wire Mommy of Modern Tech 6 August 2019 + * [79]Weeknote 16 – Vacation 29 July 2019 + * [80]Weeknote 15 - Counting Down the Days 1 July 2019 + * [81]Weeknote 14 - Shadows and DOMs 25 June 2019 + * [82]Weeknote 13 - The weight of deadlines 16 June 2019 + * [83]That Web Dev Thing Where Everybody Says Something Clever + Involving Toast 15 June 2019 + * [84]SwiftUI, Privacy, macOS, and the Web 9 June 2019 + * [85]Weeknote 12 - The genres of web media 5 June 2019 + * [86]The Aesthetics of Concentration 3 June 2019 + * [87]Weeknote 11 - do I have focus? 29 May 2019 + * [88]Weeknote 10 - A clear view and more reading 20 May 2019 + * [89]Weeknote 9 - Being contemplative, finishing a photo project 12 + May 2019 + * [90]Weeknote 8 – Moving, Endgame, and more musings on colour 5 May + 2019 + * [91]Weeknote 7 - Story length and that thing about colour 29 April + 2019 + * [92]Weeknote 6 – Star Trek, rest and spring finally arrives 22 + April 2019 + * [93]Weeknote 5 – Stuff, comics, superheroes, and other nonsense 14 + April 2019 + * [94]Weeknote 4 – TV week with The Expanse 7 April 2019 + * [95]Weeknote 3 β€” MVPs, fatigue, and emotional crutches 31 March + 2019 + * [96]Web Development: with great power comes the ability to make + great mistakes 24 March 2019 + * [97]Weeknote 2 - Web Development Mistakes, Mary Sues, and Icy + Spring 24 March 2019 + * [98]Weeknote 1 18 March 2019 + * [99]Hitchcock and the author construct 12 February 2019 + * [100]Seams, Stitches, And The Decline Of The Mac 3 November 2018 + * [101]Neither Paper Nor Digital Does Active Reading Well 3 September + 2018 + * [102]Focusing on market share blinds you to growth 7 January 2018 + * [103]The future of Software Development: Just Business Logic 7 + January 2018 + * [104]Remote work is a completely different beast 7 January 2018 + * [105]Hypertext is still the fundamental model of the web 7 January + 2018 + * [106]Leftover Thoughts From 2017 7 January 2018 + * [107]Over-engineering is under-engineering 25 November 2017 + * [108]The process is the thing 23 March 2017 + * [109]Von Be Don: A few notes on a recent digital publishing project + in Iceland 19 February 2017 + * [110]W3C and EME: it isn't about preventing DRM but saving the W3C + 14 February 2017 + * [111]Unpopular opinion: dismissing indirect pointers is a mistake 4 + February 2017 + * [112]Anger feels like poison 24 January 2017 + * [113]Is JavaScript more fragile? 7 December 2016 + * [114]Debating Progressive Enhancement 5 December 2016 + * [115]The downside of believing in Apple 1 November 2016 + * [116]A short primer on Icelandic politics on the day of the 2016 + election 29 October 2016 + * [117]The Tragedy/Farce of the Open Web according to journalists 18 + October 2016 + * [118]Notes on debating for the web development community 17 October + 2016 + * [119]Addendum on loose coupling and the iOS App Store 11 October + 2016 + * [120]Idle thoughts on modularity and loose coupling in digital + media 9 October 2016 + * [121]When fear is rational 24 June 2016 + * [122]Once upon a time, I couldn't imagine a better word processor + than Word 7 June 2016 + * [123]A thought to consider 24 May 2016 + * [124]A few thoughts on standardisation, W3C, and the IDPF 16 May + 2016 + * [125]Filling in the gaps – the dynamics of zero marginal cost 21 + April 2016 + * [126]Which CMS/blog system would you choose? 12 April 2016 + * [127]A few simplified points on web and document security 30 March + 2016 + * [128]Judge the work 21 January 2016 + * [129]Why did Paul Graham argue against equality? 13 January 2016 + * [130]Purpose, Joy, Capability 4 January 2016 + * [131]You can't fix the App Store, so here's how you fix it 20 + November 2015 + * [132]Why I am worried about Twitter and why you should be too 4 + November 2015 + * [133]The crossroads or the wilderness 23 October 2015 + * [134]You can't solve people problems with software 28 September + 2015 + * [135]The discussion about ad blocking is very dumb (but not in the + way you think) 18 September 2015 + * [136]This is not a book, but it is a podcast 10 September 2015 + * [137]A week of 'This is not a book' 7 September 2015 + * [138]Launching "This is not a book" – what it is and why you should + be interested 1 September 2015 + * [139]My kingdom for a new bookstore 28 August 2015 + * [140]Modern software sucks 26 August 2015 + * [141]The cost versus benefits of disorganised programming power 25 + August 2015 + * [142]Who benefits the most from Open Source Software? 25 August + 2015 + * [143]Sex Apocalypse Later 24 August 2015 + * [144]Random thoughts on work and that Amazon thing 23 August 2015 + * [145]Bookmarks – UI flaws and other great capers 14 August 2015 + * [146]Bookmarks – learnable programming 13 August 2015 + * [147]Bookmarks – More money for open-source 12 August 2015 + * [148]Bookmarks – Leaving bosses 11 August 2015 + * [149]Bookmarks – Promoting other people's work 10 August 2015 + * [150]Bookmarks – What Would Kamala Khan Do? 7 August 2015 + * [151]Bookmarks – Trickle down golden geese 6 August 2015 + * [152]Bookmarks – Hateviews are us 5 August 2015 + * [153]Bookmarks – Milk it 4 August 2015 + * [154]Iterating the web away: + losing the next generation 4 August 2015 + * [155]Bookmarks – You haven't been paying attention 3 August 2015 + * [156]Bookmarks – It's a note card world, we just live in it 31 July + 2015 + * [157]Bookmarks – Just call it Smylfeste 30 July 2015 + * [158]Bookmarks – That one is shaped like an idiot 29 July 2015 + * [159]Blogger nostalgia 28 July 2015 + * [160]Bookmarks – Make it simpler 28 July 2015 + * [161]Wet streets cause rain and criminal responsibility 27 July + 2015 + * [162]Tweet bookmarks galore 26 July 2015 + * [163]Random links that catch my fancy, part four of ∞ 23 July 2015 + * [164]Random links that catch my fancy, part three of ∞ 22 July 2015 + * [165]Mythic visions of sexuality 21 July 2015 + * [166]Random links that catch my fancy, part two of ∞ 21 July 2015 + * [167]Random links that catch my fancy, part one of ∞ 20 July 2015 + * [168]An exercise for the reader in integration and modularity 17 + July 2015 + * [169]How to read my nonsense 17 July 2015 + * [170]Is it distributed or just a disorganised hierarchy? 10 July + 2015 + * [171]On the vaunted robustness of the web 10 July 2015 + * [172]The rules of the game have changed for RSS 10 July 2015 + * [173]The web app developer's lament 6 July 2015 + * [174]Other people write about digital media 25 June 2015 + * [175]The plural of 'Medium' is clearly 'clusterfuck' 25 June 2015 + * [176]Burnout 24 June 2015 + * [177]The files Steven Pressfield works with 24 June 2015 + * [178]iOS 9 content blocking extensions are not a mobile advertising + armageddon 14 June 2015 + * [179]Writing the Other: + a book that's useful to all writers 3 June 2015 + * [180]Should I make a WWDC prediction? + Yes, let's 3 June 2015 + * [181]Grim Meathook Present #2 2 June 2015 + * [182]Other people discuss software quality (spoiler: it sucks) 2 + June 2015 + * [183]Other people talk about startups and entrepreneurship 2 June + 2015 + * [184]A few quick links and thoughts on big web problems 29 May 2015 + * [185]I really want the Supergirl TV show to be fun 25 May 2015 + * [186]Our Grim Meathook Present 25 May 2015 + * [187]The new age of HTML: + the web is being torn apart 20 May 2015 + * [188]Her movie, his name; + Mad Max: Fury Road 19 May 2015 + * [189]We are a violent species 19 May 2015 + * [190]Toxic environments: + inequality in tech is a symptom of something worse 18 May 2015 + * [191]Where I write about Facebook's Instant Articles 16 May 2015 + * [192]Facebook and the media: + united, they attack the web 15 May 2015 + * [193]Speeding up decision cycles with rules and heuristics 14 May + 2015 + * [194]You are here #5: + UX, design, and CSS as a parasite 14 May 2015 + * [195]You are here #4: + an epic journey through app dev and male bodies 13 May 2015 + * [196]You are here #3: + the glorious wonders of online reading await you 12 May 2015 + * [197]2015-05-11-18-39-16 11 May 2015 + * [198]You are here #2: + an artisanal curation of reading material 11 May 2015 + * [199]You are here #1: + a selection of fine links and tweets for your pleasure 10 May 2015 + * [200]2015-05-07-00-59-18 7 May 2015 + * [201]Five publishing-related thoughts on a Friday afternoon 4 May + 2015 + * [202]Why should people read more books? 4 May 2015 + * [203]How is taxing ebooks as print books supposed to work? 4 May + 2015 + * [204]Kathy Sierra's Badass: Making Users Awesome – the book you all + should read 4 March 2015 + * [205]Idle Sunday thoughts about web trends 1 March 2015 + * [206]Repetition only works in fiction 1 March 2015 + * [207]The web has covered the basicsβ€Šβ€”β€Šthat’s why it’ll get harder + from now 1 March 2015 + * [208]A draft of a chapter of some thoughts on things. 9 January + 2015 + * [209]Taking stock of 2013 and 2014 31 December 2014 + * [210]The weather, of course 17 December 2014 + * [211]Publishing business ideas are a dime a dozen 3 December 2014 + * [212]EU VAT changes shift the digital landscape 25 November 2014 + * [213]Money is a poor measure of value 25 November 2014 + * [214]On conferences 13 November 2014 + * [215]Crushed by multinationals 12 November 2014 + * [216]Software as a strategy: prefabricated publishers 7 November + 2014 + * [217]Software as strategy in the ebook world 6 November 2014 + * [218]The five types of unpublished books 5 November 2014 + * [219]Four hundred words from Anita Elberse's book "Blockbusters" 4 + November 2014 + * [220]The splintered author 4 November 2014 + * [221]There is no war between Amazon and Traditional Publishing 3 + November 2014 + * [222]Ebooks suck for learning 10 October 2014 + * [223]The Poisoning of Social Media: A Reading List 9 September 2014 + * [224]Wobbly Amazon 10 August 2014 + * [225]This week's must-read post 24 July 2014 + * [226]Friends don’t let their friends become authors 10 July 2014 + * [227]Both at the same time 4 July 2014 + * [228]So I had to make an ebook cover... 15 April 2014 + * [229]So long, Readmill, and thanks for all the fish 31 March 2014 + * [230]What ebook production problems are self-publishers facing? 24 + March 2014 + * [231]Many stories, many truths 13 March 2014 + * [232]Problem statements for digital publishing research 28 February + 2014 + * [233]To do, to do 21 February 2014 + * [234]iBooks Author tempts you with bling 20 February 2014 + * [235]Microsoft Word is a liability 19 February 2014 + * [236]The print design mentality 18 February 2014 + * [237]Book contracts 12 February 2014 + * [238]Intermission: sorting through the banal 5 February 2014 + * [239]How to create value with a new thing 30 January 2014 + * [240]HTML is too complex 29 January 2014 + * [241]The ebook as an API 28 January 2014 + * [242]My last word on DRM 27 January 2014 + * [243]Except, except, except 23 January 2014 + * [244]A thought exercise 22 January 2014 + * [245]Losing faith in yourself 21 January 2014 + * [246]Changing your readership mix 20 January 2014 + * [247]Sex, education, readers, and futures: what works, what doesn't + 18 January 2014 + * [248]The various types of readers 17 January 2014 + * [249]The unevenly distributed ebook future 16 January 2014 + * [250]Sex, violence, and stΓ­lbrot 15 January 2014 + * [251]Recipe for pundit response to Hugh Howey’s suggestions 14 + January 2014 + * [252]Bling it up for education 13 January 2014 + * [253]Blogging has trained me to assume you’re stupid 9 January 2014 + * [254]Ergodic literature 8 January 2014 + * [255]What I thought I wanted versus what I really wanted 7 January + 2014 + * [256]The mistake of 'enhancing' novels 6 January 2014 + * [257]Pessimistic ramblings and other fun links (week overview + + further reading) 4 January 2014 + * [258]Stumbling into publishing 3 January 2014 + * [259]The publishing industry's new product categories 2 January + 2014 + * [260]The last two Knights and Necromancers stories 1 January 2014 + * [261]Random, loosely connected, thoughts on the future 31 December + 2013 + * [262]Old photos posted without context: ReykjavΓ­k Cats 29 December + 2013 + * [263]Old photos posted without context: Sweep After Use 22 December + 2013 + * [264]The Checklist: fix iBooks image handling 20 December 2013 + * [265]Great text transcends nothing 17 December 2013 + * [266]Quarantine all ebooks 17 October 2013 + * [267]The self-publisher's perspective of the ebook market 17 + October 2013 + * [268]Light evening trauma 10 October 2013 + * [269]Just say no to ebook CSS and JS 2 October 2013 + * [270]The Google Wave Heuristic 17 September 2013 + * [271]Amazon's biggest ally is Apple 12 September 2013 + * [272]Readmill versus Kindle – Readmill is worth the hassle 26 + August 2013 + * [273]Proprietary ebook formats versus DRM 19 August 2013 + * [274]Publishing has catered to dumb for a long while 16 August 2013 + * [275]Computers are too difficult and people are computer illiterate + 14 August 2013 + * [276]Why disruption goes unchecked 12 August 2013 + * [277]Make ebooks worth it 9 August 2013 + * [278]Ebooks and cognitive mapping 8 August 2013 + * [279]Ebook silos, update 7 August 2013 + * [280]Ebook silos and missed opportunities 6 August 2013 + * [281]Technology is not inherently good 5 August 2013 + * [282]Administrative note on baldurbjarnason.com and feeds 29 July + 2013 + * [283]Posted without comment 29 July 2013 + * [284]The inefficiencies of joy 24 July 2013 + * [285]Winner takes all versus the Matthew effect 23 July 2013 + * [286]What you people read (on my websites) 22 July 2013 + * [287]Tolerating the heat, noticing the water 19 July 2013 + * [288]If the Kindle fails so will ebooks 18 July 2013 + * [289]Followup to 'this ebook is a lemon' 16 July 2013 + * [290]This ebook is a lemon 12 July 2013 + * [291]Caught between madmen and mercenaries 10 July 2013 + * [292]Major update to Studio Tendra's Oz project 3 July 2013 + * [293]What are self-publishing's biggest pain points? 1 July 2013 + * [294]Intellectual terrain 1 July 2013 + * [295]Good books don't win 26 June 2013 + * [296]Why does it matter? 10 May 2013 + * [297]The OZ Reading Club: Books three and four 7 May 2013 + * [298]Which kind of innovation? 3 May 2013 + * [299]Books and Print Showcase 2 May 2013 + * [300]Peasants 30 April 2013 + * [301]For the love 14 April 2013 + * [302]The idiocies of young men 5 April 2013 + * [303]Studio Tendra's grand and marvellous Oz Reading Club 2 April + 2013 + * [304]Iceland’s β€˜crowd-sourced’ constitution is dead 29 March 2013 + * [305]The B&N fallacy 27 February 2013 + * [306]Hire me! 19 February 2013 + * [307]A question only you can answer 15 February 2013 + * [308]Respect the reader 6 February 2013 + * [309]33 observations on the year 2012 5 February 2013 + * [310]Knights and Necromancers: new books and megapacks! 4 February + 2013 + * [311]The falcon's shriek 2 January 2013 + * [312]What is actually going on in Iceland 29 December 2012 + * [313]Merry Christmas! 25 December 2012 + * [314]Tag soup is history 21 December 2012 + * [315]Schlock 15 December 2012 + * [316]Strange definitions of 'nice' 5 December 2012 + * [317]Books of Christmas Past 4 December 2012 + * [318]Using IDs in CSS 26 November 2012 + * [319]Design highlights from the Icelandic book season 22 November + 2012 + * [320]News, updates, and the Icelandic book market 19 November 2012 + * [321]A response, of sorts 15 November 2012 + * [322]High tide and a room of your own 8 November 2012 + * [323]Knights and Necromancers 2 has been released 6 November 2012 + * [324]The comment-fiction challenge post-mortem 30 October 2012 + * [325]Fantasy, Collapse, and a sense of history 29 October 2012 + * [326]Two questions on putting books on the web 26 October 2012 + * [327]iBooks 3.0 25 October 2012 + * [328]Perceptions of society 22 October 2012 + * [329]What I've been up to 19 October 2012 + * [330]The Readmill comment fiction challenge 1 October 2012 + * [331]Is it safe? 27 September 2012 + * [332]The time work takes 24 September 2012 + * [333]I need your help 21 September 2012 + * [334]Designing the covers 19 September 2012 + * [335]Free Kindle version 19 September 2012 + * [336]What is this? 17 September 2012 + * [337]The stillborn creature 1 August 2012 + * [338]EPUB javascript security 27 July 2012 + * [339]I be writing 21 July 2012 + * [340]Farce 16 July 2012 + * [341]Bad writing 19 June 2012 + * [342]A few random points on DRM 7 June 2012 + * [343]The web and ebooks have little in common 7 May 2012 + * [344]The end of ebook development 26 April 2012 + * [345]Aftermath – notes on the Amazon post 20 April 2012 + * [346]Today is not tomorrow (or, how to beat Amazon) 15 April 2012 + * [347]Bits, bobs, and anecdata 3 April 2012 + * [348]Lessons in interactivity 29 March 2012 + * [349]Hierarchies of ebook design 20 March 2012 + * [350]It's time to treat ebook developers as developers 12 March + 2012 + * [351]Code doesn't change minds 7 March 2012 + * [352]Game over, Amazon wins 3 March 2012 + * [353]On CSS Page Templates 2 March 2012 + * [354]Javascript in ebooks 29 February 2012 + * [355]Explanatory windows 20 February 2012 + * [356]Readium and other good intentions 13 February 2012 + * [357]ePub windows and widgets – a proposal 10 February 2012 + * [358]The semantics of ebook widgets 4 February 2012 + * [359]iBooks widgets – to javascript or not to javascript 1 February + 2012 + * [360]What do we want from the Kindle platform? 1 February 2012 + * [361]Disruptive crap 27 January 2012 + * [362]Me, elsewhere 26 January 2012 + * [363]The pros and cons of the iBooks 2.0 textbook format 21 January + 2012 + * [364]The iBooks 2.0 built-in widgets 20 January 2012 + * [365]The iBooks 2.0 textbook format 19 January 2012 + * [366]The publishing animal 17 January 2012 + * [367]A day of innovation on the future of the book 8 December 2011 + * [368]What a publisher does 30 November 2011 + * [369]Design pseudoscience 8 November 2011 + * [370]A tale of three blog posts 28 October 2011 + * [371]CSS and ebook design 24 October 2011 + * [372]The loss of ambient intimacy 15 September 2011 + * [373]Friday links and reading 26 August 2011 + * [374]Convert or engage 4 August 2011 + * [375]CSS3 Hyphens 30 July 2011 + * [376]Just you & Google 29 July 2011 + * [377]Knowledge is not adoption 24 July 2011 + * [378]HTML5 history API 23 July 2011 + * [379]Your friends, in boxes 17 July 2011 + * [380]Localstorage & messaging in ePub 27 January 2011 + * [381]Javascript in epub 26 January 2011 + * [382]An epub experiment 25 January 2011 + * [383]What is an ebook? 21 December 2010 + * [384]Hypotheses and testing 25 October 2010 + * [385]Identifying publishing innovators 7 October 2010 + * [386]On quality in publishing 7 October 2010 + * [387]An interesting discussion 28 June 2010 + + You can also find me on [388]Mastodon and [389]Twitter + +References + + 1. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/feed.xml + 2. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/archive + 3. https://softwarecrisis.dev/ + 4. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/ + 5. mailto:baldur.bjarnason@gmail.com + 6. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/ + 7. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/work/2021 + 8. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/ + 9. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/ + 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyIQKBzIuBY + 11. https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html + 12. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm:978-3-319-90008-7/1.pdf + 13. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/ + 14. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/ + 15. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/ + 16. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/wtf-is-a-framework/ + 17. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/ootsc-update/ + 18. https://softwarecrisis.dev/ + 19. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/gdpr-and-american-ais/ + 20. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/regulating-ai/ + 21. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/ai-in-health-and-summaries/ + 22. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/keeping-up-with-ai-research/ + 23. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/waiting-for-ai-godot/ + 24. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/situating-search-links-notes/ + 25. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/open-offices-links-notes/ + 26. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/book-production-ai-spa/ + 27. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/how-i-made-my-book/ + 28. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/ai-is-a-hail-mary-pass/ + 29. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/copyright-for-ai/ + 30. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/on-the-layoffs-and-other/ + 31. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/madeline-existential-terror/ + 32. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/book-available-on-kindle/ + 33. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/a-month-of-book/ + 34. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/ootsc-update/ + 35. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/programming-is-a-pop-culture/ + 36. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/wtf-is-a-framework/ + 37. 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https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/09/17/the-google-wave-heuristic/ + 271. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/09/12/amazons-biggest-ally-is-apple/ + 272. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/26/readmill-versus-kindle-readmill-is-worth-the-hassle/ + 273. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/19/proprietary-ebook-formats-versus-drm/ + 274. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/16/publishing-has-catered-to-dumb-for-a-long-while/ + 275. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/14/computers-are-both-too-difficult-and-people-are-computer-illiterate/ + 276. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/12/why-disruption-goes-unchecked/ + 277. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/09/make-ebooks-worth-it/ + 278. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/08/ebooks-and-cognitive-mapping/ + 279. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/07/ebook-silos-update/ + 280. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/06/ebook-silos-and-missed-opportunities/ + 281. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/08/05/technology-is-not-inherently-good/ + 282. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/29/administrative-note-on-baldurbjarnason-com-and-feeds/ + 283. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/29/posted-without-comment/ + 284. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/24/the-inefficiencies-of-joy/ + 285. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/23/winner-takes-all-versus-the-matthew-effect/ + 286. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/22/what-you-people-read-on-my-websites/ + 287. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/19/tolerating-the-heat-noticing-the-water/ + 288. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/18/if-the-kindle-fails-so-will-ebooks/ + 289. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/16/followup-to-this-ebook-is-a-lemon/ + 290. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/12/this-ebook-is-a-lemon/ + 291. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/10/caught-between-madmen-and-mercenaries/ + 292. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/03/major-update-to-studio-tendras-oz-project/ + 293. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/01/what-are-self-publishings-biggest-pain-points/ + 294. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/07/01/intellectual-terrain/ + 295. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/06/26/good-books-dont-win/ + 296. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/why-does-it-matter/ + 297. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/05/07/the-oz-reading-club-books-two-and-three/ + 298. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-ebook-innovation/ + 299. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/books-and-print/ + 300. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/04/30/peasants/ + 301. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/for-the-love/ + 302. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/04/05/the-idiocies-of-young-men/ + 303. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/04/02/studio-tendras-grand-and-marvelous-oz-reading-club/ + 304. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/03/29/icelands-crowd-sourced-constitution-is-dead/ + 305. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-bn-fallacy/ + 306. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/hire-me/ + 307. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/02/15/a-question-only-you-can-answer/ + 308. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/respect-the-reader/ + 309. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/02/05/33-observations-on-the-year-2012/ + 310. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/02/04/knights-and-necromancers-new-books-and-megapacks/ + 311. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2013/01/02/the-falcons-shriek/ + 312. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/12/29/what-is-actually-going-on-in-iceland/ + 313. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/12/25/merry-christmas/ + 314. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/tag-soup/ + 315. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/schlock/ + 316. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/12/05/strange-definitions-of-nice/ + 317. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/12/04/books-of-christmas-past/ + 318. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/ids-in-css/ + 319. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/11/22/design-highlights-from-the-icelandic-book-season/ + 320. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/11/19/news-updates-and-the-icelandic-book-market/ + 321. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/standardisation/ + 322. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/11/08/high-tide-and-a-room-of-your-own/ + 323. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/11/06/knights-and-necromancers-2-has-been-released/ + 324. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/10/30/the-comment-fiction-challenge-post-mortem/ + 325. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/10/29/fantasy-collapse-and-a-sense-of-history/ + 326. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/10/26/two-questions-on-putting-books-on-the-web/ + 327. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/ibooks-30/ + 328. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/10/22/perceptions-of-society/ + 329. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/10/19/what-ive-been-up-to/ + 330. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/10/01/the-readmill-comment-fiction-challenge/ + 331. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/is-it-safe/ + 332. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-time-work-takes/ + 333. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/09/21/i-need-your-help/ + 334. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/09/19/designing-the-covers/ + 335. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/09/19/free-kindle-version/ + 336. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2012/09/17/what-is-this/ + 337. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-stillborn-creature/ + 338. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/epub-javascript-security/ + 339. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/i-be-writing/ + 340. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/farce/ + 341. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/bad-writing/ + 342. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/points-on-drm/ + 343. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/web-and-ebooks/ + 344. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/end-of-ebook-dev/ + 345. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/aftermath/ + 346. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/today-is-not-tomorrow/ + 347. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/bits-and-bobs/ + 348. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/lessons-in-interactivity/ + 349. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/hierarchies-of-ebook-design/ + 350. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/treat-ebook-developers-as-developers/ + 351. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/code-does-not-change-minds/ + 352. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/amazon-wins/ + 353. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/idpf-css-pgt/ + 354. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/javascript-in-ebooks/ + 355. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/explanatory-windows/ + 356. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/readium-and-good-intentions/ + 357. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/epub-widgets-and-windows/ + 358. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/ebook-widget-semantics/ + 359. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/widgets-javascript/ + 360. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/what-do-we-want-from-the-kindle/ + 361. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/disruptive-crap/ + 362. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/elsewhere/ + 363. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-pros-and-cons-of-iBooks-2/ + 364. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-ibooks-builtin-widgets/ + 365. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-ibooks-textbook-format/ + 366. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-publishing-animal/ + 367. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/A-day-of-innovation-on-the-future-of-the-book/ + 368. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/what-a-publisher-does/ + 369. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/Design-Pseudoscience/ + 370. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/a-tale-of-three-blog-posts/ + 371. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/css-and-ebook-design/ + 372. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/the-loss-of-ambient-intimacy/ + 373. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/friday-links-and-reading/ + 374. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/convert-or-engage/ + 375. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/CSS3-hyphens/ + 376. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/just-you-and-the-megacorporation/ + 377. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/knowledge-is-not-adoption/ + 378. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/HTML5-history-api/ + 379. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/social-in-the-mind/ + 380. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/localstorage-and-messaging/ + 381. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/javascript-in-epub/ + 382. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/an-epub-experiment/ + 383. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/what-is-an-ebook/ + 384. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/hypotheses-and-testing/ + 385. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/identifying-publishing-inn/ + 386. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/on-quality-in-publishing/ + 387. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/notes/An-interesting-discussion/ + 388. https://toot.cafe/@baldur + 389. https://twitter.com/fakebaldur diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-nytimes-com-gvijqf.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-nytimes-com-gvijqf.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14f7a7b --- /dev/null +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-nytimes-com-gvijqf.txt @@ -0,0 +1,307 @@ + #[1]alternate [2]Julia Cameron Wants You to Do Your Morning Pages + + (BUTTON) + (BUTTON) Sections + (BUTTON) SEARCH + [3]Skip to content + + [4]Style|Julia Cameron Wants You to Do Your Morning Pages + https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/style/julia-cameron-the-artists-way. + html + * (BUTTON) Give this article + * (BUTTON) + * (BUTTON) + + Julia Cameron, making change at 70. + Julia Cameron, making change at 70.Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New + York Times + +Julia Cameron Wants You to Do Your Morning Pages + + With β€œThe Artist’s Way,” Julia Cameron invented the way people renovate + the creative soul. + + Julia Cameron, making change at 70.Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New + York Times + + Supported by + [5]Continue reading the main story + * Send any friend a story + As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. + Anyone can read what you share. + (BUTTON) + (BUTTON) Give this article + * (BUTTON) + * (BUTTON) + + [6]Penelope Green + + By [7]Penelope Green + * Feb. 2, 2019 + + SANTA FE, N.M. β€” On any given day, someone somewhere is likely leading + an Artist’s Way group, gamely knocking back the exercises of β€œThe + Artist’s Way” book, the quasi-spiritual manual for β€œcreative recovery,” + as its author Julia Cameron puts it, that has been a lodestar to + blocked writers and other artistic hopefuls for more than a quarter of + a century. There have been Artist’s Way clusters in the Australian + outback and the Panamanian jungle; in Brazil, Russia, the United + Kingdom and Japan; and also, as a cursory scan of Artist’s Way Meetups + reveals, in Des Moines and Toronto. It has been taught in prisons and + sober communities, at spiritual retreats and New Age centers, from + Esalen to Sedona, from the Omega Institute to the [8]Open Center, where + Ms. Cameron will appear in late March, as she does most years. + Adherents of β€œThe Artist’s Way” include the authors Patricia Cornwell + and Sarah Ban Breathnach. Pete Townshend, Alicia Keys and Helmut Newton + have all noted its influence on their work. + + So has Tim Ferriss, the hyperactive productivity guru behind β€œThe Four + Hour Workweek,” though to save time he didn’t actually read the book, + β€œwhich was recommended to me by many megaselling authors,” [9]he + writes. He just did the β€œMorning Pages,” one of the book’s central + exercises. It requires you write three pages, by hand, first thing in + the morning, about whatever comes to mind. (Fortunes would seem to have + been made on the journals printed to support this effort.) The book’s + other main dictum is the β€œArtist’s Date” β€” two hours of alone time each + week to be spent at a gallery, say, or any place where a new experience + might be possible. + + Elizabeth Gilbert, who has β€œdone” the book three times, said there + would be no β€œEat, Pray, Love,” without β€œThe Artist’s Way.” Without it, + there might be no [10]adult coloring books, no [11]journaling fever. + β€œCreativity” would not have its own publishing niche or have become a + ubiquitous buzzword β€” the β€œfat-free” of the self-help world β€” and + business pundits would not deploy it as a specious organizing + principle. + Image + + The book’s enduring success β€” over 4 million copies have been sold + since its publication in 1992 β€” have made its author, a shy + Midwesterner who had a bit of early fame in the 1970s for practicing + lively New Journalism at the Washington Post and Rolling Stone, among + other publications, and for being married, briefly, to Martin Scorsese, + with whom she has a daughter, Domenica β€” an unlikely celebrity. With + its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists + and tasks β€” write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, + for example β€” β€œThe Artist’s Way” proposes an egalitarian view of + creativity: Everyone’s got it. + + The book promises to free up that inner artist in 12 weeks. It’s a + template that would seem to reflect the practices of 12-step programs, + particularly its invocations to a higher power. But according to Ms. + Cameron, who has been sober since she was 29, β€œ12 weeks is how long it + takes for people to cook.” + + Now 70, she lives in a spare adobe house in Santa Fe, overlooking an + acre of scrub and the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. She moved a few + years ago from Manhattan, following an exercise from her book to list + 25 things you love. As she recalled, β€œI wrote juniper, sage brush, + chili, mountains and sky and I said, β€˜This is not the Chrysler + Building.’” On a recent snowy afternoon, Ms. Cameron, who has enormous + blue eyes and a nimbus of blonde hair, admitted to the jitters before + this interview. β€œI asked three friends to pray for me,” she said. β€œI + also wrote a note to myself to be funny.” + + In the early 1970s, Ms. Cameron, who is the second oldest of seven + children and grew up just north of Chicago, was making $67 a week + working in the mail room of the Washington Post. At the same time, she + was writing deft lifestyle pieces for the paper β€” like an East Coast + Eve Babitz. β€œWith a byline, no one knows you’re just a gofer,” she + said. + + In her reporting, Ms. Cameron observed an epidemic of green nail polish + and other β€œCabaret”-inspired behaviors in Beltway bars, and slyly + reviewed a new party drug, methaqualone. She was also, by her own + admission, a blackout drunk. β€œI thought drinking was something you did + and your friends told you about it later,” she said. β€œIn retrospect, in + cozy retrospect, I was in trouble from my first drink.” + + She met Mr. Scorsese on assignment for Oui magazine and fell hard for + him. She did a bit of script-doctoring on β€œTaxi Driver,” and followed + the director to Los Angeles. β€œI got pregnant on our wedding night,” she + said. β€œLike a good Catholic girl.” When Mr. Scorsese took up with Liza + Minnelli while all three were working on β€œNew York, New York,” the + marriage was done. (She recently made a painting depicting herself as a + white horse and Mr. Scorsese as a lily. β€œI wanted to make a picture + about me and Marty,” she said. β€œHe was magical-seeming to me and when I + look at it I think, β€˜Oh, she’s fascinated, but she doesn’t + understand.’”) + + Image Under the pines. + Under the pines.Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New York Times + + In her memoir, β€œFloor Sample,” published in 2006, Ms. Cameron recounts + the brutality of Hollywood, of her life there as a screenwriter and a + drunk. Pauline Kael, she writes, described her as a β€œpornographic + Victorian valentine, like a young Angela Lansbury.” Don’t marry her for + tax reasons, Ms. Kael warns Mr. Scorsese. Andy Warhol, who escorts her + to the premiere of β€œNew York, New York,” inscribes her into his diary + as a β€œlush.” A cocaine dealer soothes her β€” β€œYou have a tiny little + wife’s habit” β€” and a doctor shoos her away from his hospital when she + asks for help, telling her she’s no alcoholic, just a β€œsensitive young + woman.” She goes into labor in full makeup and a Chinese dressing gown, + vowing to be β€œno trouble.” + + β€œI think it’s fair to say that drinking and drugs stopped looking like + a path to success,” she said. β€œSo I luckily stopped. I had a couple of + sober friends and they said, β€˜Try and let the higher power write + through you.’ And I said, What if he doesn’t want to?’ They said, β€˜Just + try it.’” + + So she did. She wrote novels and screenplays. She wrote poems and + musicals. She wasn’t always well-reviewed, but she took the knocks with + typical grit, and she schooled others to do so as well. β€œI have + unblocked poets, lawyers and painters,” she said. She taught her tools + in living rooms and classrooms β€” β€œif someone was dumb enough to lend us + one,” she said β€” and back in New York, at the Feminist Art Institute. + Over the years, she refined her tools, typed them up, and sold Xeroxed + copies in local bookstores for $20. It was her second husband, Mark + Bryan, a writer, who needled her into making the pages into a proper + book. + + The first printing was about 9,000 copies, said Joel Fotinos, formerly + the publisher at Tarcher/Penguin, which published the book in 1992. + There was concern that it wouldn’t sell. β€œPart of the reason,” Mr. + Fotinos said, β€œwas that this was a book that wasn’t like anything else. + We didn’t know where to put it on the shelves β€” did it go in religion + or self-help? Eventually there was a category called β€˜creativity,’ and + β€˜The Artist’s Way’ launched it.” Now an editorial director at St. + Martin’s Press, Mr. Fotinos said he is deluged with pitches from + authors claiming they’ve written β€œthe new Artist’s Way.” + + β€œBut for Julia, creativity was a tool for survival,” he said. β€œIt was + literally her medicine and that’s why the book is so authentic, and + resonates with so many people.” + + β€œI am my tool kits,” Ms. Cameron said. + + And, indeed, β€œThe Artist’s Way” is stuffed with tools: worksheets to be + filled with thoughts about money, childhood games, old hurts; wish + lists and exercises, many of which seem exhaustive and exhausting β€” + β€œWrite down any resistance, angers and fears,” e.g. β€” and others that + are more practical: β€œTake a 20 minutes walk,” β€œMend any mending” and + β€œrepot any pinched and languishing plants.” It anticipates the work of + the indefatigable [12]Gretchen Rubin, the happiness maven, if Ms. Rubin + were a bit kinder but less Type-A. + + β€œWhen I teach, it’s like watching the lights come on,” said Ms. + Cameron. β€œMy students don’t get lectured to. I think they feel safe. + Rather than try and fix themselves, they learn to accept themselves. I + think my work makes people autonomous. I feel like people fall in love + with themselves.” + + Anne Lamott, the inspirational writer and novelist, said that when she + was teaching writing full-time, her own students swore by β€œThe Artist’s + Way.” β€œThat exercise β€” three pages of automatic writing β€” was a + sacrament for people,” Ms. Lamott wrote in a recent email. β€œThey could + plug into something bigger than the rat exercise wheel of self-loathing + and grandiosity that every writer experiences: β€˜This could very easily + end up being an Oprah Book,’ or β€˜Who do I think I’m fooling? I’m a + subhuman blowhard.’” + + β€œShe’s given you an assignment that is doable, and I think it’s kind of + a cognitive centering device. Like scribbly meditation,” Ms. Lamott + wrote. β€œIt’s sort of like how manicurists put smooth pebbles in the + warm soaking water, so your fingers have something to do, and you don’t + climb the walls.” + + Image + In the wild.Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New York Times + + Ms. Cameron continues to write her Morning Pages every day, even though + she continues, as she said, to be grouchy upon awakening. She eats + oatmeal at a local cafe and walks Lily, an eager white Westie. She + reads no newspapers, or social media (perhaps the most grueling tenet + of β€œThe Artist’s Way” is a week of β€œreading deprivation”), though an + assistant runs a Twitter and Instagram account on her behalf. She + writes for hours, mostly musicals, collaborating with her daughter, a + film director, and others. + + Ms. Cameron may be a veteran of the modern self-care movement but her + life has not been all moonbeams and rainbows, and it shows. She was + candid in conversation, if not quite at ease. β€œSo I haven’t proven + myself to be hilarious,” she said with a flash of dry humor, adding + that even after so many years, she still gets stage-fright before + beginning a workshop. + + She has written about her own internal critic, imagining a gay British + interior designer she calls Nigel. β€œAnd nothing is ever good enough for + Nigel,” she said. But she soldiers on. + + She will tell you that she has good boundaries. But like many + successful women, she brushes off her achievements, attributing her + unlooked-for wins to luck. + + β€œIf you have to learn how to do a movie, you might learn from Martin + Scorsese. If you have to learn about entrepreneurship, you might learn + from Mark” β€” her second husband. β€œSo I’m very lucky,” she said. β€œIf I + have a hard time blowing my own horn, I’ve been attracted to people who + blew it for me.” + + Advertisement + [13]Continue reading the main story + +Site Index + +Site Information Navigation + + * [14]Β© 2023 The New York Times Company + + * [15]NYTCo + * [16]Contact Us + * [17]Accessibility + * [18]Work with us + * [19]Advertise + * [20]T Brand Studio + * [21]Your Ad Choices + * [22]Privacy Policy + * [23]Terms of Service + * [24]Terms of Sale + * [25]Site Map + * [26]Canada + * [27]International + * [28]Help + * [29]Subscriptions + + IFRAME: + [30]https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-P528B3>m_auth=tfA + zqo1rYDLgYhmTnSjPqw>m_preview=env-130>m_cookies_win=x + +References + + Visible links: + 1. nyt://article/0b13a9e1-3729-51ef-aad3-030df3ab15bb + 2. https://www.nytimes.com/svc/oembed/json/?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/style/julia-cameron-the-artists-way.html + 3. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/style/julia-cameron-the-artists-way.html#site-content + 4. https://www.nytimes.com/section/style + 5. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/style/julia-cameron-the-artists-way.html#after-sponsor + 6. https://www.nytimes.com/by/penelope-green + 7. https://www.nytimes.com/by/penelope-green + 8. https://www.opencenter.org/ + 9. https://tim.blog/tag/artists-way/ + 10. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/fashion/adult-coloring-books-relaxation.html + 11. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/style/journaling-benefits.html + 12. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/style/personality-type-the-four-tendencies-gretchen-rubin.html + 13. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/style/julia-cameron-the-artists-way.html#after-bottom + 14. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014792127-Copyright-notice + 15. https://www.nytco.com/ + 16. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015385887-Contact-Us + 17. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015727108-Accessibility + 18. https://www.nytco.com/careers/ + 19. https://nytmediakit.com/ + 20. https://www.tbrandstudio.com/ + 21. https://www.nytimes.com/privacy/cookie-policy#how-do-i-manage-trackers + 22. https://www.nytimes.com/privacy/privacy-policy + 23. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014893428-Terms-of-service + 24. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014893968-Terms-of-sale + 25. https://www.nytimes.com/sitemap/ + 26. https://www.nytimes.com/ca/?action=click®ion=Footer&pgtype=Homepage + 27. https://www.nytimes.com/international/?action=click®ion=Footer&pgtype=Homepage + 28. https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us + 29. https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=37WXW + 30. https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-P528B3>m_auth=tfAzqo1rYDLgYhmTnSjPqw>m_preview=env-130>m_cookies_win=x + + Hidden links: + 32. https://www.nytimes.com/ + 33. https://www.nytimes.com/ + 34. https://www.nytimes.com/ diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-nytimes-com-tq2xdi.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-nytimes-com-tq2xdi.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 78fe63c..0000000 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-1-march-2023/www-nytimes-com-tq2xdi.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,248 +0,0 @@ -Sections -SEARCH -Skip to content - -Style|Julia Cameron Wants You to Do Your Morning Pages - -https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/style/julia-cameron-the-artists-way.html - - β€’ Give this article - β€’ - β€’ - -Julia Cameron, making change at 70. -Julia Cameron, making change at 70.Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New York -Times - -Julia Cameron Wants You to Do Your Morning Pages - -With β€œThe Artist’s Way,” Julia Cameron invented the way people renovate the -creative soul. - -Julia Cameron, making change at 70.Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New York -Times - -Supported by - -Continue reading the main story - - β€’ Send any friend a story - - As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can - read what you share. - - Give this article - β€’ - β€’ - -Penelope Green - -By Penelope Green - - β€’ Feb. 2, 2019 - -SANTA FE, N.M. β€” On any given day, someone somewhere is likely leading an -Artist’s Way group, gamely knocking back the exercises of β€œThe Artist’s Way” -book, the quasi-spiritual manual for β€œcreative recovery,” as its author Julia -Cameron puts it, that has been a lodestar to blocked writers and other artistic -hopefuls for more than a quarter of a century. There have been Artist’s Way -clusters in the Australian outback and the Panamanian jungle; in Brazil, -Russia, the United Kingdom and Japan; and also, as a cursory scan of Artist’s -Way Meetups reveals, in Des Moines and Toronto. It has been taught in prisons -and sober communities, at spiritual retreats and New Age centers, from Esalen -to Sedona, from the Omega Institute to the Open Center, where Ms. Cameron will -appear in late March, as she does most years. Adherents of β€œThe Artist’s Way” -include the authors Patricia Cornwell and Sarah Ban Breathnach. Pete Townshend, -Alicia Keys and Helmut Newton have all noted its influence on their work. - -So has Tim Ferriss, the hyperactive productivity guru behind β€œThe Four Hour -Workweek,” though to save time he didn’t actually read the book, β€œwhich was -recommended to me by many megaselling authors,” he writes. He just did the -β€œMorning Pages,” one of the book’s central exercises. It requires you write -three pages, by hand, first thing in the morning, about whatever comes to mind. -(Fortunes would seem to have been made on the journals printed to support this -effort.) The book’s other main dictum is the β€œArtist’s Date” β€” two hours of -alone time each week to be spent at a gallery, say, or any place where a new -experience might be possible. - -Elizabeth Gilbert, who has β€œdone” the book three times, said there would be no -β€œEat, Pray, Love,” without β€œThe Artist’s Way.” Without it, there might be no -adult coloring books, no journaling fever. β€œCreativity” would not have its own -publishing niche or have become a ubiquitous buzzword β€” the β€œfat-free” of the -self-help world β€” and business pundits would not deploy it as a specious -organizing principle. - -Image - -The book’s enduring success β€” over 4 million copies have been sold since its -publication in 1992 β€” have made its author, a shy Midwesterner who had a bit of -early fame in the 1970s for practicing lively New Journalism at the Washington -Post and Rolling Stone, among other publications, and for being married, -briefly, to Martin Scorsese, with whom she has a daughter, Domenica β€” an -unlikely celebrity. With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, -fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks β€” write yourself a thank-you letter, describe -yourself at 80, for example β€” β€œThe Artist’s Way” proposes an egalitarian view -of creativity: Everyone’s got it. - -The book promises to free up that inner artist in 12 weeks. It’s a template -that would seem to reflect the practices of 12-step programs, particularly its -invocations to a higher power. But according to Ms. Cameron, who has been sober -since she was 29, β€œ12 weeks is how long it takes for people to cook.” - -Now 70, she lives in a spare adobe house in Santa Fe, overlooking an acre of -scrub and the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. She moved a few years ago from -Manhattan, following an exercise from her book to list 25 things you love. As -she recalled, β€œI wrote juniper, sage brush, chili, mountains and sky and I -said, β€˜This is not the Chrysler Building.’” On a recent snowy afternoon, Ms. -Cameron, who has enormous blue eyes and a nimbus of blonde hair, admitted to -the jitters before this interview. β€œI asked three friends to pray for me,” she -said. β€œI also wrote a note to myself to be funny.” - -In the early 1970s, Ms. Cameron, who is the second oldest of seven children and -grew up just north of Chicago, was making $67 a week working in the mail room -of the Washington Post. At the same time, she was writing deft lifestyle pieces -for the paper β€” like an East Coast Eve Babitz. β€œWith a byline, no one knows -you’re just a gofer,” she said. - -In her reporting, Ms. Cameron observed an epidemic of green nail polish and -other β€œCabaret”-inspired behaviors in Beltway bars, and slyly reviewed a new -party drug, methaqualone. She was also, by her own admission, a blackout drunk. -β€œI thought drinking was something you did and your friends told you about it -later,” she said. β€œIn retrospect, in cozy retrospect, I was in trouble from my -first drink.” - -She met Mr. Scorsese on assignment for Oui magazine and fell hard for him. She -did a bit of script-doctoring on β€œTaxi Driver,” and followed the director to -Los Angeles. β€œI got pregnant on our wedding night,” she said. β€œLike a good -Catholic girl.” When Mr. Scorsese took up with Liza Minnelli while all three -were working on β€œNew York, New York,” the marriage was done. (She recently made -a painting depicting herself as a white horse and Mr. Scorsese as a lily. β€œI -wanted to make a picture about me and Marty,” she said. β€œHe was magical-seeming -to me and when I look at it I think, β€˜Oh, she’s fascinated, but she doesn’t -understand.’”) - -ImageUnder the pines. -Under the pines.Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New York Times - -In her memoir, β€œFloor Sample,” published in 2006, Ms. Cameron recounts the -brutality of Hollywood, of her life there as a screenwriter and a drunk. -Pauline Kael, she writes, described her as a β€œpornographic Victorian valentine, -like a young Angela Lansbury.” Don’t marry her for tax reasons, Ms. Kael warns -Mr. Scorsese. Andy Warhol, who escorts her to the premiere of β€œNew York, New -York,” inscribes her into his diary as a β€œlush.” A cocaine dealer soothes her β€” -β€œYou have a tiny little wife’s habit” β€” and a doctor shoos her away from his -hospital when she asks for help, telling her she’s no alcoholic, just a -β€œsensitive young woman.” She goes into labor in full makeup and a Chinese -dressing gown, vowing to be β€œno trouble.” - -β€œI think it’s fair to say that drinking and drugs stopped looking like a path -to success,” she said. β€œSo I luckily stopped. I had a couple of sober friends -and they said, β€˜Try and let the higher power write through you.’ And I said, -What if he doesn’t want to?’ They said, β€˜Just try it.’” - -So she did. She wrote novels and screenplays. She wrote poems and musicals. She -wasn’t always well-reviewed, but she took the knocks with typical grit, and she -schooled others to do so as well. β€œI have unblocked poets, lawyers and -painters,” she said. She taught her tools in living rooms and classrooms β€” β€œif -someone was dumb enough to lend us one,” she said β€” and back in New York, at -the Feminist Art Institute. Over the years, she refined her tools, typed them -up, and sold Xeroxed copies in local bookstores for $20. It was her second -husband, Mark Bryan, a writer, who needled her into making the pages into a -proper book. - -The first printing was about 9,000 copies, said Joel Fotinos, formerly the -publisher at Tarcher/Penguin, which published the book in 1992. There was -concern that it wouldn’t sell. β€œPart of the reason,” Mr. Fotinos said, β€œwas -that this was a book that wasn’t like anything else. We didn’t know where to -put it on the shelves β€” did it go in religion or self-help? Eventually there -was a category called β€˜creativity,’ and β€˜The Artist’s Way’ launched it.” Now an -editorial director at St. Martin’s Press, Mr. Fotinos said he is deluged with -pitches from authors claiming they’ve written β€œthe new Artist’s Way.” - -β€œBut for Julia, creativity was a tool for survival,” he said. β€œIt was literally -her medicine and that’s why the book is so authentic, and resonates with so -many people.” - -β€œI am my tool kits,” Ms. Cameron said. - -And, indeed, β€œThe Artist’s Way” is stuffed with tools: worksheets to be filled -with thoughts about money, childhood games, old hurts; wish lists and -exercises, many of which seem exhaustive and exhausting β€” β€œWrite down any -resistance, angers and fears,” e.g. β€” and others that are more practical: β€œTake -a 20 minutes walk,” β€œMend any mending” and β€œrepot any pinched and languishing -plants.” It anticipates the work of the indefatigable Gretchen Rubin, the -happiness maven, if Ms. Rubin were a bit kinder but less Type-A. - -β€œWhen I teach, it’s like watching the lights come on,” said Ms. Cameron. β€œMy -students don’t get lectured to. I think they feel safe. Rather than try and fix -themselves, they learn to accept themselves. I think my work makes people -autonomous. I feel like people fall in love with themselves.” - -Anne Lamott, the inspirational writer and novelist, said that when she was -teaching writing full-time, her own students swore by β€œThe Artist’s Way.” β€œThat -exercise β€” three pages of automatic writing β€” was a sacrament for people,” Ms. -Lamott wrote in a recent email. β€œThey could plug into something bigger than the -rat exercise wheel of self-loathing and grandiosity that every writer -experiences: β€˜This could very easily end up being an Oprah Book,’ or β€˜Who do I -think I’m fooling? I’m a subhuman blowhard.’” - -β€œShe’s given you an assignment that is doable, and I think it’s kind of a -cognitive centering device. Like scribbly meditation,” Ms. Lamott wrote. β€œIt’s -sort of like how manicurists put smooth pebbles in the warm soaking water, so -your fingers have something to do, and you don’t climb the walls.” - -Image -In the wild.Credit...Ramsay de Give for The New York Times - -Ms. Cameron continues to write her Morning Pages every day, even though she -continues, as she said, to be grouchy upon awakening. She eats oatmeal at a -local cafe and walks Lily, an eager white Westie. She reads no newspapers, or -social media (perhaps the most grueling tenet of β€œThe Artist’s Way” is a week -of β€œreading deprivation”), though an assistant runs a Twitter and Instagram -account on her behalf. She writes for hours, mostly musicals, collaborating -with her daughter, a film director, and others. - -Ms. Cameron may be a veteran of the modern self-care movement but her life has -not been all moonbeams and rainbows, and it shows. She was candid in -conversation, if not quite at ease. β€œSo I haven’t proven myself to be -hilarious,” she said with a flash of dry humor, adding that even after so many -years, she still gets stage-fright before beginning a workshop. - -She has written about her own internal critic, imagining a gay British interior -designer she calls Nigel. β€œAnd nothing is ever good enough for Nigel,” she -said. But she soldiers on. - -She will tell you that she has good boundaries. But like many successful women, -she brushes off her achievements, attributing her unlooked-for wins to luck. - -β€œIf you have to learn how to do a movie, you might learn from Martin Scorsese. -If you have to learn about entrepreneurship, you might learn from Mark” β€” her -second husband. β€œSo I’m very lucky,” she said. β€œIf I have a hard time blowing -my own horn, I’ve been attracted to people who blew it for me.” - -Advertisement - -Continue reading the main story - -Site Index - -Site Information Navigation - - β€’ © 2023Β The New York Times Company - - β€’ NYTCo - β€’ Contact Us - β€’ Accessibility - β€’ Work with us - β€’ Advertise - β€’ T Brand Studio - β€’ Your Ad Choices - β€’ Privacy Policy - β€’ Terms of Service - β€’ Terms of Sale - β€’ Site Map - β€’ Canada - β€’ International - β€’ Help - β€’ Subscriptions - diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/blog-testdouble-com-ft5qbw.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/blog-testdouble-com-ft5qbw.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b24b70 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/blog-testdouble-com-ft5qbw.txt @@ -0,0 +1,529 @@ + [1]Test Double The Test Double logo + + Menu + + (BUTTON) Menu Menu An icon that displays an illustration of a website + menu + * [2]Home + * [3]Agency + * [4]Services + * [5]Careers + * [6]Blog + * [7]Contact + + [8]Blog [9]Posts + +How to tell if AI threatens YOUR job + +No, really, this post may give you a way to answer that + + An icon of a clock Publish Date + March 14, 2023 + + An icon of a human figure Authors + Justin Searls + + As a young lad, I developed a habit of responding to the enthusiasm of + others with fear, skepticism, and judgment. + + While it never made me very fun at parties, my hypercritical reflex has + been rewarded with the sweet satisfaction of being able to say β€œI told + you so” more often than not. Everyone brings a default disposition to + the table, and for me that includes a deep suspicion of hope and + optimism as irrational exuberance. + + But there’s one trend people are excited about thatβ€”try as I mightβ€”I’m + having a hard time passing off as mere hype: generative AI. + + The more excited someone is by the prospect of AI making their job + easier, the more they should be worried. + + There’s little doubt at this point: the tools that succeed [10]DALLβ€’E + and [11]ChatGPT will have a profound impact on society. If it feels + obvious that self-driving cars will put millions of truckers out of + work, it should be clear even more white collar jobs will be rendered + unnecessary by this new class of AI tools. + + While [12]Level 4 autonomous vehicles may still be years away, + production-ready AI is here today. It’s already being used to do + significant amounts of paid work, often with employers being none the + wiser. + + If truckers deserve [13]years [14]of [15]warnings that their jobs are + at risk, we owe it to ourselves and others to think through the types + of problems that generative AI is best equipped to solve, which sorts + of jobs are at greatest risk, and what workers can start doing now to + prepare for the profound disruption that’s coming for the information + economy. + + So let’s do that. + +[16]Now it’s time to major bump Web 2.0 + + Computer-generated content wouldn’t pose the looming threat it does + without the last 20 years of user-generated content blanketing the + Internet to fertilize it. + + As user-generated content came to dominate the Internet with the advent + of Web 2.0 in the 2000s, we heard a lot about the [17]Wisdom of the + Crowd. The theory was simple: if anyone could publish content to a + platform, then users could rank that content’s quality (whether via + viewership metrics or explicit upvotes), and eventually the efforts of + the (unpaid!) general public would outperform the productivity of + (quite expensive!) professional authors and publishers. The winners, + under Web 2.0, would no longer be the best content creators, but the + platforms that successfully achieve [18]network effect and come to + mediate everyone’s experience with respect to a particular category of + content. + + This theory quickly proved correct. User-generated content so + dramatically outpaced β€œlegacy” media that the newspaper industry is now + a shell of its former selfβ€”grasping at straws like SEO content farms, + clickbait headlines, and ever-thirstier display ads masquerading as + content. The fact I’ve already used the word β€œcontent” eight times in + two paragraphs is a testament to how its unrelenting deluge under Web + 2.0 has flattened our relationship with information. β€œContent” has + become a fungible resource to be consumed by our eyeballs and earholes, + which transforms it into a value-added product called β€œengagement,” and + which the platform owners in turn package and resell to advertisers as + a service called β€œimpressions.” + + And for a beautiful moment in time, this system created a lot of value + for shareholders. + + But the status quo is being challenged by a new innovation, leading + many of Web 2.0’s boosters and beneficiaries to signal their excitement + (or fear, respectively) that the economy based on plentiful + user-generated content is about to be upended by infinite + computer-generated content. If we’re witnessing the first act of Web + 3.0, it’s got nothing to do with crypto and everything to do with + [19]generative AI. + + If you’re reading this, you don’t need me to recap the cultural impact + of [20]ChatGPT and [21]Bing Chat for you. Suffice to say, if Googleβ€”the + runaway winner of the Web 2.0 economyβ€”is [22]legit shook, there’s + probably fire to go with all this smoke. Moreover, when you consider + that [23]the same incumbent is already at the forefront of AI + innovation but is nevertheless terrified by this sea change, Google + clearly believes we’re witnessing a major market disruption in addition + to a technological one. + + One reason I’ve been thinking so much about this is that I’ve started + work on a personal project to build an AI chatbot for practicing + Japanese language and I’m livecoding 100% of my work for an educational + video series I call [24]Searls After Dark. Might be why I’ve got AI on + the mind lately! + + But you’re not a tech giant. You’re wondering what this means for you + and your weekend. And I think we’re beginning to identify the contours + of an answer to that question. + +[25]ChatGPT can do some people’s work, but not everyone’s + + A profound difference between the coming economic upheaval and those of + the past is that it will most severely impact white collar workers. + Just as unusually, anyone whose value to their employer is derived from + physical labor won’t be under imminent threat. Everyone else is left to + ask: will generative AI replace my job? Do I need to be worried? + + Suppose we approached AI as a new form of outsourcing. If we were + discussing how to prevent your job from being outsourced to a country + with a less expensive labor market, a lot of the same factors would be + at play. + + Having spent months programming with [26]GitHub Copilot, weeks talking + to ChatGPT, and days searching via Bing Chat as an alternative to + Google, the best description I’ve heard of AI’s capabilities is + β€œ[27]fluent bullshit.” And after months of seeing friends β€œcheat” at + their day jobs by having [28]ChatGPT do their homework for them, I’ve + come to a pretty grim, if obvious, realization: the more excited + someone is by the prospect of AI making their job easier, the more they + should be worried. + + Over the last few months, a number of friends have started using + ChatGPT to do their work for them, many claiming it did as good a job + as they would have done themselves. Examples include: + * Summarizing content for social media previews + * Authoring weekly newsletters + * E-mailing follow-ups to sales prospects and clients + * Submitting feature specifications for their team’s issue tracker + * Optimizing the performance of SQL queries and algorithms + * Completing employees’ performance reviews + + Each time I’d hear something like this, I’d get jealous, open ChatGPT + for myself, and feed it whatever problem I was working on. It never + worked. Sometimes it’d give up and claim the thing I was trying to do + was too obscure. Sometimes it’d generate a superficially realistic + response, but always with just enough nonsense mixed in that it would + take [29]more [30]time to [31]edit than to rewrite from scratch. But + most often, I’d end up wasting time stuck in this never-ending loop: + 1. Ask ChatGPT to do something + 2. It responds with an obviously-wrong answer + 3. Explain to ChatGPT why its response is wrong + 4. It politely apologizes (β€œYou are correct, X in fact does not equal + Y. I apologize.”) before immediately generating an + equally-incorrect answer + 5. GOTO 3 + + I got so frustrated asking it to help me troubleshoot my VS Code task + configuration that [32]I recorded my screen and set it to a few lofi + tracks before [33]giving up. + + For many of my friends, ChatGPT isn’t some passing fadβ€”it’s a + productivity revolution that’s already saving them hours of work each + week. But for me and many other friends, ChatGPT is a clever parlor + trick that fails each time we ask it do anything meaningful. What + gives? + +[34]Three simple rules for keeping your job + + I’ve spent the last few months puzzling over this. Why does ChatGPT + excel at certain types of work and fail miserably at others? Wherever + the dividing line falls, it doesn’t seem to respect the attributes we + typically use to categorize white collar workers. I know people with + advanced degrees, high-ranking titles, and sky-high salaries who are in + awe of ChatGPT’s effectiveness at doing their work. But I can identify + just as many roles that sit near the bottom of the org chart, don’t + require special credentials, and don’t pay particularly well for which + ChatGPT isn’t even remotely useful. + + Here’s where I landed. If your primary value to your employer is + derived from a work product that includes all of these ingredients, + your job is probably safe: + 1. Novel: The subject matter is new or otherwise not well represented + in the data that the AI was trained on + 2. Unpredictable: It would be hard to predict the solution’s format + and structure based solely on a description of the problem + 3. Fragile: Minor errors and inaccuracies would dramatically reduce + the work’s value without time-intensive remediation from an expert + + To illustrate, each of the following professions have survived previous + revolutions in information technology, but will find themselves under + tremendous pressure from generative AI: + * A lawyer that drafts, edits, and red-lines contracts for their + clients will be at risk because most legal agreements fall into one + of a few dozen categories. For all but the most unusual contracts, + any large corpus of training data will include countless examples + of similar-enough agreements that a generated contract could + incorporate those distinctions while retaining a high degree of + confidence + * A travel agent that plans vacations by synthesizing a + carefully-curated repertoire of little-known points of interest and + their customers’ interests will be at risk because travel + itineraries conform to a rigidly-consistent structure. With + training, a [35]stochastic AI could predictably fill in the blanks + of a traveler’s agenda with β€œhidden” gems while avoiding + recommending the same places to everyone + * An insurance broker responsible for translating known risks and + potential liabilities into a prescribed set of coverages will + themselves be at risk because most policy mistakes are relatively + inconsequential. Insurance covers low-probability events that may + not take place for yearsβ€”if they occur at allβ€”so there’s plenty of + room for error for human and AI brokers alike (and plenty of + boilerplate legalese to protect them) + + This also explains why ChatGPT has proven worthless for every task I’ve + thrown at it. As an experienced application developer, let’s consider + whether that’s because my work meets the three criteria identified + above: + 1. Novel: when I set out to build a new app, by definition it’s never + been done beforeβ€”if it had been, I wouldn’t waste my time + reinventing it! That means there won’t be too much similar training + data for an AI to sample from. Moreover, by preferring expressive, + terse languages like Ruby and frameworks like Rails that promote + [36]DRY, there just isn’t all that much for GitHub Copilot to + suggest to me (and when it does generate a large chunk of correct + code, I interpret it as a smell that I’m needlessly [37]reinventing + a wheel) + 2. Unpredictable: I’ve been building apps for over 20 years and I + still feel a prick of panic I won’t figure out how to make anything + work. Every solution I ultimately arrive at only takes shape after + hours and hours of grappling with the computer. Whether you call + programming trial-and-error or dress it up as β€œ[38]emergent + design,” the upshot is that the best engineers tend to be resigned + to the fact that the architectural design of the solution to any + problem is unknowable at the outset and can only be discovered + through the act of solving + 3. Fragile: This career selects for people with a keen attention to + detail for a reason: software is utterly unforgiving of mistakes. + One errant character is enough to break a program millions of lines + long. Subtle bugs can have costly consequences if deployed, like + security breaches and data loss. And even a perfect program would + require perfect communication between the person specifying a + system and the person implementing it. While AI may one day create + apps, the precision and accuracy required makes probabilistic + language models poorly-suited for the task + + This isn’t to say my job is free of drudgery that generative AI could + take off my hands (like summarizing the tag + for this post), butβ€”unlike someone who makes SEO tweaks for a + livingβ€”delegating ancillary, time-consuming work actually makes me more + valuable to my employer because it frees up more time for stuff AI + can’t do (yet). + + So if you’re a programmer like me, you’re probably safe! + + Job’s done. Post over. + +[39]Post not over: How can I save my job? + + So what can someone do if their primary role doesn’t produce work that + checks the three boxes of novelty, unpredictability, and fragility? + + Here are a few ideas that probably won’t work: + * Ask major tech companies to kindly put this genie back into the + bottle + * Lobby for [40]humane policies to prepare for a world that doesn’t + need every human’s labor + * Embrace return-to-office mandates by doing stuff software can’t do, + like stocking the snack cabinet and proactively offering to play + foosball with your boss + + If reading this has turned your excitement that ChatGPT can do your job + into fear that ChatGPT can do your job, take heart! There are things + you can do today to prepare. + + Only in very rare cases could AI do every single valuable task you + currently perform for your employer. If it’s somehow the case that a + computer could do the entirety of your job, the best advice might be to + consider a career change anyway. + + Suppose we approached AI as a new form of outsourcing. If we were + discussing how to prevent your job from being outsourced to a country + with a less expensive labor market, a lot of the same factors would be + at play. As a result, if you were my friend (just kidding! You are my + friend, I swear!) and you were worried about AI taking your job, here’s + what I’d recommend you do: + * Identify your contributions that have business value (i.e. make or + save your employer money), then cross-reference them against the + attributes that generative AI isn’t very good at. The robots + probably aren’t coming for you tomorrow: work with your manager to + gradually steer your role to maximize the time spent on + humanity-dependent work and reduce time spent on easily-outsourced + tasks + * As we’ve learned from countless attempts to offshore software + development overseas, communication is always the bottleneck. Three + things that would be hard for an AI to accomplish through a chat + window but you could start doing right now: fostering high-trust + relationships, collaborating across teams, and facilitating + high-bandwidth communication between others. By taking an + interdisciplinary approach to your work, it will not only make it + more difficult for someone to outsource you, it could have the + unintended consequence of also leading to a more meaningful, + enriching career + * The natural response to any threat is [41]fight, flight, or freeze; + but counter-intuitively one of the best ways to protect your job + from AI is to become an enthusiastic early adopter of AI tools. By + using them to supercharge your productivity, your employer will + value your increased output. Additionally, your newfound skills + will put you in a better position to lead your company’s future AI + efforts (just ask the [42]former editor-in-chief of CNET) + + Like all the best things in life, this advice is simple but hard. The + reason I wrote this post now (instead of waiting until GPT-9.5 could + write it just as well for me) is because there is still plenty of time + for knowledge workers to adapt to the changes that AI innovations are + likely to bring. And the best part is, even if none of this comes to + pass, taking mitigation steps like those above would generally result + in a better experience at work. It’s a win-win! + +[43]In conclusion + + I got tired after writing 2400 words on this topic, so I asked ChatGPT + to write a conclusion after feeding it this post. + + Here’s what it spat out: + [44]The article discusses the potential impact of generative AI on + society, particularly on white-collar jobs in the information economy. + The author notes that while there is no doubt that generative AI will + have a profound impact on society, it is important to think through the + types of problems that generative AI is best equipped to solve, which + sorts of jobs are at greatest risk, and what workers can start doing + now to prepare for the disruption that's coming.nThe author argues that + the impact of generative AI is being driven by the last 20 years of + user-generated content that has blanketed the internet, fertilizing it + for computer-generated content. User-generated content dominated the + internet with the advent of Web 2.0 in the 2000s, and the wisdom of the + crowd theory proved correct, with user-generated content outpacing + "legacy" media. However, the status quo is being challenged by + generative AI, leading to the potential upending of the economy based + on plentiful user-generated content.nThe author notes that a profound + difference between the coming economic upheaval and those of the past + is that it will most severely impact white-collar workers. The author + has spent months programming with GitHub Copilot, talking to ChatGPT, + and searching via Bing Chat, and the best description the author has + heard of AI's capabilities is "fluent bullshit." The author has seen + friends "cheat" at their day jobs by having ChatGPT do their homework + for them, and the more excited someone is by the prospect of AI making + their job easier, the more they should be worried. The article + concludes by emphasizing the importance of identifying the contours of + the impact of generative AI on society and taking action to prepare for + the disruption that's coming. + + Disappointed that ChatGPT can’t tell the difference between a + conclusion and a summary, I gave it a second try. The following + screenshot is not modified; this was its actual response: + [45]Justin: Try again but this time make it shorter, reuse fewer + phrases that appear in the post, and rather than summarize the content, + add your own conclusion that readers should take away from reading the + article\nChatGPT:New study suggests that the Mediterranean diet can + help reduce the risk of heart disease by 47%. The diet includes plenty + of vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish, and olive oil, while limiting red + meat and processed foods. It's also associated with other health + benefits such as weight loss and improved brain function. Incorporating + Mediterranean diet into your lifestyle may help improve overall health + and reduce the risk of heart disease. + + So, in conclusion: eat more olives. πŸ«’ + +[46]Justin Searls + + An icon of a hash sign Code Name + Agent 002 + + An icon of a map marker Location + Orlando, FL + + [47]Twitter [48]Mastodon [49]Github [50]LinkedIn [51]Website + +Related posts: + +[52]Policy update: We’re still remote + + Don’t waste time commuting to an office. Test Double will continue to + be a 100% remote software development company that values autonomy and + flexibility. + + An icon of a clock Publish Date + July 7, 2021 + + An icon of a human figure Authors + [53]Todd Kaufman + + An icon of a paper organzier Categories + [54]Our Company + +[55]Celebrating Agent 00100 milestone + + Test Double celebrates hiring Agent 00100β€”a big milestone and a + reminder about why we do this: to fix what's broken in software. + + An icon of a clock Publish Date + June 1, 2021 + + An icon of a human figure Authors + [56]Todd Kaufman + + An icon of a paper organzier Categories + [57]Our Company + +[58]5 for 5000: Find your leading indicators + + It's easy to tune out talk of metrics and spreadsheets, but one of the + best ways to ensure long-term success is to uncover the numbers that + signal future events while there's time to act on them + + An icon of a clock Publish Date + October 22, 2020 + + An icon of a human figure Authors + [59]Justin Searls + + An icon of a paper organzier Categories + [60]Our Company + +Looking for developers? Work with people who care about what you care about. + +We level up teams striving to ship great code. + + [61]Let's talk + + [62]Home [63]Agency [64]Services [65]Careers [66]Blog [67]Contact + + + [68]Mastodon [69]GitHub [70]LinkedIn [71]Twitter + + [72]614.349.4279 + [73]hello@testdouble.com + [74]Privacy Policy + Founded in Columbus, OH + +[75]Test Double The Test Double logo + +References + + 1. https://testdouble.com/ + 2. https://testdouble.com/ + 3. https://testdouble.com/agency + 4. https://testdouble.com/services + 5. https://testdouble.com/careers + 6. https://blog.testdouble.com/ + 7. https://testdouble.com/contact + 8. https://blog.testdouble.com/ + 9. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/ + 10. https://openai.com/product/dall-e-2 + 11. https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt + 12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car + 13. https://www.automotivelogistics.media/transition-to-automated-trucks-must-be-managed-warn-trade-bodies/18446.article + 14. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/business/dealbook/teamsters-union-tries-to-slow-self-driving-truck-push.html + 15. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/millions-professional-drivers-will-be-replaced-self-driving-vehicles-n817356 + 16. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-03-14-how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/#_now_-its-time-to-major-bump-web-20 + 17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd + 18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect + 19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network + 20. https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/8/23499728/ai-capability-accessibility-chatgpt-stable-diffusion-commercialization + 21. https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/15/23599072/microsoft-ai-bing-personality-conversations-spy-employees-webcams + 22. https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/20/23563851/google-search-ai-chatbot-demo-chatgpt + 23. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/18/22442328/google-io-2021-ai-language-model-lamda-pluto + 24. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIuJbrOVyGjkRj7UM_whr-CPoqcXTOsZa + 25. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-03-14-how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/#chatgpt-can-do-some-peoples-work-but-not-everyones + 26. https://github.com/features/copilot + 27. https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/5/23493932/chatgpt-ai-generated-answers-temporarily-banned-stack-overflow-llms-dangers + 28. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/19/1143912956/chatgpt-ai-chatbot-homework-academia + 29. https://cdn-blog.testdouble.com/img/how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/bing-1.ebd5fca31dbdd729c4dcc7388630e69f6d26b128d967b20a38c41409b7ee0099.png + 30. https://cdn-blog.testdouble.com/img/how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/bing-2.c1830c7fb3f4634158a9fffc0ccac3396f09619761d7ccd2218ce9b77d19b826.png + 31. https://cdn-blog.testdouble.com/img/how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/bing-3.a2922e3b785ab4216bb01299f118c55a7cd2b43a82db909f66bdc9c83e956fe6.png + 32. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gllCXqnR-5E + 33. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gllCXqnR-5E&t=1004s + 34. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-03-14-how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/#three-simple-rules-for-keeping-your-job + 35. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network#Stochastic_neural_network + 36. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_repeat_yourself + 37. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinventing_the_wheel + 38. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_Design + 39. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-03-14-how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/#post-not-over-how-can-i-save-my-job + 40. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income + 41. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response + 42. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/2/23622836/cnet-eic-takes-red-ventures-ai-content-job-connie-guglielmo + 43. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-03-14-how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/#in-conclusion + 44. https://cdn-blog.testdouble.com/img/how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/chat-gpt-1.be7ef1f6a65dabe7f2ee88e296ff404980183879a0a79f88537affe6a44f17e3.png + 45. https://cdn-blog.testdouble.com/img/how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/chat-gpt-2.ccd08019b5f629691f6f09f5e4118186dc3d3001d712449034804f9a8ffde7c3.png + 46. https://blog.testdouble.com/authors/justin-searls/ + 47. https://twitter.com/searls + 48. https://mastodon.social/@searls + 49. https://github.com/searls + 50. https://linkedin.com/in/searls + 51. https://justin.searls.co/ + 52. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2021-07-07-policy-update-were-still-remote/ + 53. https://blog.testdouble.com/authors/todd-kaufman/ + 54. https://blog.testdouble.com/categories/our-company + 55. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2021-06-01-celebrating-agent-0100-milestone/ + 56. https://blog.testdouble.com/authors/todd-kaufman/ + 57. https://blog.testdouble.com/categories/our-company + 58. https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2020-10-22-5-for-5000-find-your-leading-indicators/ + 59. https://blog.testdouble.com/authors/justin-searls/ + 60. https://blog.testdouble.com/categories/our-company + 61. https://link.testdouble.com/blog-cta-sales + 62. https://testdouble.com/ + 63. https://testdouble.com/agency + 64. https://testdouble.com/services + 65. https://testdouble.com/careers + 66. https://blog.testdouble.com/ + 67. https://testdouble.com/contact + 68. https://mastodon.world/@testdouble + 69. https://github.com/testdouble + 70. https://www.linkedin.com/company/testdouble + 71. https://twitter.com/testdouble + 72. tel:+16143494279 + 73. mailto:hello@testdouble.com + 74. https://testdouble.com/privacy-policy + 75. https://testdouble.com/ diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/blog-testdouble-com-rtepba.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/blog-testdouble-com-rtepba.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ebb31c3..0000000 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/blog-testdouble-com-rtepba.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,423 +0,0 @@ -[matomo] - -Test Double The Test Double logo - -Menu - -Menu An icon that displays an illustration of a website menu - - β€’ Home - β€’ Agency - β€’ Services - β€’ Careers - β€’ Blog - β€’ Contact - -Blog Posts - -How to tell if AI threatens YOUR job - -No, really, this post may give you a way to answer that - -An icon of a clock Publish Date - March 14, 2023 -An icon of a human figure Authors - Justin Searls - -As a young lad, I developed a habit of responding to the enthusiasm of others -with fear, skepticism, and judgment. - -While it never made me very fun at parties, my hypercritical reflex has been -rewarded with the sweet satisfaction of being able to say β€œI told you so” more -often than not. Everyone brings a default disposition to the table, and for me -that includes a deep suspicion of hope and optimism as irrational exuberance. - -But there’s one trend people are excited about thatβ€”try as I mightβ€”I’m having a -hard time passing off as mere hype: generative AI. - -The more excited someone is by the prospect of AI making their job easier, the -more they should be worried. - -There’s little doubt at this point: the tools that succeed DALLβ€’E and ChatGPT -will have a profound impact on society. If it feels obvious that self-driving -cars will put millions of truckers out of work, it should be clear even more -white collar jobs will be rendered unnecessary by this new class of AI tools. - -While Level 4 autonomous vehicles may still be years away, production-ready AI -is here today. It’s already being used to do significant amounts of paid work, -often with employers being none the wiser. - -If truckers deserve years of warnings that their jobs are at risk, we owe it to -ourselves and others to think through the types of problems that generative AI -is best equipped to solve, which sorts of jobs are at greatest risk, and what -workers can start doing now to prepare for the profound disruption that’s -coming for the information economy. - -So let’s do that. - -Now it’s time to major bump Web 2.0 - -Computer-generated content wouldn’t pose the looming threat it does without the -last 20 years of user-generated content blanketing the Internet to fertilize -it. - -As user-generated content came to dominate the Internet with the advent of Web -2.0 in the 2000s, we heard a lot about the Wisdom of the Crowd. The theory was -simple: if anyone could publish content to a platform, then users could rank -that content’s quality (whether via viewership metrics or explicit upvotes), -and eventually the efforts of the (unpaid!) general public would outperform the -productivity of (quite expensive!) professional authors and publishers. The -winners, under Web 2.0, would no longer be the best content creators, but the -platforms that successfully achieve network effect and come to mediate -everyone’s experience with respect to a particular category of content. - -This theory quickly proved correct. User-generated content so dramatically -outpaced β€œlegacy” media that the newspaper industry is now a shell of its -former selfβ€”grasping at straws like SEO content farms, clickbait headlines, and -ever-thirstier display ads masquerading as content. The fact I’ve already used -the word β€œcontent” eight times in two paragraphs is a testament to how its -unrelenting deluge under Web 2.0 has flattened our relationship with -information. β€œContent” has become a fungible resource to be consumed by our -eyeballs and earholes, which transforms it into a value-added product called -β€œengagement,” and which the platform owners in turn package and resell to -advertisers as a service called β€œimpressions.” - -And for a beautiful moment in time, this system created a lot of value for -shareholders. - -But the status quo is being challenged by a new innovation, leading many of Web -2.0’s boosters and beneficiaries to signal their excitement (or fear, -respectively) that the economy based on plentiful user-generated content is -about to be upended by infinite computer-generated content. If we’re witnessing -the first act of Web 3.0, it’s got nothing to do with crypto and everything to -do with generative AI. - -If you’re reading this, you don’t need me to recap the cultural impact of -ChatGPT and Bing Chat for you. Suffice to say, if Googleβ€”the runaway winner of -the Web 2.0 economyβ€”is legit shook, there’s probably fire to go with all this -smoke. Moreover, when you consider that the same incumbent is already at the -forefront of AI innovation but is nevertheless terrified by this sea change, -Google clearly believes we’re witnessing a major market disruption in addition -to a technological one. - -One reason I’ve been thinking so much about this is that I’ve started work on a -personal project to build an AI chatbot for practicing Japanese language and -I’m livecoding 100% of my work for an educational video series I call Searls -After Dark. Might be why I’ve got AI on the mind lately! - -But you’re not a tech giant. You’re wondering what this means for you and your -weekend. And I think we’re beginning to identify the contours of an answer to -that question. - -ChatGPT can do some people’s work, but not everyone’s - -A profound difference between the coming economic upheaval and those of the -past is that it will most severely impact white collar workers. Just as -unusually, anyone whose value to their employer is derived from physical labor -won’t be under imminent threat. Everyone else is left to ask: will generative -AI replace my job? Do I need to be worried? - -Suppose we approached AI as a new form of outsourcing. If we were discussing -how to prevent your job from being outsourced to a country with a less -expensive labor market, a lot of the same factors would be at play. - -Having spent months programming with GitHub Copilot, weeks talking to ChatGPT, -and days searching via Bing Chat as an alternative to Google, the best -description I’ve heard of AI’s capabilities is β€œfluent bullshit.” And after -months of seeing friends β€œcheat” at their day jobs by having ChatGPT do their -homework for them, I’ve come to a pretty grim, if obvious, realization: the -more excited someone is by the prospect of AI making their job easier, the more -they should be worried. - -Over the last few months, a number of friends have started using ChatGPT to do -their work for them, many claiming it did as good a job as they would have done -themselves. Examples include: - - β€’ Summarizing content for social media previews - β€’ Authoring weekly newsletters - β€’ E-mailing follow-ups to sales prospects and clients - β€’ Submitting feature specifications for their team’s issue tracker - β€’ Optimizing the performance of SQL queries and algorithms - β€’ Completing employees’ performance reviews - -Each time I’d hear something like this, I’d get jealous, open ChatGPT for -myself, and feed it whatever problem I was working on. It never worked. -Sometimes it’d give up and claim the thing I was trying to do was too obscure. -Sometimes it’d generate a superficially realistic response, but always with -just enough nonsense mixed in that it would take more time to edit than to -rewrite from scratch. But most often, I’d end up wasting time stuck in this -never-ending loop: - - 1. Ask ChatGPT to do something - 2. It responds with an obviously-wrong answer - 3. Explain to ChatGPT why its response is wrong - 4. It politely apologizes (β€œYou are correct, X in fact does not equal Y. I - apologize.”) before immediately generating an equally-incorrect answer - 5. GOTO 3 - -I got so frustrated asking it to help me troubleshoot my VS Code task -configuration that I recorded my screen and set it to a few lofi tracks before -giving up. - -For many of my friends, ChatGPT isn’t some passing fadβ€”it’s a productivity -revolution that’s already saving them hours of work each week. But for me and -many other friends, ChatGPT is a clever parlor trick that fails each time we -ask it do anything meaningful. What gives? - -Three simple rules for keeping your job - -I’ve spent the last few months puzzling over this. Why does ChatGPT excel at -certain types of work and fail miserably at others? Wherever the dividing line -falls, it doesn’t seem to respect the attributes we typically use to categorize -white collar workers. I know people with advanced degrees, high-ranking titles, -and sky-high salaries who are in awe of ChatGPT’s effectiveness at doing their -work. But I can identify just as many roles that sit near the bottom of the org -chart, don’t require special credentials, and don’t pay particularly well for -which ChatGPT isn’t even remotely useful. - -Here’s where I landed. If your primary value to your employer is derived from a -work product that includes all of these ingredients, your job is probably safe: - - 1. Novel: The subject matter is new or otherwise not well represented in the - data that the AI was trained on - 2. Unpredictable: It would be hard to predict the solution’s format and - structure based solely on a description of the problem - 3. Fragile: Minor errors and inaccuracies would dramatically reduce the work’s - value without time-intensive remediation from an expert - -To illustrate, each of the following professions have survived previous -revolutions in information technology, but will find themselves under -tremendous pressure from generative AI: - - β€’ A lawyer that drafts, edits, and red-lines contracts for their clients will - be at risk because most legal agreements fall into one of a few dozen - categories. For all but the most unusual contracts, any large corpus of - training data will include countless examples of similar-enough agreements - that a generated contract could incorporate those distinctions while - retaining a high degree of confidence - β€’ A travel agent that plans vacations by synthesizing a carefully-curated - repertoire of little-known points of interest and their customers’ - interests will be at risk because travel itineraries conform to a - rigidly-consistent structure. With training, a stochastic AI could - predictably fill in the blanks of a traveler’s agenda with β€œhidden” gems - while avoiding recommending the same places to everyone - β€’ An insurance broker responsible for translating known risks and potential - liabilities into a prescribed set of coverages will themselves be at risk - because most policy mistakes are relatively inconsequential. Insurance - covers low-probability events that may not take place for yearsβ€”if they - occur at allβ€”so there’s plenty of room for error for human and AI brokers - alike (and plenty of boilerplate legalese to protect them) - -This also explains why ChatGPT has proven worthless for every task I’ve thrown -at it. As an experienced application developer, let’s consider whether that’s -because my work meets the three criteria identified above: - - 1. Novel: when I set out to build a new app, by definition it’s never been - done beforeβ€”if it had been, I wouldn’t waste my time reinventing it! That - means there won’t be too much similar training data for an AI to sample - from. Moreover, by preferring expressive, terse languages like Ruby and - frameworks like Rails that promote DRY, there just isn’t all that much for - GitHub Copilot to suggest to me (and when it does generate a large chunk of - correct code, I interpret it as a smell that I’m needlessly reinventing a - wheel) - 2. Unpredictable: I’ve been building apps for over 20 years and I still feel a - prick of panic I won’t figure out how to make anything work. Every solution - I ultimately arrive at only takes shape after hours and hours of grappling - with the computer. Whether you call programming trial-and-error or dress it - up as β€œemergent design,” the upshot is that the best engineers tend to be - resigned to the fact that the architectural design of the solution to any - problem is unknowable at the outset and can only be discovered through the - act of solving - 3. Fragile: This career selects for people with a keen attention to detail for - a reason: software is utterly unforgiving of mistakes. One errant character - is enough to break a program millions of lines long. Subtle bugs can have - costly consequences if deployed, like security breaches and data loss. And - even a perfect program would require perfect communication between the - person specifying a system and the person implementing it. While AI may one - day create apps, the precision and accuracy required makes probabilistic - language models poorly-suited for the task - -This isn’t to say my job is free of drudgery that generative AI could take off -my hands (like summarizing the tag for this post), -butβ€”unlike someone who makes SEO tweaks for a livingβ€”delegating ancillary, -time-consuming work actually makes me more valuable to my employer because it -frees up more time for stuff AI can’t do (yet). - -So if you’re a programmer like me, you’re probably safe! - -Job’s done. Post over. - -Post not over: How can I save my job? - -So what can someone do if their primary role doesn’t produce work that checks -the three boxes of novelty, unpredictability, and fragility? - -Here are a few ideas that probably won’t work: - - β€’ Ask major tech companies to kindly put this genie back into the bottle - - β€’ Lobby for humane policies to prepare for a world that doesn’t need every - human’s labor - - β€’ Embrace return-to-office mandates by doing stuff software can’t do, like - stocking the snack cabinet and proactively offering to play foosball with - your boss - -If reading this has turned your excitement that ChatGPT can do your job into -fear that ChatGPT can do your job, take heart! There are things you can do -today to prepare. - -Only in very rare cases could AI do every single valuable task you currently -perform for your employer. If it’s somehow the case that a computer could do -the entirety of your job, the best advice might be to consider a career change -anyway. - -Suppose we approached AI as a new form of outsourcing. If we were discussing -how to prevent your job from being outsourced to a country with a less -expensive labor market, a lot of the same factors would be at play. As a -result, if you were my friend (just kidding! You are my friend, I swear!) and -you were worried about AI taking your job, here’s what I’d recommend you do: - - β€’ Identify your contributions that have business value (i.e. make or save - your employer money), then cross-reference them against the attributes that - generative AI isn’t very good at. The robots probably aren’t coming for you - tomorrow: work with your manager to gradually steer your role to maximize - the time spent on humanity-dependent work and reduce time spent on - easily-outsourced tasks - β€’ As we’ve learned from countless attempts to offshore software development - overseas, communication is always the bottleneck. Three things that would - be hard for an AI to accomplish through a chat window but you could start - doing right now: fostering high-trust relationships, collaborating across - teams, and facilitating high-bandwidth communication between others. By - taking an interdisciplinary approach to your work, it will not only make it - more difficult for someone to outsource you, it could have the unintended - consequence of also leading to a more meaningful, enriching career - β€’ The natural response to any threat is fight, flight, or freeze; but - counter-intuitively one of the best ways to protect your job from AI is to - become an enthusiastic early adopter of AI tools. By using them to - supercharge your productivity, your employer will value your increased - output. Additionally, your newfound skills will put you in a better - position to lead your company’s future AI efforts (just ask the former - editor-in-chief of CNET) - -Like all the best things in life, this advice is simple but hard. The reason I -wrote this post now (instead of waiting until GPT-9.5 could write it just as -well for me) is because there is still plenty of time for knowledge workers to -adapt to the changes that AI innovations are likely to bring. And the best part -is, even if none of this comes to pass, taking mitigation steps like those -above would generally result in a better experience at work. It’s a win-win! - -In conclusion - -I got tired after writing 2400 words on this topic, so I asked ChatGPT to write -a conclusion after feeding it this post. - -Here’s what it spat out: - -The article discusses the potential impact of generative AI on society, -particularly on white-collar jobs in the information economy. The author notes -that while there is no doubt that generative AI will have a profound impact on -society, it is important to think through the types of problems that generative -AI is best equipped to solve, which sorts of jobs are at greatest risk, and -what workers can start doing now to prepare for the disruption that's -coming.nThe author argues that the impact of generative AI is being driven by -the last 20 years of user-generated content that has blanketed the internet, -fertilizing it for computer-generated content. User-generated content dominated -the internet with the advent of Web 2.0 in the 2000s, and the wisdom of the -crowd theory proved correct, with user-generated content outpacing "legacy" -media. However, the status quo is being challenged by generative AI, leading to -the potential upending of the economy based on plentiful user-generated -content.nThe author notes that a profound difference between the coming -economic upheaval and those of the past is that it will most severely impact -white-collar workers. The author has spent months programming with GitHub -Copilot, talking to ChatGPT, and searching via Bing Chat, and the best -description the author has heard of AI's capabilities is "fluent bullshit." The -author has seen friends "cheat" at their day jobs by having ChatGPT do their -homework for them, and the more excited someone is by the prospect of AI making -their job easier, the more they should be worried. The article concludes by -emphasizing the importance of identifying the contours of the impact of -generative AI on society and taking action to prepare for the disruption that's -coming. - -Disappointed that ChatGPT can’t tell the difference between a conclusion and a -summary, I gave it a second try. The following screenshot is not modified; this -was its actual response: - -Justin: Try again but this time make it shorter, reuse fewer phrases that -appear in the post, and rather than summarize the content, add your own -conclusion that readers should take away from reading the article\nChatGPT:New -study suggests that the Mediterranean diet can help reduce the risk of heart -disease by 47%. The diet includes plenty of vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish, and -olive oil, while limiting red meat and processed foods. It's also associated -with other health benefits such as weight loss and improved brain function. -Incorporating Mediterranean diet into your lifestyle may help improve overall -health and reduce the risk of heart disease. - -So, in conclusion: eat more olives. πŸ«’ - -[002] - -Justin Searls - -An icon of a hash sign Code Name - Agent 002 -An icon of a map marker Location - Orlando, FL - -Twitter Mastodon Github LinkedIn Website - -Related posts: - -Policy update: We’re still remote - -Don’t waste time commuting to an office. Test Double will continue to be a 100% -remote software development company that values autonomy and flexibility. - -An icon of a clock Publish Date - July 7, 2021 -An icon of a human figure Authors - Todd Kaufman -An icon of a paper organzier Categories - Our Company - -Celebrating Agent 00100 milestone - -Test Double celebrates hiring Agent 00100β€”a big milestone and a reminder about -why we do this: to fix what's broken in software. - -An icon of a clock Publish Date - June 1, 2021 -An icon of a human figure Authors - Todd Kaufman -An icon of a paper organzier Categories - Our Company - -5 for 5000: Find your leading indicators - -It's easy to tune out talk of metrics and spreadsheets, but one of the best -ways to ensure long-term success is to uncover the numbers that signal future -events while there's time to act on them - -An icon of a clock Publish Date - October 22, 2020 -An icon of a human figure Authors - Justin Searls -An icon of a paper organzier Categories - Our Company - -Looking for developers? Work with people who care about what you care about. - -We level up teams striving to ship great code. - -Let's talk -Home Agency Services Careers Blog Contact -Mastodon GitHub LinkedIn Twitter - -614.349.4279 -hello@testdouble.com -Privacy Policy -Founded in Columbus, OH - -Test Double The Test Double logo - - diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/index.md b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/index.md index e167a94..0e300d4 100644 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/index.md +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/index.md @@ -7,16 +7,16 @@ tags: references: - title: "The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp | Viget" url: https://www.viget.com/articles/the-enduring-point-of-pointless-corp/ - date: 2023-04-04T23:45:46Z - file: www-viget-com-5w5oyj.txt + date: 2023-04-05T14:58:49Z + file: www-viget-com-97ckk4.txt - title: "How to tell if AI threatens YOUR job: No, really, this post may give you a way to answer that" url: https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-03-14-how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/ - date: 2023-04-04T23:45:46Z - file: blog-testdouble-com-rtepba.txt + date: 2023-04-05T14:58:50Z + file: blog-testdouble-com-ft5qbw.txt - title: "This Page is Designed to Last: A Manifesto for Preserving Content on the Web" url: https://jeffhuang.com/designed_to_last/ - date: 2023-04-04T23:45:47Z - file: jeffhuang-com-arq78r.txt + date: 2023-04-05T14:58:50Z + file: jeffhuang-com-njdbjn.txt --- March was great -- took a two night/one day work retreat, spent a weekend out in the woods with the family, had my annual trip to Las Vegas, and participated in Viget's [Pointless Week][1]. Also got to spend some quality time with Nevie; she's a great kid and it's amazing to see her personality come out. diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/jeffhuang-com-arq78r.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/jeffhuang-com-arq78r.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3ace9c8..0000000 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/jeffhuang-com-arq78r.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,245 +0,0 @@ -A Manifesto for Preserving Content on the Web - -This Page is Designed to Last - -By Jeff Huang, published 2019-12-19, updated 2021-08-24 - -The end of the year is an opportunity to clean up and reset for the upcoming -new semester. I found myself clearing out old bookmarksβ€”yes, bookmarks: that -formerly beloved browser feature that seems to have lost the battle to 'address -bar autocomplete'. But this nostalgic act of tidying led me to despair. - -Bookmark after bookmark led to dead link after dead link. What's vanished: -unique pieces of writing on kuro5hin about tech culture; a collection of -mathematical puzzles and their associated discussion by academics that my -father introduced me to; Woodman's Reverse Engineering tutorials from my high -school years, where I first tasted the feeling of control over software; even -my most recent bookmark, a series of posts on Google+ exposing usb-c chargers' -non-compliance with the specification, all disappeared. - -This is more than just link rot, it's the increasing complexity of keeping -alive indie content on the web, leading to a reliance on platforms and -time-sorted publication formats (blogs, feeds, tweets). - -Of course, I have also contributed to the problem. A paper I published 7 years -ago has an abstract that includes a demo link, which has been taken over by a -spammy page with a pumpkin picture on it. Part of that lapse was laziness to -avoid having to renew and keep a functioning web application up year after -year. - -I've recommended my students to push websites to Heroku, and publish portfolios -on Wix. Yet every platform with irreplaceable content dies off some day. -Geocities, LiveJournal, what.cd, now Yahoo Groups. One day, Medium, Twitter, -and even hosting services like GitHub Pages will be plundered then discarded -when they can no longer grow or cannot find a working business model. - -The problem is multi-faceted. First, content takes effort to maintain. The -content may need updating to remain relevant, and will eventually have to be -rehosted. A lot of content, what used to be the vast majority of content, was -put up by individuals. But individuals (maybe you?) lose interest, so one day -maybe you just don't want to deal with migrating a website to a new hosting -provider. - -Second, a growing set of libraries and frameworks are making the web more -sophisticated but also more complex. First came jquery, then bootstrap, npm, -angular, grunt, webpack, and more. If you are a web developer who is keeping up -with the latest, then that's not a problem. - -But if not, maybe you are an embedded systems programmer or startup CTO or -enterprise Java developer or chemistry PhD student, sure you could probably -figure out how to set up some web server and toolchain, but will you keep this -up year after year, decade after decade? Probably not, and when the next year -when you encounter a package dependency problem or figure out how to regenerate -your html files, you might just throw your hands up and zip up the files to -deal with "later". Even simple technology stacks like static site generators -(e.g., Jekyll) require a workflow and will stop working at some point. You fall -into npm dependency hell, and forget the command to package a release. And -having a website with multiple html pages is complex; how would you know how -each page links to each other? index.html.old, Copy of about.html, index.html -(1), nav.html? - -Third, and this has been touted by others already (and even rebutted), the -disappearance of the public web in favor of mobile and web apps, walled gardens -(Facebook pages), just-in-time WebSockets loading, and AMP decreases the -proportion of the web on the world wide web, which now seems more like a -continental web than a "world wide web". - -So for these problems, what can we do about it? It's not such a simple problem -that can be solved in this one article. The Wayback Machine and archive.org -helps keep some content around for longer. And sometimes an altruistic -individual rehosts the content elsewhere. - -But the solution needs to be multi-pronged. How do we make web content that can -last and be maintained for at least 10 years? As someone studying -human-computer interaction, I naturally think of the stakeholders we aren't -supporting. Right now putting up web content is optimized for either the -professional web developer (who use the latest frameworks and workflows) or the -non-tech savvy user (who use a platform). - -But I think we should consider both 1) the casual web content "maintainer", -someone who doesn't constantly stay up to date with the latest web -technologies, which means the website needs to have low maintenance needs; 2) -and the crawlers who preserve the content and personal archivers, the -"archiver", which means the website should be easy to save and interpret. - -So my proposal is seven unconventional guidelines in how we handle websites -designed to be informative, to make them easy to maintain and preserve. The -guiding intention is that the maintainer will try to keep the website up for at -least 10 years, maybe even 20 or 30 years. These are not controversial views -necessarily, but are aspirations that are not mainstreamβ€”a manifesto for a -long-lasting website. - - 1. Return to vanilla HTML/CSS – I think we've reached the point where html/css - is more powerful, and nicer to use than ever before. Instead of starting - with a giant template filled with .js includes, it's now okay to just write - plain HTML from scratch again. CSS Flexbox and Grid, canvas, Selectors, - box-shadow, the video element, filter, etc. eliminate a lot of the need for - JavaScript libraries. We can avoid jquery and bootstrap when they're not - needed. The more libraries incorporated into the website, the more fragile - it becomes. Skip the polyfills and CSS prefixes, and stick with the CSS - attributes that work across all browsers. And frequently validate your - HTML; it could save you a headache in the future when you encounter a bug. - 2. Don't minimize that HTML – minimizing (compressing) your HTML and - associated CSS/JS seems like it saves precious bandwidth and all the big - companies are doing it. But why not? Well, you don't save much because your - web pages should be gzipped before being sent over the network, so - preemptively shrinking your content probably doesn't do much to save - bandwidth if anything at all. But even if it did save a few bytes (it's - just text in the end), you now need to have a build process and to add this - to your workflow, so updating a website just became more complex. If - there's a bug or future incompatibility in the html, the minimized form is - harder to debug. And it's unfriendly to your users; so many people got - their start with HTML by smashing that View Source button, and minimizing - your HTML prevents this ideal of learning by seeing what they did. - Minimizing HTML does not preserve its educational quality, and what gets - archived is only the resulting codejunk. - 3. Prefer one page over several – several pages are hard to maintain. You can - lose track of which pages link to what, and it also leads to some system of - page templates to reduce redundancy. How many pages can one person really - maintain? Having one file, probably just an index.html, is simple and - unforgettable. Make use of that infinite vertical scroll. You never have to - dig around your files or grep to see where some content lies. And how - should your version control that file? Should you use git? Shove them in an - 'old/' folder? Well I like the simple approach of naming old files with the - date they are retired, like index.20191213.html. Using the ISO format of - the date makes it so that it sorts easily, and there's no confusion between - American and European date formats. If I have multiple versions in one day, - I would use a style similar to that which is customary in log files, of - index.20191213.1.html. A nice side effect is then you can access an older - version of the file if you remember the date, without logging into the web - host. - 4. End all forms of hotlinking – this cautionary word seems to have - disappeared from internet vocabulary, but it's one of the reasons I've seen - a perfectly good website fall apart for no reason. Stop directly including - images from other websites, stop "borrowing" stylesheets by just linking to - them, and especially stop linking to JavaScript files, even the ones hosted - by the original developers. Hotlinking is usually considered rude since - your visitors use someone else's bandwidth, it makes the user experience - slower, you let another website track your users, and worse of all if the - location you're linking to changes their folder structure or just goes - offline, then the failure cascades to your website as well. Google - Analytics is unnecessary; store your own server logs and set up GoAccess or - cut them up however you like, giving you more detailed statistics. Don't - give away your logs to Google for free. - 5. Stick with native fonts – we're focusing on content first, so decorative - and unusual typefaces are completely unnecessary. Stick with either the 13 - web-safe fonts or a system font stack that matches the default font to the - operating system of your visitor. Using the system font stack might look a - bit different between operating systems, but your layout shouldn't be so - brittle that an extra word wrap will ruin it. Then you don't have to worry - about the flashing font problem either. Your focus should be about - delivering the content to the user effectively and making the choice of - font be invisible, rather than getting noticed to stroke your design ego. - 6. Obsessively compress your images – faster for your users, less space to - archive, and easier to maintain when you don't have to back up a humongous - folder. Your images can have the same high quality, but be smaller. Minify - your SVGs, losslessly compress your PNGs, generate JPEGs to exactly fit the - width of the image. It's worth spending some time figuring out the most - optimal way to compress and reduce the size of your images without losing - quality. And once WebP gains support on Safari, switch over to that format. - Ruthlessly minimize the total size of your website and keep it as small as - possible. Every MB can cost someone real money, and in fact, my mobile - carrier (Google Fi) charges a cent per MB, so a 25 MB website which is - fairly common nowadays, costs a quarter itself, about as much as a - newspaper when I was a child. - 7. Eliminate the broken URL risk – there are monitoring services that will - tell you when your URL is down, preventing you from realizing one day that - your homepage hasn't been loading for a month and the search engines have - deindexed it. Because 10 years is longer than most hard drives or operating - systems are meant to last. But to eliminate the risk of a URL breaking - completely, set up a second monitoring service. Because if the first one - stops for any reason (they move to a pay model, they shut down, you forget - to renew something, etc.) you will still get one notification when your URL - is down, then realize the other monitoring service is down because you - didn't get the second notification. Remember that we're trying to keep - something up for over 10 years (ideally way longer, even 30 years), and a - lot of services will shut down during this period, so two monitoring - services is safer. - -After doing these things, go ahead and place a bit of text in the footer, "The -page was designed to last", linking to this page explaining what that means. -The words promise that the maintainer will do their best to follow the ideas in -this manifesto. - -Before you protest, this is obviously not for web applications. If you are -making an application, then make your web or mobile app with the workflow you -need. I don't even know any web applications that have remained similarly -functioning over 10 years so it seems like a lost cause anyway (except Philip -Guo's python tutor, due to his minimalist strategy for maintaining it). It's -also not for websites maintained by an organization like Wikipedia or Twitter. -The salaries for an IT team is probably enough to keep a website alive for a -while. - -In fact, it's not even that important you strictly follow the 7 "rules", as -they're more of a provocation than strict rules. - -But let's say some small part of the web starts designing websites to last for -content that is meant to last. What happens then? Well, people may prefer to -link to them since they have a promise of working in the future. People more -generally may be more mindful of making their pages more permanent. And users -and archivers both save bandwidth when visiting and storing these pages. - -The effects are long term, but the achievements are incremental and can be -implemented by website owners without being dependent on anyone else or waiting -for a network effect. You can do this now for your website, and that already -would be a positive outcome. Like using a recycled shopping bag instead of a -taking a plastic one, it's a small individual action. - -This article is meant to provoke and lead to individual action, not propose a -complete solution to the decaying web. It's a small simple step for a complex -sociotechnical system. So I'd love to see this happen. I intend to keep this -page up for at least 10 years. - -If you are interested in receiving updates to irchiver, our project for a -personal archive of the web pages you visit, please subscribe here. - -Thanks to my Ph.D. students Shaun Wallace, Nediyana Daskalova, Talie Massachi, -Alexandra Papoutsaki, my colleagues James Tompkin, Stephen Bach, my teaching -assistant Kathleen Chai, and my research assistant Yusuf Karim for feedback on -earlier drafts. - -See discussions on Hacker News and reddit /r/programming - -Also in this series - -Behind the scenes: the struggle for each paper to get published - -Illustrative notes for obsessing over publishing aesthetics - -Other articles I've written - -My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file - -The Coronavirus pandemic has changed our sleep behavior - -Extracting data from tracking devices by going to the cloud - -CS Faculty Composition and Hiring Trends - -Bias in Computer Science Rankings - -Who Wins CS Best Paper Awards? - -Verified Computer Science Ph.D. Stipends - -This page is designed to last. diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/jeffhuang-com-njdbjn.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/jeffhuang-com-njdbjn.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8443572 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/jeffhuang-com-njdbjn.txt @@ -0,0 +1,291 @@ + A Manifesto for Preserving Content on the Web + +This Page is Designed to Last + + By [1]Jeff Huang, published 2019-12-19, updated 2021-08-24 + + The end of the year is an opportunity to clean up and reset for the + upcoming new semester. I found myself clearing out old bookmarksβ€”yes, + bookmarks: that formerly beloved browser feature that seems to have + lost the battle to 'address bar autocomplete'. But this nostalgic act + of tidying led me to despair. + + Bookmark after bookmark led to dead link after dead link. What's + vanished: unique pieces of writing on kuro5hin about tech culture; a + collection of mathematical puzzles and their associated discussion by + academics that my father introduced me to; Woodman's Reverse + Engineering tutorials from my high school years, where I first tasted + the feeling of control over software; even my most recent bookmark, a + series of posts on Google+ exposing usb-c chargers' non-compliance with + the specification, all disappeared. + + This is more than just link rot, it's the increasing complexity of + keeping alive indie content on the web, leading to a reliance on + platforms and time-sorted publication formats (blogs, feeds, tweets). + + Of course, I have also contributed to the problem. A paper I published + 7 years ago has an abstract that includes a demo link, which has been + taken over by a spammy page with a pumpkin picture on it. Part of that + lapse was laziness to avoid having to renew and keep a functioning web + application up year after year. + + I've recommended my students to push websites to Heroku, and publish + portfolios on Wix. Yet every platform with irreplaceable content dies + off some day. Geocities, LiveJournal, what.cd, now Yahoo Groups. One + day, Medium, Twitter, and even hosting services like GitHub Pages will + be plundered then discarded when they can no longer grow or cannot find + a working business model. + + The problem is multi-faceted. First, content takes effort to maintain. + The content may need updating to remain relevant, and will eventually + have to be rehosted. A lot of content, what used to be the vast + majority of content, was put up by individuals. But individuals (maybe + you?) lose interest, so one day maybe you just don't want to deal with + migrating a website to a new hosting provider. + + Second, a growing set of libraries and frameworks are making the web + more sophisticated but also more complex. First came jquery, then + bootstrap, npm, angular, grunt, webpack, and more. If you are a web + developer who is keeping up with the latest, then that's not a problem. + + But if not, maybe you are an embedded systems programmer or startup CTO + or enterprise Java developer or chemistry PhD student, sure you could + probably figure out how to set up some web server and toolchain, but + will you keep this up year after year, decade after decade? Probably + not, and when the next year when you encounter a package dependency + problem or figure out how to regenerate your html files, you might just + throw your hands up and zip up the files to deal with "later". Even + simple technology stacks like static site generators (e.g., Jekyll) + require a workflow and will stop working at some point. You fall into + npm dependency hell, and forget the command to package a release. And + having a website with multiple html pages is complex; how would you + know how each page links to each other? index.html.old, Copy of + about.html, index.html (1), nav.html? + + Third, and this has been touted by others already (and even + [2]rebutted), the disappearance of the public web in favor of mobile + and web apps, walled gardens (Facebook pages), just-in-time WebSockets + loading, and AMP decreases the proportion of the web on the world wide + web, which now seems more like a continental web than a "world wide + web". + + So for these problems, what can we do about it? It's not such a simple + problem that can be solved in this one article. The Wayback Machine and + archive.org helps keep some content around for longer. And sometimes an + altruistic individual rehosts the content elsewhere. + + But the solution needs to be multi-pronged. How do we make web content + that can last and be maintained for at least 10 years? As someone + studying human-computer interaction, I naturally think of the + stakeholders we aren't supporting. Right now putting up web content is + optimized for either the professional web developer (who use the latest + frameworks and workflows) or the non-tech savvy user (who use a + platform). + + But I think we should consider both 1) the casual web content + "maintainer", someone who doesn't constantly stay up to date with the + latest web technologies, which means the website needs to have low + maintenance needs; 2) and the crawlers who preserve the content and + [3]personal archivers, the "archiver", which means the website should + be easy to save and interpret. + + So my proposal is seven unconventional guidelines in how we handle + websites designed to be informative, to make them easy to maintain and + preserve. The guiding intention is that the maintainer will try to keep + the website up for at least 10 years, maybe even 20 or 30 years. These + are not controversial views necessarily, but are aspirations that are + not mainstreamβ€”a manifesto for a long-lasting website. + 1. Return to vanilla HTML/CSS – I think we've reached the point where + html/css is more powerful, and nicer to use than ever before. + Instead of starting with a giant template filled with .js includes, + it's now okay to just write plain HTML from scratch again. CSS + Flexbox and Grid, canvas, Selectors, box-shadow, the video element, + filter, etc. eliminate a lot of the need for JavaScript libraries. + We can avoid jquery and bootstrap when they're not needed. The more + libraries incorporated into the website, the more fragile it + becomes. Skip the polyfills and CSS prefixes, and stick with the + CSS attributes that work across all browsers. And frequently + validate your HTML; it could save you a headache in the future when + you encounter a bug. + 2. Don't minimize that HTML – minimizing (compressing) your HTML and + associated CSS/JS seems like it saves precious bandwidth and all + the big companies are doing it. But why not? Well, you don't save + much because your web pages should be gzipped before being sent + over the network, so preemptively shrinking your content probably + doesn't do much to save bandwidth if anything at all. But even if + it did save a few bytes (it's just text in the end), you now need + to have a build process and to add this to your workflow, so + updating a website just became more complex. If there's a bug or + future incompatibility in the html, the minimized form is harder to + debug. And it's unfriendly to your users; so many people got their + start with HTML by smashing that View Source button, and minimizing + your HTML prevents this ideal of learning by seeing what they did. + Minimizing HTML does not preserve its educational quality, and what + gets archived is only the resulting codejunk. + 3. Prefer one page over several – several pages are hard to maintain. + You can lose track of which pages link to what, and it also leads + to some system of page templates to reduce redundancy. How many + pages can one person really maintain? Having one file, probably + just an index.html, is simple and unforgettable. Make use of that + infinite vertical scroll. You never have to dig around your files + or grep to see where some content lies. And how should your version + control that file? Should you use git? Shove them in an 'old/' + folder? Well I like the simple approach of naming old files with + the date they are retired, like index.20191213.html. Using the ISO + format of the date makes it so that it sorts easily, and there's no + confusion between American and European date formats. If I have + multiple versions in one day, I would use a style similar to that + which is customary in log files, of index.20191213.1.html. A nice + side effect is then you can access an older version of the file if + you remember the date, without logging into the web host. + 4. End all forms of hotlinking – this cautionary word seems to have + disappeared from internet vocabulary, but it's one of the reasons + I've seen a perfectly good website fall apart for no reason. Stop + directly including images from other websites, stop "borrowing" + stylesheets by just linking to them, and especially stop linking to + JavaScript files, even the ones hosted by the original developers. + Hotlinking is [4]usually considered rude since your visitors use + someone else's bandwidth, it makes the user experience slower, you + let another website track your users, and worse of all if the + location you're linking to changes their folder structure or just + goes offline, then the failure cascades to your website as well. + Google Analytics is unnecessary; store your own server logs and set + up [5]GoAccess or cut them up however you like, giving you more + detailed statistics. Don't give away your logs to Google for free. + 5. Stick with native fonts – we're focusing on content first, so + decorative and unusual typefaces are completely unnecessary. Stick + with either the 13 web-safe fonts or a [6]system font stack that + matches the default font to the operating system of your visitor. + Using the system font stack might look a bit different between + operating systems, but your layout shouldn't be so brittle that an + extra word wrap will ruin it. Then you don't have to worry about + the flashing font problem either. Your focus should be about + delivering the content to the user effectively and making the + choice of font be invisible, rather than getting noticed to stroke + your design ego. + 6. Obsessively compress your images – faster for your users, less + space to archive, and easier to maintain when you don't have to + back up a humongous folder. Your images can have the same high + quality, but be smaller. [7]Minify your SVGs, losslessly compress + your PNGs, generate JPEGs to exactly fit the width of the image. + It's worth spending some time figuring out the most optimal way to + compress and [8]reduce the size of your images without losing + quality. And once [9]WebP gains support on Safari, switch over to + that format. Ruthlessly minimize the total size of your website and + keep it as small as possible. Every MB can cost someone real money, + and in fact, my mobile carrier (Google Fi) charges a cent per MB, + so a 25 MB website which is fairly common nowadays, costs a quarter + itself, about as much as a newspaper when I was a child. + 7. Eliminate the broken URL risk – there are [10]monitoring services + that will tell you when your URL is down, preventing you from + realizing one day that your homepage hasn't been loading for a + month and the search engines have deindexed it. Because 10 years is + longer than most hard drives or operating systems are meant to + last. But to eliminate the risk of a URL breaking completely, set + up a second monitoring service. Because if the first one stops for + any reason (they move to a pay model, they shut down, you forget to + renew something, etc.) you will still get one notification when + your URL is down, then realize the other monitoring service is down + because you didn't get the second notification. Remember that we're + trying to keep something up for over 10 years (ideally way longer, + even 30 years), and a lot of services will shut down during this + period, so two monitoring services is safer. + + After doing these things, go ahead and place a bit of text in the + footer, "The page was designed to last", linking to this page + explaining what that means. The words promise that the maintainer will + do their best to follow the ideas in this manifesto. + + Before you protest, this is obviously not for web applications. If you + are making an application, then make your web or mobile app with the + workflow you need. I don't even know any web applications that have + remained similarly functioning over 10 years so it seems like a lost + cause anyway (except Philip Guo's python tutor, due to his + [11]minimalist strategy for maintaining it). It's also not for websites + maintained by an organization like Wikipedia or Twitter. The salaries + for an IT team is probably enough to keep a website alive for a while. + + In fact, it's not even that important you strictly follow the 7 + "rules", as they're more of a provocation than strict rules. + + But let's say some small part of the web starts designing websites to + last for content that is meant to last. What happens then? Well, people + may prefer to link to them since they have a promise of working in the + future. People more generally may be more mindful of making their pages + more permanent. And users and archivers both save bandwidth when + visiting and storing these pages. + + The effects are long term, but the achievements are incremental and can + be implemented by website owners without being dependent on anyone else + or waiting for a network effect. You can do this now for your website, + and that already would be a positive outcome. Like using a recycled + shopping bag instead of a taking a plastic one, it's a small individual + action. + + This article is meant to provoke and lead to individual action, not + propose a complete solution to the decaying web. It's a small simple + step for a complex sociotechnical system. So I'd love to see this + happen. I intend to keep this page up for at least 10 years. + + If you are interested in receiving updates to [12]irchiver, our project + for a personal archive of the web pages you visit, please [13]subscribe + here. + + Thanks to my Ph.D. students Shaun Wallace, Nediyana Daskalova, Talie + Massachi, Alexandra Papoutsaki, my colleagues James Tompkin, Stephen + Bach, my teaching assistant Kathleen Chai, and my research assistant + Yusuf Karim for feedback on earlier drafts. + + See discussions on [14]Hacker News and [15]reddit /r/programming + +Also in this series + + [16]Behind the scenes: the struggle for each paper to get published + + [17]Illustrative notes for obsessing over publishing aesthetics + +Other articles I've written + + [18]My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file + + [19]The Coronavirus pandemic has changed our sleep behavior + + [20]Extracting data from tracking devices by going to the cloud + + [21]CS Faculty Composition and Hiring Trends + + [22]Bias in Computer Science Rankings + + [23]Who Wins CS Best Paper Awards? + + [24]Verified Computer Science Ph.D. Stipends + + This page is [25]designed to last. + +References + + 1. https://jeffhuang.com/ + 2. https://gomakethings.com/the-web-is-not-dying/ + 3. https://archivebox.io/ + 4. https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/25315/hotlinking-what-is-it-and-why-shouldnt-people-do-it + 5. https://goaccess.io/ + 6. https://systemfontstack.com/ + 7. https://victorzhou.com/blog/minify-svgs/ + 8. https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/images-done-right-web-graphics-good-to-the-last-byte-optimization-techniques + 9. https://caniuse.com/#feat=webp + 10. https://uptimerobot.com/ + 11. https://pg.ucsd.edu/publications/Python-Tutor-scalable-sustainable-research-software_UIST-2021.pdf + 12. https://irchiver.com/ + 13. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeTCgnwF1gjrc1O8mfJ_5TmT_TLowFQ2DUhsollmqPG84pAFQ/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.1299571007=Irchiver:+browser+history+search&entry.1760653896=designed_to_last + 14. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21840140 + 15. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ed88ra/this_page_is_designed_to_last_a_manifesto_for/ + 16. https://jeffhuang.com/struggle_for_each_paper/ + 17. https://jeffhuang.com/illustrative-notes-for-publishing-aesthetics/ + 18. https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/ + 19. https://jeffhuang.com/covid_sleep/ + 20. https://jeffhuang.com/extracting_data_from_tracking_devices/ + 21. https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#cs-faculty-composition-and-hiring-trends + 22. https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#bias-in-computer-science-rankings + 23. https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#who-wins-cs-best-paper-awards + 24. https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#verified-computer-science-phd-stipends + 25. http://jeffhuang.com/designed_to_last/ diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/www-viget-com-5w5oyj.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/www-viget-com-5w5oyj.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 73a8832..0000000 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/www-viget-com-5w5oyj.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,284 +0,0 @@ -Skip to Main Content -Viget - - β€’ Work - β€’ Services - β€’ Articles - β€’ Careers - β€’ Contact - β€’ Open Menu - -Navigation - -Viget Close - - β€’ Practice - β€’ Work - β€’ Services - β€’ Articles - -We’re a full-service digital agency that’s been helping clients make lasting -change since 1999. - -Contact Us - -People - - β€’ Company - β€’ Careers - β€’ Code of Ethics - β€’ Diversity & Inclusion - -More - - β€’ Pointless Corp. - β€’ Explorations - β€’ Code at Viget - -Featured - - -Read the Article: AI in Recruiting - -Newsletter - -AI in Recruiting - - -Read the Article: The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp - -Article - -The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp - -The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp - -[pointless-sticker-bear-article] -Brian Williams - -Brian Williams, Co-Founder & CEO - -Article Categories: #News & Culture, #Employee Engagement - -Posted on March 24, 2023 - - β€’ - Share - β€’ - Share - β€’ - Tweet - -Pointless Corp. is the innovation lab at Viget, where we step away from client -work to make fun and useful things for everyone - -β€œNeither pointless, nor a corporation” is how we describe Pointless Corp. here -at Viget. We founded Viget – an actual company – in 1999 during the original -dot com bubble to build web products for clients. Serving clients has always -been our purpose or … point, if you will. Over the decades, we’ve done just -that, completing thousands of projects for hundreds of clients. Never -forgetting that we exist to serve our clients has been key in our longevity. - -About a decade in, we felt the urge to build and launch our own projects. -Pointless Corp became the internal brand we adopted to remind ourselves that -these projects can be fun and useful but don’t replace the primary point of -Viget. A line from Harry Nilsson’s The Point! referencing the Pointless Man -serves as inspiration: β€œa point in every direction is the same as no point at -all.” We wanted the freedom to experiment in every direction. - -So we did. Ideas and teams formed fairly randomly, and Pointless Projects began -to fill the gaps between our client work. Projects like HeyCraig (2009), which -sent you an email alert based on your Craigslist search (before Craigslist shut -us down and added the feature). Or Tincan’d (2011), a simple video call -platform before Zoom or Google Meet. Or BabyBookie, the baby due date office -pool app over 500,000 people have used since launch in 2012. - -These projects allow our teams to work without the input (including, ahem, -revenue) of clients, so we’re more free to experiment, wear different hats, and -learn … a lot. We apply what we learn back into our client work. Along the way, -we get to know each other better, scratch our entrepreneurial itches, and -hopefully put some fun and/or useful things out in the world for others to -enjoy. - -For many years, we organized an annual optional Pointless Weekend. We’d kick -off hackathon-style on a Thursday evening and wrap on a Saturday evening with a -functional product out in the wild, as I described back in 2012. It’s always -been an intense, enjoyable, but rather exhausting 48 hours. Photos from 2011, -2014, and 2016 bring back some great memories. - -Photos of Pointless Weekend 2014 -Pointless Weekend 2014 spanned three Viget offices - -A couple of years ago, we shifted the schedule to start on Wednesday and wrap -on Friday. This made participation easier, allowing parents and others with -weekend commitments to join. It also allowed projects to wrap up just in time -for our Friday staff meeting. We awkwardly called it β€œPointless Week” even -though it was still only two days. - -New for 2023: Pointless Palooza - -Two things I like: alliteration and lollapalooza (specifically circa 1992, but -that’s a story for another day). So Pointless Palooza was an obvious choice for -what to call our little two day adventure. In addition to a new name, we’re -trying a few other changes this year: - -Pointless Executives. Nothing injects new energy like new leadership. We handed -over the Pointless reins to two trusty execs: Andrew (day job: developer) is -our Pointless CEO and Aimee (day job: project manager) is our Pointless COO. -They’ve done a phenomenal job setting a vision, planning, and leading the -activities. Their enthusiasm helped inspire more than half the company to -participate with a record number of projects and great results. - -Pitching & Team Formation. Previously, project ideas were β€œpitched” with a -single slide and a tight 1-2 minute segment at a staff meeting. These were fun -and lighthearted, but didn’t always capture the full vision, and teams often -formed and morphed during the kickoff night. This year, project ideas were -shared more gradually via collaboration in Slack and Notion. Project teams -formed with more structure in advance, and team members had some time before -the kickoff to marinate on the idea and get excited to build. - -Even More Remote Friendly. There’s something magical about kickoff-pizza, -launch day donuts, and in-person collaboration. But there’s something even more -magical about collaborating with dozens of teammates around the country -(especially when it’s supplemented by sweet swag boxes and Divvy credits for -remote treats). Hybrid teams work. We still had fun in-office connections, but -most of our Pointless Projects this year are being worked on with distributed -teams, much like our client work. - -Photo of Pointless Branded Stuff 2023 -Pointless Branded Stuff 2023 including a t-shirt and sticker pack -- very -corporate - -Some things haven’t changed from prior years. Team members are still swapping -roles – PMs writing code, designers running projects, the list goes on – which -means steep and rapid learning curves. We’re still trying out new technologies -and approaches to our work, which means unexpected blockers and great insights -to share. New connections are being formed, especially since more than half of -this year’s participants are in their first year at Viget and experiencing -their first Pointless event. Forming authentic co-worker connections isn’t -easy, and our culture is stronger today than it was at the start of the week. - -So what projects will launch? I won’t steal their thunder, but we just wrapped -the presentation portion of six Pointless Project teams at our weekly staff -meeting and it was the most we’ve laughed, cheered, and been inspired in a long -time. I expect articles will be written and shared in the days and weeks ahead -outlining the thrills (and mishaps) of the teams this year. - -Photos of Pointless Palooza 2023 -Pointless Palooza 2023 was a blast! - -Pointless Corp. is more than an annual palooza. We work on projects throughout -the year in the gaps between client work, weaving the teamwork, learning, and -teaching values of Viget into all that we do. - -If this is the kind of work and culture you might enjoy, learn more about our -culture and job openings – perhaps you’ll be able to join next year’s Pointless -Palooza. After all, inspiring people to join us is unapologetically part of the -point. - -Brian Williams - -Brian is Viget's co-founder and CEO. He does everything from advising our -clients to building our conference tables with his bare hands in our Falls -Church, VA, HQ. - -More articles by Brian - -Related Articles - - β€’ - - Article - - Our Pointless Logo - - Brian Williams - - β€’ - - Article - - Introducing Pointless Corp. - - Brian Williams - - β€’ - What’s the Point of Pointless Weekend? - - Article - - What’s the Point of Pointless Weekend? - - Brian Williams - -The Viget Newsletter - -Nobody likes popups, so we waited until now to recommend our newsletter, -featuring thoughts, opinions, and tools for building a better digital world. -Read the current issue. - -Subscribe Here (opens in new window) - -Site Footer - -Have an unsolvable problem or audacious idea? - -Let’s get to work - -Contact Us hello@viget.com 703.891.0670 - - β€’ Practice - β€’ Work - β€’ Services - β€’ Articles - - β€’ People - β€’ Company - β€’ Careers - β€’ Code of Ethics - β€’ Diversity & Inclusion - - β€’ More - β€’ Pointless Corp. - β€’ Explorations - β€’ Code at Viget - -Sign Up For Our Newsletter - -A curated periodical featuring thoughts, opinions, and tools for building a -better digital world. - -Check it out - -Social Links - -Viget - - β€’ - β€’ - β€’ - β€’ - β€’ - β€’ - -Office Locations - - β€’ Washington DC Metro - β€’ Durham, NC - β€’ Boulder, CO - β€’ Chattanooga, TN - -Β© 1999 – 2023 Viget Labs, LLC. Terms Privacy MRF - - β€’ Home - β€’ Articles - β€’ The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp - -Subscribe (opens in a new window) -Share - - β€’ Share this page - β€’ Share this page - β€’ Tweet this page - -Edit Entry diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/www-viget-com-97ckk4.txt b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/www-viget-com-97ckk4.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b1b194 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/www-viget-com-97ckk4.txt @@ -0,0 +1,367 @@ + #[1]Viget Articles + + IFRAME: [2]https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-5V7V + + [3]Skip to Main Content + + [4]Viget + + * [5]Work + * [6]Services + * [7]Articles + * [8]Careers + * [9]Contact + * (BUTTON) Open Menu + +Navigation + + [10]Viget (BUTTON) Close + * Practice + * [11]Work + * [12]Services + * [13]Articles + + We’re a full-service digital agency that’s been helping clients make + lasting change since 1999. + [14]Contact Us + +People + + * [15]Company + * [16]Careers + * [17]Code of Ethics + * [18]Diversity & Inclusion + +More + + * [19]Pointless Corp. + * [20]Explorations + * [21]Code at Viget + +Featured + + Read the Article: AI in Recruiting + + Newsletter + +AI in Recruiting + + Read the Article: The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp + + Article + +The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp + +The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp + + [22]Brian Williams + + [23]Brian Williams, Co-Founder & CEO + + Article Categories: [24]#News & Culture, [25]#Employee Engagement + + Posted on March 24, 2023 + * Share + * Share + * Tweet + + Pointless Corp. is the innovation lab at Viget, where we step away from + client work to make fun and useful things for everyone + + β€œNeither pointless, nor a corporation” is how we describe Pointless + Corp. here at Viget. We founded Viget – an actual company – in 1999 + during the original dot com bubble to build web products for clients. + Serving clients has always been our purpose or … point, if you will. + Over the decades, we’ve done just that, completing thousands of + projects for hundreds of clients. Never forgetting that we exist to + serve our clients has been key in our longevity. + + About a decade in, we felt the urge to build and launch our own + projects. [26]Pointless Corp became the internal [27]brand we adopted + to remind ourselves that these projects can be fun and useful but don’t + replace the primary point of Viget. A line from Harry Nilsson’s The + Point! referencing the Pointless Man serves as inspiration: β€œa point in + every direction is the same as no point at all.” We wanted the freedom + to experiment in every direction. + + So we did. Ideas and teams formed fairly randomly, and Pointless + Projects began to fill the gaps between our client work. Projects like + [28]HeyCraig (2009), which sent you an email alert based on your + Craigslist search (before Craigslist shut us down and added the + feature). Or [29]Tincan’d (2011), a simple video call platform before + Zoom or Google Meet. Or [30]BabyBookie, the baby due date office pool + app over 500,000 people have used since launch in 2012. + + These projects allow our teams to work without the input (including, + ahem, revenue) of clients, so we’re more free to experiment, wear + different hats, and learn … a lot. We apply what we learn back into our + client work. Along the way, we get to know each other better, scratch + our entrepreneurial itches, and hopefully put some fun and/or useful + things out in the world for others to enjoy. + + For many years, we organized an annual optional Pointless Weekend. We’d + kick off hackathon-style on a Thursday evening and wrap on a Saturday + evening with a functional product out in the wild, as I described + [31]back in 2012. It’s [32]always been an intense, enjoyable, but + rather exhausting 48 hours. Photos from [33]2011, [34]2014, and + [35]2016 bring back some great memories. + Photos of Pointless Weekend 2014 + Pointless Weekend 2014 spanned three Viget offices + + A couple of years ago, we shifted the schedule to start on Wednesday + and wrap on Friday. This made participation easier, allowing parents + and others with weekend commitments to join. It also allowed projects + to wrap up just in time for our Friday staff meeting. We awkwardly + called it β€œPointless Week” even though it was still only two days. + + New for 2023: Pointless Palooza + + Two things I like: alliteration and lollapalooza (specifically circa + 1992, but that’s a story for another day). So Pointless Palooza was an + obvious choice for what to call our little two day adventure. In + addition to a new name, we’re trying a few other changes this year: + + Pointless Executives. Nothing injects new energy like new leadership. + We handed over the Pointless reins to two trusty execs: [36]Andrew (day + job: developer) is our Pointless CEO and [37]Aimee (day job: project + manager) is our Pointless COO. They’ve done a phenomenal job setting a + vision, planning, and leading the activities. Their enthusiasm helped + inspire more than half the company to participate with a record number + of projects and great results. + + Pitching & Team Formation. Previously, project ideas were β€œpitched” + with a single slide and a tight 1-2 minute segment at a staff meeting. + These were fun and lighthearted, but didn’t always capture the full + vision, and teams often formed and morphed during the kickoff night. + This year, project ideas were shared more gradually via collaboration + in Slack and Notion. Project teams formed with more structure in + advance, and team members had some time before the kickoff to marinate + on the idea and get excited to build. + + Even More Remote Friendly. There’s something magical about + kickoff-pizza, launch day donuts, and [38]in-person collaboration. But + there’s something even more magical about collaborating with dozens of + teammates around the country (especially when it’s supplemented by + [39]sweet swag boxes and Divvy credits for remote treats). Hybrid teams + work. We still had fun in-office connections, but most of our Pointless + Projects this year are being worked on with distributed teams, much + like our client work. + Photo of Pointless Branded Stuff 2023 + Pointless Branded Stuff 2023 including a t-shirt and sticker pack -- + very corporate + + Some things haven’t changed from prior years. Team members are still + swapping roles – PMs writing code, designers running projects, the list + goes on – which means steep and rapid [40]learning curves. We’re still + trying out new technologies and approaches to our work, which means + unexpected blockers and great insights to share. New connections are + being formed, especially since more than half of this year’s + participants are in their first year at Viget and experiencing their + first Pointless event. Forming authentic co-worker connections isn’t + easy, and our culture is stronger today than it was at the start of the + week. + + So what projects will launch? I won’t steal their thunder, but we just + wrapped the presentation portion of six Pointless Project teams at our + weekly staff meeting and it was the most we’ve laughed, cheered, and + been inspired in a long time. I expect articles will be written and + shared in the days and weeks ahead outlining the thrills (and mishaps) + of the teams this year. + Photos of Pointless Palooza 2023 + Pointless Palooza 2023 was a blast! + + Pointless Corp. is more than an annual palooza. We work on projects + throughout the year in the gaps between client work, weaving the + teamwork, learning, and teaching values of Viget into all that we do. + + If this is the kind of work and culture you might enjoy, learn more + about [41]our culture and job openings – perhaps you’ll be able to join + next year’s Pointless Palooza. After all, inspiring people to join us + is unapologetically part of the point. + + [42]Brian Williams + + [43]Brian is Viget's co-founder and CEO. He does everything from + advising our clients to building our conference tables with his bare + hands in our Falls Church, VA, HQ. + [44]More articles by Brian + +Related Articles + + * Article + +Our Pointless Logo + Brian Williams + * Article + +Introducing Pointless Corp. + Brian Williams + * What’s the Point of Pointless Weekend? + Article + +What’s the Point of Pointless Weekend? + Brian Williams + +The Viget Newsletter + + Nobody likes popups, so we waited until now to recommend our + newsletter, featuring thoughts, opinions, and tools for building a + better digital world. 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