Jared White

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 22:28:47 -0800

My mother passed away nearly 20 years ago. I still miss her. A lot.

But as I was in the car chatting with my kids about our own ages and growing older as a #family is wont to do, it occurred to me that if my mother were still alive, she’d be 73 years old. And the notion of having a 73-year-old “Mom” suddenly struck me as absurdist, loony, perhaps even a little frightening.

I have no idea what a 73-year-old Mom would be like! And would I even like her, the way I did when she was in her 50s and I was in my 20s?

And that idea made me giggle a little. It’s easier to miss her now, because I miss her in a special way I simply wouldn’t if she were different, older, and here.

My 2025 Goal: Daily Blogging

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 10:36:57 -0800

The years have come and gone, and I’ve never committed to a content practice I’ve long envied:

Blogging every single day.

Well, my friends, it is time. It is time to make the leap, take the plunge, put my money where my mouth is, and just do it.

Now it’s true I run more than one #website, so this doesn’t mean I’ll be #writing and posting every day on JaredWhite.com per se. Frequently yes, but not exclusively—my goal covers all of my content projects. As long as I’ve posted on “a blog” in a given day, that fulfills the requirement. (And no, posting on any sort of social media doesn’t count!)

I know this is a tall order, and many people make grandiose resolutions at the start of a new year only to fall flat on their face. But I feel like my blogging habits have gotten much better in the past few months, and ramping things up to the next level won’t be difficult.

Will you hold me accountable? Please do! 😅

Link: The Sparse Pacific Coast of Colombia

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 07:20:35 -0800

Coastal cities like Cartagena and Santa Marta were prioritized for settlement due to their proximity to other Caribbean colonies and Europe more broadly. In contrast, Colombia’s Pacific coast offered little to entice Spanish settlers. The region lacks major natural harbors and continues to face rough seas into today, making it less suitable for large-scale shipping. Additionally, trade routes with Asia and the Pacific Rim were virtually nonexistent during this period, further diminishing the region’s strategic importance.

I’ve been a fan of Geography by Geoff for some time now, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that Geoff is a local Portlander! I can’t think of any other source on the Internet that’s helped me learn more about #geography and population growth (or lack thereof) in various regions, and this installment is no different.

Aside: I also think it’s interesting that Geoff, like many YouTubers, is essentially blogging now with an email newsletter (hosted on Substack which isn’t ideal, but still…). I feel like that’s a growing trend, because creators are realizing just because they have followers on a social media platform doesn’t mean they have a direct relationship with their fans. Blogging is also a great way to get key concepts out the door in a way that’s easy to discuss and link to from other websites. Just like I’m doing right now! 😎

Video: Rejuvenation After a Hard Year

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 09:31:42 -0800

It's become a tradition for me to spend time over the holidays on a trip up the Columbia River Gorge. No matter what the weather conditions may be (and I sure got lucky this time!), there's a stillness and a calm I feel whenever I'm here which is truly rejuvenating.

Watch the Video Here

A Photo with Paint FX is Not a Painting, But It Could Be Something Else

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:26:11 -0800

I’m on the lookout for tools which help usher in new art forms—not badly approximate the ones which came before.

In a recent episode of Fresh Fusion, I talked about the difference between “generative art” and “generative AI”.

One lets you dial in an array of parameters of a specialized, deterministic computer program and watch/hear the math unfold in surprising and delightful ways. The other is a fuzzy digital fever dream remix based on the lifeblood of real creators who likely had never consented to the experiment.

Building on that thought, let’s approach the difference between applying “art styles” to digital mediums and believing you’re actually approximating those aspirational mediums.

Filters > Painting…

When I was but a wee lad in the very early days of digital photography, I—like so many at the time—stumbled across “painterly” effects in the Photoshop-adjacent world of the time. There were so many options available to “turn a photograph into a painting”. Some options were even available in the printing phase—i.e., you could get a canvas made of a digital print which had a handful of realistic brush strokes added.

For the most part, all of my experiments in this arena looked like trash, and in hindsight I very much doubt that any “I Can’t Believe It’s Not a Painting!” artifacts from that era made it into any legitimate art galleries for fame and posterity.

However, it’s safe to say that further evolutions of these sorts of techniques eventually ended up in the hands of talented 3D animators and visual FX artists, and eventually we ended up in a world where facets of painting and illustration get applied in adjacent visual mediums to the wonderment of all. And I suppose a person with great technique and careful skill could today blend a source photograph with painterly effects in order to create a true mixed-media work of art. (I say “suppose” because I rarely see any such examples posted on social media. Send me links if you have any!)

But here’s the bottom line: a photograph which has been altered with hand-inspired effects is never going to be a painting. And that’s fine! I not implying it can’t be good. It simply is…something else.

This is why I continually scratch my head when I see people make claims that generative AI will let people create “the thing” they’re trying to create. AI will help you shoot “the film”. AI will help you write “the poem”. AI will help you develop “the app”.

No it won’t.

Eventually, when we have more precise, more controllable, and more ethical tools in this space which aren’t an alarming source of epistemological degradation and don’t simply churn out uncanny valley slop, it’s possible we’ll find ways to utilize them to establish new art forms. Not simply (badly) approximate the ones which have come before.

Maybe a future (not bad) AI tool can help craft a movie showing a style & subject we’ve never even seen or dreamt of before. Maybe a future tool can help output sounds that usher in a new musical genre, just like the synthesizers and tape recorders and theremins of recent memory. Maybe a future tool can help assemble an entirely new format of human-computer interaction, offering a UI radically different from the computer desktops and smartphones of today.

Maybe.

But that day is not today. Today, corporations salivate at crappy chatbots replacing trained support humans, students ask broken search engines to give them wrong answers to reports instead of doing real research, and asshats in Hollywood think they can somehow route around the pesky whims and demands of “the talent”…in some cases even resurrecting the dead. Gross!

Envisioning a Better Age

The so-called AI is not your friend, and the tools real artists need to create real art by and large are not being provided by the AI-driven hype cycle (leaving aside certain automation-related features like text-to-speech, transcription, translation, tagging, etc. which are genuinely useful). In fact the opposite is often true: artists all over the Internet are being shat upon by the men with dollar signs in their eyes running Big Tech firms along with the gauche startups which aspire to become them (or be bought by them).

Increasingly, I find that the songs which move me, the films which wow me, the writings which inspire me, and the apps which delight me are intentionally and proudly being marketed by indie creators with disclaimers such as “no generative AI was used in the making of this [fill in the blank]”. These are the creative endeavors I want to support and encourage.

Be a humanist. Stand up for the humans.

And if you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll listen to Jessie Gender—one of the most creative online creators I’ve ever come across:

Art isn’t a product. It’s a conversation to be shared.

Technology helps us dream it. It did not do it for us.

What more is there to say?

Photo credit: Layers on Pixabay

#creativity #generativeAI

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 10:19:00 -0800

The trees are always there.

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 16:23:54 -0800

Good night #Portland. Here’s to hoping for better days ahead.

Video is the Holy Grail of the Open Web

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 09:18:49 -0700

The #openweb has conquered ~~all~~ some.

You can post text and images directly on the web. It’s very simple to do—even for non-geeks who just use Wix or Squarespace. Blogging is still very much a thing, and now with the rise of decentralized social media, we can claim that too. Even RSS is making a comeback!
You can post audio directly on the web and create your own podcast. There are many hosts around which make this straightforward, and everyone is happy to use their “podcast player of choice”.
You can launch communities, accept payments, offer games, provide software, and all sorts of other digital goodies through a variety of tools and services on the open web.

But here’s the thing which nobody (*) does directly on the web: video. Video was eaten by YouTube.

YouTube has conquered all. Yes for short form, also TikTok and Instagram. For streaming, also Twitch. But I’m primarily highlighting longer, typically pre-recorded, 16:9 videos. That market is owned by YouTube, no question about it.

And that’s extremely odd when you think about it. What other online medium is so completely dominated by a single platform? It’s so all-encompassing that people will literally describe their profession by the platform’s name: I am a YouTuber. Nobody says “I’m a Facebooker” or “I’m a Twitcher” or “I’m a Spotifier”. But they will gladly promote the fact they are a YouTuber. And even though people’s “blog posts” are indeed part of the open web proper, people’s #vlog episodes are virtually always found at a single destination. Gee that sucks!

I have come to the conclusion that YouTube poses an existential threat to the open web and to our broader society far and away more than any other corporate silo. And it’s not just me—creators on YouTube themselves are increasingly upset with the #enshittification of the platform and the awful moderation policies which seem to punish “wokeness” while rewarding truly bad actors who spew misinformation and hatred.

Does anyone sincerely believe YouTube is getting…better? Or has it been steadily decaying for years? (Yes.) Speaking for myself personally, I find having to engage with YouTube in any way borderline oppressive. I already use it at little as possible directly, and prefer to subscribe to channels through Feedbin. But trying to use a third-party frontend like Invidious is nearly impossible now, and even embedded video playback through Feedbin has gotten spotty. And even having switched off YouTube history entirely so I don’t get that horrible algorithmic front page, I’m still forced to look at a “related videos” sidebar which almost always has one or two videos which are clearly alt-right ragebait or general nonsense peddled by “influencers”. It makes me sick, and I mean that quite literally.

We need to do something about this. And by we, I’m starting with me. I’m going to do something about it. I don’t have anything to announce at this time, but I can tell you honestly: when I contemplate the future of the open web, there’s nothing that’s lighting a fire under me more than how to solve the video problem and wean ourselves off of complete dominance by YouTube. We can’t ignore this any longer. If you’re a fan of RSS, if you’re a fan of ActivityPub, if you’re a fan of blogging and of podcasting, you absolutely can’t ignore the elephant in the room.

Video killed the open web star? Not if I can help it!

* We’re starting to see—and I’ve talked about this before—the rise of creator-friendly indie video subscription platforms. My favorite one is Nebula, and I watch a lot of shows on there. But it’s still a drop in the bucket. We need 10000% more of that.

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 08:31:00 -0700

Smith Rock State Park in Central Oregon

I’ve wanted so badly to visit Bend and surrounds again this year, and just haven’t made it work. Soon, I hope! 🤞

#OregonExplored #NikonZfc

You Need a Portfolio (and So Do I)

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 09:08:27 -0700

Somewhere along the way to becoming Extremely Online, we’ve lost the art of curation. It’s time to reclaim our artistic truths.

On occasion, truth be told, I’m not so swift on the uptake. You see, it finally came to me as I sat musing on the nature of the work I’ve been focusing on a great deal this year across several unrelated disciplines. When I list out these efforts all together, you’ll immediately spot the pattern—hence my sudden smack-that-forehead moment of epiphany:

The Internet Review, my rebooted & coalesced blog combining over 25 years of writing on tech topics
Subterranean, my album release of newly-freshened electronic music compositions spanning 20 years
Essential Life Photography (currently in the works!), my curated portfolio of photographs taken over the past seven years I’ve lived in Oregon.

Obvious, isn’t it? And yet these were all separate efforts which I didn’t give much thought to in terms of their conceptual interconnectedness…until now!

If I might put a theme on it, I could call it Rebel Without a Timeline. In all of these cases (perhaps least obvious for The Internet Review which is still primarily a blog format), the primordial desire is to break out of the confines of the “reverse-chronological timeline” and showcase work which encompasses months, years, and even decades of effort in a curated fashion. Fact is the Internet isn’t so good at that—not any more at least. The validity of the “death of the homepage” narrative has been hotly contested for a long time, and I don’t wish to litigate that here, but it’s hard to deny that the primary format by which people consume content online is—as Netscape once established—What’s New.

No matter which social media platform you use, no matter which email newsletters you subscribe to, no matter how you choose to bookmark and follow creators—it’s all about What’s New. Even algorithmic timelines which are somewhat non-linear nearly always favor recency. You might see a post from a day or two ago, but you certainly won’t see something from months or years ago—unless that’s been intentionally shared by an individual. Maybe something older will surface in a “related” section (most notably on YouTube), but it’s an exception to the rule.

Streams Makes Sense, But They’re Also Missing Something

Content streams, feeds, whatever you want to call them—they make sense. They really do. There’s a reason that’s what publishing on the Internet is built around, by and large.

But streams miss out on a vital aspect of creativity. Streams are lacking in context. Streams are lacking in legacy. And streams are lacking in relationships between disparate pieces of content.

When you visit an art gallery, you’re participating in multiple layers of experience. The most basic and obvious layer is when you’re looking at one piece of art at a time, which I might call singular attention. This painting. That sculpture. This photograph. That projection.

But beyond that, you’re experiencing the layer of comparison. This painting as compared to that sculpture as compared to this photography as compared to that projection.

But at a higher level still is the layer of compilation. All of the art in the gallery has been compiled together into an exhibit. And the exhibit itself could be considered a form of art. Why did the curator choose these pieces, and not other pieces? Why are they placed where they are placed? What is the larger story being told through this collection of created artifacts?

The unfortunately reality of online streams is that the layer of comparison is completely random, and the layer of compilation is missing entirely. When you open Mastodon, or Threads, or YouTube, or whatever: sure, you’re seeing a bunch of different works compiled together, but nobody is doing the compiling. It’s either the almighty algorithm, or mere recency based on who you follow. That’s it. Thus there’s no meaning to the compilation. There’s no “reason” I’m seeing this post next to that post. Sometimes there is humor to be found in the accidental contrast—people may post screenshots of how two posts next to each other afforded a moment of happenstantial comedy. But it was never designed to be that way.

What’s Worth Curating?

It could be argued that few posts on social media would even ever rise to the level of warranting curation in a particular gallery-style collection in the first place. And that’s fair. But some of what we post on social media is art, straight up. We post our paintings, our songs, our sculptures, our knitted sweaters, our poems, our prose essays, our dance moves, and on and on and on. Yet who is compiling any of this art? How can we compare things in a way which brings a higher sense of meaning?

This loss of meaning, loss of fidelity in the experience of “art in digital spaces” has been weighing on me. A lot. I think it may be subconsciously contributing to my growing unease that simply “being very online” is rather bad for my mental health. Even while I’m compelled to post, post, post my creative works online, I often lack the satisfaction I think I will get out of it.

On social media, we’re all just shouting in the wind.

And so I crave a more curated experience, and in many cases a more “meatspace” experience. I find myself going out to listen to live music more often. I find myself wanting to visit art galleries and museums IRL. I find myself wanting to attend meetups in which I can converse with just a few people about real ideas which make sense in the real world.

But what can we do, beyond all that, to make our online experiences of art better?

As a starting point, I think we can attempt to reorient ourselves around the concept of the portfolio.

A Portfolio is a Gallery of One

Some forms of art lend themselves to portfolio-making better than others. For example, an album is essentially a portfolio of music from a particular epoch. A non-fiction book could be considered a portfolio of related essays.

But no matter what kind of art you create, you need a portfolio. (And probably several at least!) This is what I’m beginning to realize more and more as I evaluate all of the different projects I’m involved in. The “reverse-chron” format of blogs and social media is beginning to crush my spirit, and I desperately want to start focusing on how I can surface various collections of thematically-similar creations.

First of all, you’ll almost certainly need a professional website. Your Instagram profile is not a photography portfolio. Your “top posts” category on your blog is not a writing portfolio. And your Bandcamp homepage is not a musical portfolio.

Secondly, you’ll need to start diving into the different themes of your work over the years. You might need to set aside some time to review past work and jot down ideas of what you like or don’t like about different pieces (as well as what stand out in terms of “keywords”). Sure, maybe you’ve taken lots of photos of flowers over the years, but what kinds of flowers? Are there certain colors you gravitate to? Are there certain angles? Certain photographic styles? Certain species? Expand your thought processes beyond the rote work which goes into each piece, and start to approach your work as if you were the curator of a gallery. How might you put an exhibit together? What would it say? What would it mean? Which conscious decisions would you make as you separate the wheat from the chaff? How might you be showcased as an artist?

One aspect of this I sometimes think about is how the “stream” often prompts us to want to put out only “pretty” art. Because if you were to post a single artwork which is “ugly” in some confrontational or countercultural or aesthetic way, it might just get “rejected” in the constant flow of online content which tends to promote conformity to norms. Case in point: if I simply mentioned “the Instagram look” in photography, you’d know exactly what I’m talking about…

But in a curated collection, you could put a pretty piece and an ugly piece side-by-side—the contrast between the two being of primary importance. Some of Phil Collins’ solo albums come to mind here: I noticed the tracklist often ping-pongs between a “hit single” which is palatable to the masses, and a “weird song” which nobody would ever suggest is Top 10 Radio material. In a world where a Phil Collins is just posting clips of singles on TikTok or whatever, I’m not sure the “weird songs” would land all that often. When I listen to some modern albums where every song sort of just sounds the same and nothing stands out in any particular way, I wonder if this sort of dynamic is at play.

So I’d recommend being a bit bold in your portfolio selection process. I’m just starting this process with my photography, so I’m excited to see what kind of contrast I can bring out, which sorts of non-sequiturs I can put on display. I fear my own work has trended “pretty” over the years because I’m always thinking of what might land on social media, rather than what I could say that’s provocative or even distasteful. It’ll be a challenge certainly, and quite probably inform how I approach my craft going forward.

Outatime

One of the enduring tropes of sci-fi stories is the fish-out-of-water sensation of time travel. I think we love time travel scenarios because it wreaks havoc on our sense of linear progression. We typically live our lives with a this, then this, then this, then this, then this mindset. Once you time travel, you have to completely reorient yourself around a new narrative of what was true, what is true now, and what might be true tomorrow.

A portfolio is in essence a demonstration of artistic time travel. On my new album Subterranean, that is doubly true, as the origin point for the compositions stem from 2004, 2008, and 2015—with new elements and arrangements mixed in across the last several years. I can’t think of any other music project I’ve ever worked on which “spanned decades” quite like this, and it was enormously fun. I almost lament having to start on my next album project composing in a typical linear fashion. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by my past life performing in folk and classical music settings where you’re always re-interpreting compositions and styles from quite literally hundreds of years ago. There’s a sublime humanist joy to that I can’t quite capture anywhere else.

But I digress. My takeaway here is for you to enjoy some time travel of your own. Get familiar once more with your older work, with additional styles and ideas you might have once pursued. Look for points of contrast between styles, eras, and moods. See what sorts of stories you might tell with your work when these contrasting elements come together in a new and unique fashion. Publish an artistic experience online that’s more than simply fuel for the social media streams. And then repeat this process from time to time, forging new compilations as your career progresses.

The art of curation has in many ways been lost to those of us who are Extremely Online™. We need to reclaim our artistic truths, and thereby reclaim our creative power.

Photo credit: Antenna on Unsplash

#lifehacks #creativity

Sat, 21 Sep 2024 12:54:57 -0700

That is one cool cat hanging out at Ankeny Square in #Portland. (And ironically, he’s red hot! 🔥) #OregonExplored

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 10:26:57 -0700

I’m always trying to take pictures of the glorious hanging baskets of #flowers we have here in #Portland and surrounding towns all summer. But the photos never do them justice.

I finally got a good angle, thanks to my #NikonZfc and 40mm prime, and went with a bit of a Wes Anderson vibe in post. How’d I do? ☺️ #OregonExplored

Link: The Recumbent Bicycle: Reasons to Buy

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 09:46:35 -0700

While traditional bicycles have been the staple for decades, there’s a fascinating alternative that’s been gaining traction in recent years – the recumbent bicycle. Whether you’re a seasoned cyclist or someone looking to embark on a new biking adventure, recumbent bicycles offer an exciting departure from the ordinary. But why switch?

One of the aspects of the “new age” of #micromobility I’m so excited about is the experimentation around form factors. Yes, of course we’ve been seeing many fascinating variations on e-scooters & e-bikes come out in recent years, but even the tried-and-true category of 100% human-powered vehicles has witnessed a recent surge of design variety and innovation.

Watching what people ride here in #Portland has been nothing short of fascinating. And if you get the chance to head out to some of the bike-oriented get-togethers in town, you’ll see some pret-tay, pret-tay, pret-tay intriguing vechicles. I just love it. ☺️

The Underestimation of a Gentle Spirit (Movie Review of Perfect Days)

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 09:24:16 -0700

The strength of character needed to perform the best work you can, to care deeply about the welfare of others, to admire the beauty of Mother Earth, and to stay in tune with your hidden self—finding that is true nobility.

Without a doubt I knew I would love this movie. (Hat tip to Thomas Flight’s amazing video essay Hollywood’s Obsession with Ambition which highlights this film as an example of the kind of story you rarely see told in mainstream cinema.)

At first glance, you might approach Perfect Days expecting it to be a quaint little film about a simple man (of meager status in society) going about his simple day, and then all of a sudden something happens to puncture his comfortable routine and make him question the nature of his poor existence. And while there is an element of that trope to be found here, I genuinely don’t think that’s the point of the movie—certainly not its central theme.

Instead, what I think Perfect Days is about is this (and it’s all but stated clearly by the protagonist, Hirayama, in an incredibly insightful conversation):

There are many worlds within our world, and the world in which the most celebrated among us are those who are gentle of spirit, quiet yet understanding, quickened with wisdom yet slow to teach, observant of small details, careful to do good work regardless of its appreciation by others, able to find worthwhile meaning and creative merit even in the mundane…is not a world in sync with much of modern culture & civilization.

Society celebrates the high earners, the outwardly “successful”, the movers & shakers who can make a splash, make a scene, make an obvious “dent” in the universe. Perhaps in certain cases, such lauding of lofty outcomes is indeed warranted. But I would argue—and it seems this film does argue—that finding fulfillment in the trappings of cosmopolitan relevance is certainly not a universal path…and rewarding alternatives are routinely overlooked.

Two roads diverged, and Hirayama took the one less traveled by…

(Minor spoilers ahead.)

It’s not spelled out in detail what occurred in the past, but it seems Hirayama’s family had been well-to-do, yet he walked away under less-than-ideal circumstances—while his sister remained “in the fold”. Was their father abusive? Or simply overbearing and demanding? Perhaps the family business was repugnant to Hirayama in some way? Whatever caused the rift, Hirayama became estranged and went off to forge his own destiny.

A destiny, that is, revolving around cleaning some of Tokyo’s finest toilets, taking pictures of trees, listening to cassette tapes of Van Morrison, and reading books for “intellectuals” before nodding off to sleep in his modest apartment.

Now I realize that makes him sound quite “boring” and not at all worthy of being the star attraction of a motion picture, but hear me out. There’s more to Hirayama than what he does, and that’s kind of the point.

He may be invisible to most others in society, yet the people who have taken the trouble to get to know him admire him. They recognize that he is a considerate person. A safe person. A good person. He works hard and gets the job done right. He’s dependable. He has been through some stuff, certainly, but that didn’t result in his becoming callous, cynical, or self-absorbed. He may not be a “gentleman”, but he’s a gentle man.

And it turns out these qualities are particularly important to the women who turn to Hirayama when shit happens in their lives.

Aya—who feels pressured by her boyfriend to take things to the next level and she’s clearly not willing to go there. Yet she enjoys listening to Hirayama’s music collection and plants a demure kiss on his cheek. He’s safe, and she knows it.

Niko—the teenage niece he barely recognizes at first who turns towards him without hesitation as part of her first-ever “runaway” adventure. (Apparently things are not going well in the household of Hirayama’s sister…echoes of the past?) Far from seeming fazed by her uncle’s simple existence as a toilet cleaner or his unfamiliar ancient technology (what’s a cassette tape?!), she relishes it. To her, he seems more grounded, more reassuring, and more in-tune with some sort of inner peace she longs to cultivate. Outwardly he doesn’t own much besides books, tapes, and plants, but spiritually he is rich…while her own family is in essence poor.

And “Mama”—the bar owner Hirayama is on friendly terms with…and perhaps in time, more. Although she’ll deny it with loud protestations, apparently he gets a bit more to drink and a bit more to eat than the other patrons of her establishment. And even though he appears to be nothing more than a friendly regular customer, Mama’s ex-husband who is dying of cancer is somehow able to pick up on the fact that of anyone in the world he could implore to “take care of Mama for me”, it’s Hirayama. (Even though it’s “not like that”. Yeah Hirayama, sure. Right…)

In an era where the chronically online chatter over whether, as a woman, it’s safer to hang out with a man or a bear—in an era when “incel” culture has truly become a menace to our political discourse—in an era when young men may find themselves falling down that rabbit hole of wondering what their place is in a world where women gain equality of status, means, and purpose—a genuinely decent older man as depicted in the person of Hirayama doesn’t just warm the heart…it demonstrates that a human who operates from the vantage point of mindfulness, dedication, and true cultivation of spirit isn’t just a figment of a bygone age but a blueprint we are in desperate need of.

The overflowing of memes around Tim Walz and his “big dad energy” is simply another variation on this theme: we can all stop pretending we don’t know what “tonic masculinity” (I love this phrase!) looks like, because we do.

It looks, in a certain way, like Hirayama.

I don’t believe this means we should all quit our high-paying corporate jobs and become toilet cleaners to find the path to ultimate fulfillment. That’s not what Perfect Days is saying.

It’s saying, I believe, that the strength of character needed to perform the best work you can, to care deeply about the welfare of others, to admire the beauty of Mother Earth, and to stay in tune with your hidden self—finding that is true nobility. And making the intention to cultivate that wisdom path is a most worthy goal, whether or not you happen to clean toilets or run for political office or write code or volunteer at the local non-profit or fly to the moon.

Finding joy amidst the banality

Hirayama isn’t “happy” thoughout the whole film. In fact, he really ends up struggling due to some of the things which happen to him and finds it very difficult to regain his composure. And I was deeply moved by the final scene of the film—I won’t give it away, but let’s just say it’s a tour de force of subtle emotive acting.

And that too is the point of Perfect Days. Mindfulness exercise and spiritual “enlightenment” (however you might chose to define that) isn’t a magic bullet. Sometimes life just sucks, plain and simple. Inevitably you’ll have bad days. Everything will leave a sour taste in your mouth.

But those days do pass. The sun will rise as it always does. And if you take the time to stop and notice, you’ll find the beauty again even in the mundane. You’ll recognize the priceless value of a gentle spirit. And you’ll revel in that indescribable feeling of komorebi once again.

Perfect Days was written by German film veteran Wim Wenders along with Takuma Takasaki. It stars acclaimed Japanese actor Kōji Yakusho as Hirayam and was directed by Wenders. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2023 and is currently streaming on Hulu. Wenders was initially approached to create a documentary about the architectural significance of Tokyo’s public toilets and instead crafted an intimate character study about “finding joy in our everyday banality” (MovieWeb).

#mindfulness #spirituality #movies

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:00:13 -0700

If this is hell, I don’t wanna go to heaven.

Happy Labor Day weekend y’all! 🥳

#Portland #OregonExplored

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 07:17:52 -0700

#Portland is pleased to boast many fine murals, but this one is definitely my favorite. It’s always a good day when I get to ride past. 😍 #OregonExplored

Artist: Fin DAC
you can find many other fine works of his here

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 07:50:30 -0700

A view of South Waterfront and the Aerial Tram, looking east from the OHSU medical complex.

It was pretty hazy that day, but I still think this is one swell vista!

#Portland #OregonExplored #NikonZfc

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 18:53:50 -0700

Dayum, this DJ was on fire! 🔥

At the Pearl 4th of July festival in #Portland. #OregonExplored

Fri, 28 Jun 2024 18:07:54 -0700

This lavender field (I think that’s what it is? lol) at Elizabeth Caruthers Park in #Portland was simply stunning! 🤩 #OregonExplored #nofilter

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 09:09:27 -0700

A view of #Portland, as seen from the Eastbank Esplanade. #OregonExplored

Mon, 27 May 2024 08:17:36 -0700

Fireworks above the Hawthorne Bridge overlooking the Willamette River. #Portland #OregonExplored

They Forgot It’s “Bicycle for the Mind”—not “Jet Airplane”

Tue, 21 May 2024 10:52:09 -0700

It’s impossible to know what Steve Jobs would think of where computing has brought us today. But I know what I think. And I believe we should remember something crucial he once taught us about the ultimate purpose of technology.

Let it be known I’m not a nostalgic person by and large. I tend to appreciate “old and new” in equal measure—in fact, a trend-line I’ve seen in my life across a variety of pursuits and talents is a concept I once termed ancient-future. I believe most innovation happens at the cross section of re-discovering ideas and styles which fell out of favor or were largely forgotten long ago and bringing them into the present day with an attractively fresh spin.

So keep that in mind as you continue reading, because this isn’t a WWSJD (What Would Steve Jobs Do) puff piece or a “gosh, computers used to be fun” kvetch sesh. We have work to do.

Beating Out the Condor

Like most famous people in tech, Steve Jobs had a lot to say. Unlike most famous people in tech, he usually said it very well. And one of my favorite nuggets in the canon of Jobs is this oft-cited analogy:

“I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away—completely off the top of the charts.

“And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”

Bicycle for our minds. I love this phrase, love it. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. And I think in this particular moment we find ourselves in, as we see Big Tech lurch from one questionable Next Big Thing™ to another, our ability to truly grasp the significance of this analogy has never been more necessary.

I realize the Steve Jobs’ “bicycle for the mind” concept flows from that particular study he referenced…perhaps he could have used another type of locomotion had he found a different source as the hook for his oration. But in my view, the bicycle offers a very particular lens through which to understand the significance of this analogy.

As Jobs illustrates, humans purely on their own power are less efficient than a number of other creatures, with the condor rising to the top. Yes, we’re good at distance running, but we can only run so far, so fast. We reach a limit, and like any other creature, we must accept our limitations.

Except that we don’t. Through the eons of evolution which produced the human mind, and through the centuries of the human mind producing tools ever more novel and capable, we arrived at an impressive augmentation which answers this question: what if humans were born with wheels instead of legs? That’s essentially what a bicycle is. Wheels that transmit power from the pumping of our two legs to a rolling motion which swiftly propels us forward. The genius of this invention lies in its conceptual simplicity:

It doesn’t require extra fuel.
It doesn’t require exotic materials (unless you consider metal, plastic, and rubber exotic).
It doesn’t come with troubling environmental downsides (at least relative to any alternatives).
It’s approachable to nearly everyone.
While less safe than walking/running, it’s much safer than nearly any other form of personal transportation.

And so a human—augmented with wheels (aka a bicycle)—is suddenly far more efficient than any other creature, and can go farther, faster than is afforded by biology alone.

“Airplane for the Mind?” …just say no!

Alas, it’s time for us to stretch this analogy to its breaking point—and for good reason!

The significance of Jobs describing computers as “bicycles for the mind” and not “automobiles for the mind” or “airplanes for the mind” cannot be overstated. When looking at the history of technological development, we tend to flatten out the relationships between new inventions and view everything on a linear timeline. In this depiction, first humans simply ran, then we had horses/camels/elephants/etc., then we had bicycles, then we had trains, then we had cars, then we had planes—each method of locomotion “better” than the last.

Except that timeline is thoroughly incorrect, wrong-headed, and actually dangerous for any legitimate conversation around urban planning, safety, and protecting the health of our planet.

Airplanes do seem very cool and futuristic—except that in the vast majority of cases, people would be better served traveling by high-speed rail rather than by plane…a fact that unfortunately is biting my country (the United States) in the ass right now because we’re woefully behind in our rollout of modern rail systems as compared to most other developed nations.

And as every urbanist on YouTube is shouting from the rooftops at this point: using a combination of public transportation and micromobiles (aka bicycles/e-bikes/scooters/etc.) is vastly superior for the vast majority of inter-urban travel than owning and driving a large motor vehicle. In other words, hashtag FuckCars.

This is why I often roll my eyes when people use cars—and they really do, no joke!—as a positive example of technological progress as their point of reference in discussions around emerging technologies like AI, VR, Crypto, etc. “Yes, it’s true that cars can be dangerous, bad for the environment, expensive, and socially isolating—but look at all the good they can do!” In other words, we accept all of the “bad” of automobiles in society because of all the “benefits” they provide.

I hate to break it to ya, but many societies around the world are dramatically rethinking this calculus.

Maybe cars are actually just…y’know…bad. 😅

(Obviously for a variety of specific use cases, cars are certainly the correct approach. Thankfully, there’s a ready solution here: rent a car/truck/van only when you need it!)

And so much of this reimagining is happening regarding air travel as well. Increasingly regions around the world are connecting (or have done so already!) their major metro areas with high-speed rail, largely alleviating the need for short flights altogether. There are a variety of benefits to this, not the least of which is air travel (through the use of jet fuel) is incredibly damaging to the environment!

What if—and please hear me out—they actually got it mostly right ~100 years ago? Bicycles + trains are the futuristic transportation technology we actually need.

I’ll also add another layer of the analogy here. In an “airplane for the mind” scenario, computer technology is entirely passive and thoroughly captive. It may be a “fun experience”, but you have no control over it and you can’t leave. You’re entirely at the mercy of the operators of the aircraft.

Doesn’t that sound a lot like the description of AI? Or of VR? Increasingly, we find ourselves being sold tools which aren’t simply “augmentations” of the capabilities we already have, integrated into the real-world environments and habits and social connections we actually engage with, but are total worlds unto themselves. More and more, we find ourselves captive to our tools, rather than liberated by them. And more and more, we are at the mercy of the platform operators. Our experiences are defined by what Microsoft or OpenAI or—and this is what pains me most of all—Apple dictates is permissible.

Quick tangent: in a true “bicycle for the mind” flavor of the iPad, it would provide an operating system as flexible, extensible, and un-locked-down as macOS or Linux. What we have now is rather a Frankensteinian hybrid: a device which appears to offer a diverse set of experiences under the full control of the user, while in reality offering only that subset of operational range deemed acceptable by its corporate originator. That’s not true freedom, but only a poor imitation thereof and certainly not “the future of computing”. (Which makes me very sad because I firmly believe the tablet form-factor is.)

Value Augmentation, not Substitution

Rounding out our discussion of this analogy, the tremendous value of early computing lay in its ability to augment our innate capabilities. Like bicycles do for our bodies, computers can help our minds go farther, faster, more efficiently. People talk about their computer knowledge bases serving as a “second brain”, and people use internet technology to share their creations and discoveries and fluidly converse with other humans all over the world.

But somewhere along the way, Silicon Valley stumbled. They forgot that the value of computer & internet technology rests in augmentation, and they began to think of their inventions as substitutions.

Despite all of Apple’s claims to the contrary, the Vision Pro “substitutes” a carefully-curated digital environment (entirely at the mercy of Apple) in place of a real one—messy and chaotic though it may be.

Copilot-style chatbots substitute a clever party-trick approximation of human intelligence in place of actual intelligence and the value of real, hard-won expertise.

NFTs & Crypto substitutes a false sense of ownership, value storage, and safe transactions in place of true ownership and trust in transactions.

So much of what I see getting pumped out of Silicon Valley these days feels like the equivalent of “airplanes for the mind” or “automobiles for the mind”—and nothing is so on the nose here as the failed promise of “self-driving cars” peddled by the likes of Tesla—and very little feels philosophically consistent with Jobs’ “bicycles for the mind” analogy.

Perhaps we need more urbanists, sociologists, and other learned scholars of the humanities placed in positions of power. When you listen to the key players in today’s Big Tech ramble on about what they think is the future of humanity, the level of understanding and self-awareness they seem to exhibit around humanist subjects is frighteningly poor. When Sam Altman posts “her” on X and they show off a creepy flirt-bot helping a tech bro learn how to breathe, this total disconnect between technological influence and cultural cognizance is on full display.

Here’s how to cut the crap:

Whether it’s Apple, Google, OpenAI, or any other Big Tech company or VC-fueled startup promoting what they have decided we should consider groundbreaking and revolutionary, ask yourself the following questions:

Does this technology augment the work I (and people I respect) already enjoy doing? Or does this try to substitute the work that I appreciate myself and others doing?
Does this technology keep me grounded in the real-world culture around me, connecting me more deeply and meaningfully with fellow humans in the urban fabric? Or does it further isolate me and keep me hooked—opium-like—on poor approximations of social engagement?
Does this technology offer total freedom to pursue how I choose to utilize (or not) the given technology so as to benefit my lifestyle and my core values? Or do I increasingly find myself beholden to the technology, trapped in a cycle of “enshittification” which offers little chance of escape?
Does this technology prioritize genuine human creativity, “analog” experiences I can enjoy apart from the digital overlay, true expertise & experience, and that “special sauce” which emerges from friction-free human-to-human interactions? Or does the technology downplay expertise & experience and instead attempt to foster a poorly-validated, algorithm-centric view into creativity, productivity, and communication?

In other words, we must value augmentation, not substitution. Never have we needed to understand deeply the importance of the “bicycle for the mind” analogy as we do right now—and why specifically that analogy holds up because bicycles are the point of reference and not some other form of locomotion.

I don’t know what Steve Jobs would do if he were alive today, and it’s pointless to speculate. But I know what I would do, having appreciated so much about Jobs’ philosophy and vision for the future of computing. As he stated, the computer is a tool—a remarkable tool, but a tool nonetheless. And like any tool, we get to decide when, where, why, and how we prefer to use it. Not the tech bros. Us.

Photo credit: Pixabay

#generativeAI #mindfulness #creativity

Sun, 05 May 2024 10:04:44 -0700

Going through an emotional rough patch earlier this week, and then (in an unconnected happenstance) watching Gran Turismo (I’d missed seeing the movie when it first came out in theaters), it started to dawn on me how much I’ve begun to value my “offline identity” relative to my “online identity”. Online, I talk about all the things I pontificate about on social media, blogs, podcasts, etc., and I write lots of code. Offline, I walk/cycle/scoot ( #micromobility has become very important to me!), meet new people, enjoy live music, and engage in a variety of activities with my #family in and around #Portland.

Somehow, the “juice” I get out of life is trending in that direction: IRL. The reason Gran Turismo got me musing on this is because prior to this year, I’d never thought of myself as an “athlete”…never thought of myself as a “fitness buff”.

I think that’s changing. And for this once-chubby nerd, it’s super weird! 😅 But super fun.

The Best of Times

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 16:00:20 -0700

Two years ago today, IT HAPPENED. The worst timeline. Something that I really didn’t expect would actually come to fruition…did.

Elon Musk’s buyout offer for Twitter was officially accepted. 🤡

As I wrote two years ago today:

Back to the #openweb I go. Not that I ever left it…but to be quite frank, it’s so easy to post and get immediate feeback on Twitter that I spend most of my day-to-day “chit-chat energy” there and not on my own website.

No longer! Now that Elon Musk is buying Twitter and taking it private, I’m done putting serious effort into creating content for walled gardens. Everything, and I mean everything I publish from here on out will start on my own properties and then get syndicated elsewhere.

In reporting at The Verge, Emma Roth and Russell Brandom pontificate “it’s unclear what impact Musk will have on Twitter or where he’ll start with changes.”

Oh boy.

Now while I was extremely pessimistic about the buyout idea and in fact had written the previous day in my diary: “I will f***ing delete my Twitter account if Elon Musk buys Twitter” — I nevertheless spent the rest of summer 2022 ready to be impressed. Maybe, just maybe, Elon would be touched by the better angels of his nature, and find a path forward for Twitter that—if not excellent, at least would not be terrible.

🤡

I’ll save my “two years later” rundown for additional reporting over at The Internet Review, but even my worst fears were quaint by comparison to what actually transpired after Elon took over. As I wrote in The Elon-gate’d Man in November 2022:

Remember all the people who—prior to the official takeover of Twitter—were telling us that Elon Musk would moderate his behavior and behave more like a grown up because too much money and prestige were at stake? Remember all the people who said that because Elon (seemingly) had been unilaterally successful in bringing us fancy new space rockets and fancy new electric cars, he could now bring welcome insight and innovation into a rapidly-degenerating and fractious social media landscape?

Here’s the pertinent question: why do we keep believing this myth? As we’ve seen over recent years and especially recent months, it’s being proven decisively, tragically wrong…over and over and over again.

and in my exhortation of what we should be focusing on instead:

What I am saying is unequivocal: down with surveillance capitalism eroding our trust and access to free and fair online communications. We can do better. We must do better. And increasingly—thanks to Mastodon, ActivityPub, and other open source projects & protocols recently exploding in popularity—we are.

It’s worth noting that arguably the biggest impact being made on social media right now is the competitive response to the downfall of Twitter in the form of Threads, Meta’s broadcast-text-first social network. And the only reason Threads isn’t uniformly horrifying as a product is because it’s the first mass-market social network built with ActivityPub integration from the very start. (So that when #enshittification eventually comes, users and creators will have real options… 😅)

The #Fediverse—the open social web—is growing exponentially, with Threads leading the pact of commercial properties doing a one-eighty from clinging to an outdated “silo” mindset, and Mastodon and other volunteer projects holding their own in providing open source access to social media. Progress! 👏

So while I still lament the death of Twitter, and the incalculable destruction of communities brought on by Elon Musk’s abysmal stranglehold over what is now X, I am also pleased to see how powerfully the momentum has shifted towards the Fediverse. It’s been the Worst of Times…and yet, the Best of Times.

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 09:08:10 -0700

Western Trillium — a staple of forests in the PNW but only at certain times of the year and not always easy to find. I was immensely grateful they were within easy reach of the trails at Tryon Creek State Natural Area just outside #Portland. 😍
#OregonExplored #iPhonePro

Hailing Music Producers Throughout the Quadrant! Preset Galaxy Has Liftoff

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 11:34:07 -0700

It's not every day I get to talk about a new UGC platform I've collaboratively built in my freelancing role at Whitefusion. Here's how it all came about.

In my line of work as a software developer at Whitefusion, a boutique web studio based in Portland, Oregon, I typically engage with two very different sorts of projects:

Passion projects. These are the technologies, publications, and marketable activities I participate in as an “industry notable”. Open source software tools, blogs, educational materials, community groups & tech meetups…that sort of thing.
Client projects. These are the projects I’m hired to work on which pay the bills and let me utilize my skills as a programmer & UX designer to solve real-world problems on production codebases.

Now I would be misrepresenting these scenarios if I let you walk away believing passion projects are always fun (sometimes they’re a real slog!), or that client projects are always difficult and zap all the joy out of life (truly, I’ve worked with some awesome clients on exciting projects which have taught me a ton!).

Nevertheless, I primarily talk in public about my passion projects and not my client projects, because I generally consider the importance of maintaining confidentially for all my clients to be paramount. Often I’m working on internal business applications, or on startup products (and unfortunately software startups don’t have a stellar success rate), or on projects where I’ve come in as a subcontractor working on behalf of another agency. So while I’ll talk about the technical findings and business acumen I’ve gleaned while working on these projects, I almost never have occasion to bring them up directly in public discourse.

And then—once in a great while—the two worlds collide. Ooo…a client project which I’m authentically passionate about and get to talk about publicly?! Huzzah!

Today, that project is Preset Galaxy.

(Before I go on, I want to be crystal clear this is not a sponsored post or yet more shameless marketing. I truly believe in the project, and the company behind it rocks. 🤘)

A Universe of Sound

So what is Preset Galaxy? As it says on the tin, it’s “the thrilling new destination for finding and sharing presets for all your favorite software synthesizers and samplers.” I wrote in our official launch post:

In observing the landscape of online resources for fans of computer music technology, we noticed there wasn’t a central place where musicians, producers, and sonic innovators could all come together to form a community around presets. Sure, you could find presets lurking about—a forum here, a chat room there, some extension of some other website about electronic music, or a particular manufacturer’s online community. But Preset Galaxy is all about the presets. That’s it. That’s the toot. 🎺

The idea and featureset for Preset Galaxy was conceived by Greg Schlaepfer, the founder of well-known sample library producer Orange Tree Samples. I’ve personally known Greg for basically forever, and I’d also worked with him once before in the early 2010s to record and release the MesaWinds sample library. I’m immensely grateful we were able to stay in touch over the decades.

So when Greg approached me a few years ago with the idea of a community platform for uploading and sharing presets relevant for all manner of synthesizer and effects plugins, I leapt at the chance.

As something of a musician myself, I understood the value of musicians and producers being able to share the sounds they’ve created in various plugins. I’ve benefited from “user-generated content” many times before, whether that’s presets, samples, and other music production tools. This was an exciting opportunity in an industry I was familiar with—not always a privilege you get with projects sent your direction as a freelancer.

As the project got underway, I was a bit daunted by the thought that I was working on this entirely as a solo developer. I’d never built a large-scale UGC (User-Generated Content) platform from scratch before, and it seemed like I could easily get mired in technical details and lose sight of the overall user experience and product-market fit. Thankfully a designer came aboard early on, Hannes Pasqualini of Papernoise Design, to help flesh out the personality and “vibe” of the site (and of course the logo and character design of the Preset Galaxy brand). This was instrumental in informing my subsequent interface work and making sure the site would feel inviting and fun for musicians.

The Technical Deets

Feel free to skip over this section if you’re not a web developer. 🤓

Let’s start on the backend. As a long-time fan of the Ruby programming language, I naturally gravitated towards using Ruby as the basis of our tech stack. While I spend a lot of my time now working on solutions atop Roda, we decided on the battle-hardened and well-understood Rails framework which is well-suited to the needs of a UGC platform like Preset Galaxy.

I’m definitely using Rails in some novel ways though (surprise surprise 😉️). Here are some of those “outside the box” technologies & techniques:

Serbea: This is one of my own Rubygems. I like to think of Serbea as a “superset” of ERB. It uses braces ({% and %}) instead of angle brackets for delimiters, which I find vastly preferable for an HTML template language. In addition, Serbea offers a pipeline syntax similar to Liquid, Nunjucks, etc. While Serbea 2.0 does offer a pipe method even for ERB users, I just like using the simplest syntax possible. And in a Rails context you can actually write “front matter” in your view templates, passing things like page titles and layout directives directly to parent layouts in Rails.
Lifeform: Another gem of mine, this allows most forms to be defined in standalone objects with a straightforward DSL. You can then render those forms by emitting each of the fields which were defined, or you can simply auto-render the entire form with a single statement. Between the syntax affordances of Serbea and Lifeform, that statement looks like this: {%@ PresetForm @preset %}. No joke!
ViewComponent & Heartml: Created by the fine folks at GitHub, ViewComponent provides an object-oriented view engine for Rails apps. It’s much more sophisticated than “partials” and lets you apply OOP principles such as encapsulation and separation-of-concerns to your HTML. In addition to this, I’ve started using a gem I developed called Heartml which enables custom elements be written in a direct superset of HTML which can then be mounted client-side with a parallel JavaScript library for reactivity and interactivity (more on that below!).
Signalize: So the original Signals JS library (created by the fine folks at Preact) has been such a game-changer on the frontend, I decided to port it to Ruby! By having signals & effects in Ruby, I was able to develop a unique pipeline for managing the generation and updates of Zip files containing presets, a readme file, etc. which is seamless for users of Preset Galaxy. I also employ the reverse_markdown gem to convert the HTML output from Trix editor to Markdown for the readme file.

And now for the frontend. It should come as no surprise I elected to use esbuild for our frontend bundling pipeline. I like to think of esbuild as “the last bundler”—it’s unlikely I’d ever consider using another build tool any time in the foreseeable future. I also spent a lot of time optimizing our primary CSS & JS bundles and code-splitting wherever possible for the fastest performance and leanest page weight. Some of the libraries used:

Ruby2JS: Virtually all the frontend code—and there is a fair bit as part of various view components—is written in the Ruby-like syntax of Ruby2JS. Originally created by Sam Ruby (really, that’s his name!) and subsequently maintained by yours truly, using Ruby2JS means I can take advantage of the superior syntax and idioms of Ruby while leveraging all of the goodies available in the modern ESM ecosystem.
Shoelace: A tremendous resource for web developers, the Shoelace library of web components provides us with features like icons, toasts, star ratings, tagged autocompletes (a solution I built from atomic Shoelace components), switches, progress bars, and more.
Bulma: Fun fact…the first prototype of Preset Galaxy was actually built on the Foundation CSS framework (!!). We then ported the site over to Bulma. At this point, while I like Bulma a lot, I’m increasingly putting effort into UI solutions using vanilla CSS and web components for the future of our frontend. Which brings me finally to:
Heartml: As the frontend corollary to the Ruby renderer, we use Heartml as our web component base class, providing encapsulated UI reactivity and interactivity inside of most of our custom elements across the application. While certain coordination features between the frontend & backend are handled by Turbo over-the-wire, I spent a decent amount of time ensuring many UI updates are “optimistic”—that is, you don’t have to wait for the server to “do its thing” before you see the results of a click or a form submission. It’s amazing what over-the-wire + surgical use of optimistic UI can do to make a web app seem alive and performant—without having to write a gargantuan frontend in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink JS framework.

And of course, the Preset Galaxy Blog is powered by Bridgetown, a Ruby-based progressive site generator maintained by…yeah, that would be me. 😅

Testing and Opening to the Public

Once we’d gotten a fair ways down the path of developing an “MVP” (Minimal Viable Product in startup-parlance), it was time to run through a private beta test.

We opened a Discord server for beta testers to offer their feedback. This was undoubtedly a valuable part of the development process—but perhaps not in the way you might think. Yes, it was worthwhile to uncover and fix bugs caught during this beta phase, but what was even more welcome was the ability to hear from testers their thoughts about the utility of the service. It helped validate the raison d’être of Preset Galaxy and provide us with renewed focus on the core promise for users.

Finally, in early 2024, we released Preset Galaxy to the public! 🎉 🥳

As anyone who’s participated in a new software launch can attest to, this is a moment both exhilarating and terrifying. Thankfully, the effort we’d put in over a lengthy period of time to ensure platform stability, as well as the private beta test, meant that the public launch went off without a hitch—and it’s been relatively smooth sailing (🚀 smooth flying? 🤔) ever since.

Conclusion

I’ll reiterate what I said up top: I’ve been privileged to work with many fine clients over the years at Whitefusion, but the list of projects I’ve been on which provide that fantastic blend of personal interest and technical affinity is short indeed. I’m thankful Greg and Orange Tree Samples took a serious bet on this idea, and I’m truly thrilled to see what music producers will publish through Preset Galaxy in the months ahead.

P.S. OK, I lied above…allow me to indulge in a tiny bit of shameless self-promotion. I encourage you to head over to Whitefusion and check out what we’re all about if you have a website or web application project in mind and you need a studio to build it.

Hailing frequencies are open! 📡

#freelancing #synthmusic

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 07:52:35 -0700

I actually didn’t realize when I took this photo with my iPhone how incredible the lighting was. I saw it in my photo library a few hours later and went wait, what?? A couple tweaks for contrast and color tint in Lightroom later, and boom! 🤩
#Portland #OregonExplored #iPhonePro

Link: Dave Rupert on “How to Get on a Podcast”

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 15:53:03 -0800

I’ve been co-hosting a weekly podcast for nearly 12 years with over hundreds of guests and I want to tell you the secret to getting invited on a podcast. Are you ready? Here it goes: Already be talking about something.

Great advice from noted #WebDev podcaster Dave Rupert. I’ll add one more layer of commentary of top of the excellent points made in this article.

Keep saying the same things repeatedly until you’re sick of it. 🤪

You know how folks complain about the weird quirk of human nature where if you hear somebody tell you the same lies over and over and over again, you start to believe them? Well if that’s true for nonsense, grifts, and psyops, just think how even more true that is for stuff that’s thoroughly legit.

A long time ago I realized that I couldn’t just voice a thought about an important topic once. Haha! I wrote that single blog post! My job here is done! or I posted this hot take one time! Never again! 😅

Gotta keep saying it. And saying it. And saying it. And saying it. Until you’re sick of it. And then say it some more.

Now you’re an expert. Congratulations! 😜

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 10:55:25 -0800

Another #Mosstodon entry for y’all, also taken at Lacamas Park. Some creek and fern action going on there too! Very exciting. 😅 #WashingtonExplored #NikonZfc

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 08:51:39 -0800

It’s been a while since I offered an entry into #Mosstodon, so here goes. I was enjoying a hike through Lacamas Park in southern Washington, and there was oodles of moss everywhere. Stay tuned for more PNW greenery! 😄 #WashingtonExplored #NikonZfc

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 09:19:47 -0800

February 2024 kicked me, and then kicked me again while I was down. 😡 I have not been a happy camper. Yet hope springs eternal, and I want to acknowledge a few things I’m currently grateful for:

Good Coffee. No, I don’t mean coffee that’s good, I mean the local chain of coffee shops which seems to have taken over some of the best locations in central Portland and even in the ’burbs (hello Cedar Hills!). I’m currently partaking of a particularly tasty blueberry muffin.
Bridgetown. No, I don’t mean Portland (though yes it’s rad), I mean the Ruby website framework I develop. After a long dry spell, I’m finally feeling pumped to be working on it again—even the small maintainer-y things that only people who tinker in open source know what I’m talking about.
The Tourist. No, I don’t mean a traveler I happened to strike up a conversation with, I mean the Netflix show starring Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald whose first season was truly whacked-out and whose upcoming second season is set in Ireland (woohoo!). I’m a huge fan of Jamie Dornan, but I wasn’t sure if this was the sort of show that would get bogged down under the weight of its rather absurd premise. Thankfully it proved adept indeed, and I can’t wait for the next season.
Thoughts. No, I don’t mean simply things I contemplate in my brain, I mean this specific type of blog post which in my content system is any #writing which sits between microblogging and long-form essays. Most of my “thoughts” over the years are safely ensconced in my Day One diary, but I like having a space where more publicly-appropriate musings can see the light of day. After all, what is a personal blog for if not that, am I right? 😊

Video: Midsummer Adventures at Mt. Hood

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 20:48:14 -0800

You can rarely go wrong visiting the tallest mountain in Oregon and a true jewel of the Cascades: Mt. Hood. This time, I visited in August 2023, taking the ski lifts up the slope from Timberline Lodge and then hiking back down while enjoying the epic views. Then I dropped by Trillium Lake for the first time. Wow! This location was definitely worth the hype. Gotta go back…

Watch the Video Here

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 15:18:18 -0800

My relationship with my city changed when I came to #Portland. Before that, I always had the general impression that I lived in my “house” and that house merely happened to be located in a city/town/countryside/etc. But upon moving to Portland, Oregon and really embracing an urban lifestyle, my perspective changed. Now I live in Portland. My house is nothing more than the residence I am physically placed in at various times for sleep, recreation, and remote work. But I also regularly engage in both work and recreation elsewhere in the city, and those places mean every bit as much to me as anywhere I might lay my head at night.

I suppose that may sound quite strange to someone who is very emotionally and nostalgically attached to their literal dwelling. Maybe it’s a personality thing… All I can tell you—as someone who is currently a renter—I have owned my own home in the past and…I ended up hating it. Resenting it.

My allegiance is to a city…MY city…not any particular residential unit within it.

The Mac Turns 40, and My Love Affair Turns 23

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:30:07 -0800

There are been substantial changes to these products over the decades, but the DNA at the heart of them all—creativity, whimsy, user-friendliness, and consistency—remains ever present.

It’s crazy to think that I’ve been a Mac fanboy for longer than half the lifespan of the Mac platform at this point. The Mac already felt ancient to me when I finally left the dark side (WinTel) behind in 2001. I came to fully embrace the Mac then because of two things:

OS X: a modern Unix-powered operating system with a stunning next-gen Aqua interface.
“TiBook” G4: a beauty of a laptop which I still think is one of the best-looking computers ever made.

The trajectory of Apple’s core hardware and software technologies from that time have continued into the present day as I type this out on my iPad’s multitouch display using a Pencil and my fingers—an incredible achievement. Even the iPhone in my pocket is, in many ways, a tiny mobile Mac. And while even in 2001 Apple’s products had changed substantially from the original Macintosh of 1984—thanks mainly to the monumental ~~takeover by~~ acquisition of NeXT—that brand DNA of creativity, whimsy, user-friendliness, and consistency has remained the hallmark of the Apple computer experience for 40 years and counting.

Macintosh encouraged us to Think Different™️, to see personal computers as personal computers—a “bicycle for the mind.” These weren’t simply more automata, engineered contraptions for accomplishing rote tasks. They were portals into a whole new world. You didn’t just command a Mac. You communicated with it. You manipulated it. It was an instrument. It was a friend. It was “insanely great.” It was the computer…for the rest of us.

On this the 40th anniversary of the first Mac’s unveiling, there are many reasons one might find themselves still captivated by the finest lineage of digital machines money can buy, but I’ll simply conclude with this:

You had me at hello.

#Apple

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 14:29:21 -0800

It’s hard to look back fondly on the Twitter algorithm in the days when it was still considered a “cool” platform to use. I routinely saw how links to blog posts would get far less engagement than content Twitter deemed worthy of promotion like photos, topical tweets, etc. The whole “post a photo and also a link” instead of just having the link’s graph image come through hack was just that, a hack. (Same issue on Facebook as well.) Perhaps in the early days of the platform this was much less so, but…well, #enshittification.

Blogging and social media algorithms ended up on a collision course last decade, and sadly blogs lost. Thankfully we now have the rare opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past. #OpenWeb #Fediverse #writing

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 11:55:53 -0800

A remembrance of happy times, looking east over #Portland. Photograph taken by Angelique. #OregonExplored #NikonZfc

Link: The World’s Largest Office Building: Now in India

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 13:27:06 -0800

Time for a quick quiz: what structure has over 7 million square feet of office space, houses nearly 70,000 workers and ranks as the largest office building in the world. If you guessed The Pentagon, then…you’re wrong.

In December 2023 the title of world’s largest office building was taken from the Potomac polygon and handed to a gigantic new development in the Indian city of Surat. The outsized office comprises thousands of offices, 10,000 square metres of restaurants and cafes, parking for 5,000 cars and 10,000 motorbikes, 131 elevators, nine courtyard gardens, retail outlets and conference halls, all across a 35 acre, high security compound.

This whole video, as well as its companion blog post, I found hugely fascinating. It’s a stunning example of how the architecture of an unusual new building is uniquely suited to the #geography and the people for which it’s intended. No surprise the complex has quickly turned into a popular tourist destination. I will specifically seek this out if I ever travel to India!

Link: Revised Apple App Store Guidelines Will Allow External Payment Links in the U.S.

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 17:02:13 -0800

Apple is updating its App Store guidelines to allow developers to link to alternative payment methods, provided that the app also offer purchases through Apple’s own In-App Purchase system.

This means that an app can’t include links to alternative payment platforms if that app doesn’t also use Apple’s In-App Purchase system. The guideline says that developers can apply for an entitlement that allows them to include buttons or links directing users to out-of-app purchasing mechanisms.

It’s progress. It’s not enough, but it’s progress.

Look, folks will argue about the various legalities of the #Apple App Store policies and whether or not the company has the right to control digital #payments to the extent they do. But I most certainly have a hard time sympathizing with anyone who sees Apple as taking the moral high ground on any of this stuff.

In an ideal world, I could buy whatever software I want, from whomever I want, and install that software on my iPad. Yes, I’m fine with bypassing a bajillion scary alerts and pressing a giant red blinking button in the middle of the screen that says “YOU MIGHT GET A VIRUS!!! 🦠☠️”. After all, I do this on my Mac all the time, and it’s fine. Really, it is.

I absolutely love using an iPad, but the lack of “sideloading” and alternative sources of software really grinds my gears sometimes. If I could boot up a VM and run Fedora Linux on my iPad—just like I do on my Mac—that would also be swell!

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 10:59:10 -0800

Snow over the weekend, sun on Monday, joy in this photographer’s heart!
#Portland #OregonExplored #NikonZfc

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 10:47:59 -0800

A little late to the party, but I finally watched Shiny Happy People, the documentary series about the Duggar family and the fundamentalist Christian religious world they inhabit.

I have So Many Thoughts, as someone very familiar with this world circa 2004-2016. I hope to share my in-depth perspective soon, but for now I’ll just say this:

We need a LOT more “exvangelical” documentaries. We need more people telling their story. We need these stories represented in art, literature, and cinema. Given the #spirituality dimension we see in American #politics today, it has never been more important.

(Parting thought: we need to hold media accountable for promoting fundamentalism or at least giving it a pass. The Duggars should never have been given a national mainstream TV platform. TLC/Discovery should be ashamed of themselves.)