Blog
Writing helps me think more clearly. This archive is longer posts; quick updates now live in notes.
Topics: AI, blogging, photography, programming, projects, Signboard
Keith Taylor is a photographer and printmaker with over 40 years of experience in the darkroom. His personal work includes multiple darkroom mediums including gelatin silver, platinum palladium, and his passion polymer photogravure. In mid-March we hopped on Zoom for a 1-hour conversation. This isn't an interview. It does not have planned questions. It is a conversation between…
Diversions is the central hub for news about the membership, behind-the-scenes details of my personal projects, as well as a wide variety of links to people, places, and things that inspire me. Below the L Chitown! I spent a few unseasonably warm days in Chicago on a work trip with the NerdPress team. It was my first time meeting…
Back in early February I submitted the Favorite Toots WordPress plugin I had been toying with on my own website to the WordPress plugin directory. Starting today, it is available publicly there and people can search for it from their own WordPress Admins. The source code is available on GitHub if you'd like to contribute a bug fix…
I interviewed Manton Reece about his journey with Micro.blog in 2018 and again in 2019. They've been fun to look back on as the service matures, grows, and changes. I'm a big fan of Micro.blog and the community there (follow me there, if you'd like) and Manton was very gracious to agree to be interviewed once again. If…
Elliot Jay Stocks: When I first decided to start a newsletter, I’d assumed it’d be just like publishing a blog, but with a different delivery method — but I was completely wrong. Although I do see blog posts as quite personal outputs, a newsletter is just different somehow. It’s hard to say exactly why, but I suspect it’s…
This post details a macOS app that recreates features from Little Arc in Safari. The post and source code were available for members only until April 3rd, 2024 and are now public. One of Arc’s best features is Little Arc — a small Quick Look like window that appears whenever you click a link in an app other…
In this voice memo I chat a little bit about how I've tried to think about my follow count, my blog's statistics, likes, and other metrics. As the internet begins to divide into smaller groups once again, this perspective may become more important than ever. Voice Memos #1 is 7m54s. Links: The Candid Frame – The quote I…
This is the first edition of an all-new series of posts and future email newsletter that will be part of a new membership on my personal website. Diversions is the central hub for news about the membership, behind-the-scenes details of my personal projects, as well as a wide variety of links to people, places, and things that inspire…
Sometime near 1948 Fiore Cerra took an aerial photograph of Carbondale, Pennsylvania that captured how very different a place it was just 75 years ago or so. I live near Carbondale and the moment I saw Cerra's aerial I knew I wanted to try to recreate it. Well, in early 2023 I did and I uploaded a quick…
Korczak Ziolkowski wakes up early on a bitter cold winter's morning – the same way he has for several decades – after breakfasting and a few mugs of the hottest coffee his palette can stand, he shoulders his tool belt and trods his way in knee-high snow to the eastern wall of the Crazy Horse Memorial… his lifelong…
One of the primary ways I find new accounts to follow on social media is by eavesdropping on other people's favorites. Many social networks make each account's favorites public but Mastodon does not (yet?). So I wanted a way to show my favorites publicly so that others can look through them. And I'm hoping others make theirs available…
My thanks to Nathan Wrigley for having me as a guest on This Week in WordPress #285. (YouTube/Apple Podcasts) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsHdIJzWeiA Show notes There are a few links on the WP Builds website for this episode but I thought I'd share some of the links I mentioned in the episode as well. My first use of Meetup.com – 2006…
In 1991, Geoffrey A. Moore described the challenges of introducing new technology products as Crossing the Chasm. The chasm is this very real gap between the earliest adopters and the early majority adopters of any new technology. By crossing the chasm, the momentum gained usually enables the technology to find market fit. Most protocols, standards, products and services…
The greatest productivity hack of all time is working less. Slack recently published new research into desk worker productivity. It is a worthy read – however, it sheds light on something that most desk workers already inherently know: longer hours do not mean greater productivity. I have put a lot of personal focus on trying to be a…
After a few extremely busy weeks full of rewarding and fast paced work, I’m happy to announce that I’m joining NerdPress as Senior Product Manager. We’ve acquired Grow Social from Mediavine, renamed it Hubbub, and we plan to invest in improving this popular WordPress plugin. The Hubbub logo Hubbub comes in two flavors; Lite and Pro. Hubbub Lite…
I do not intentionally block ads. I do, however, intentionally block ad tracking. And I think this distinction is important. This morning I read Manuel Moreale's recent post On Ad Blockers wherein they struggle to find an argument against blocking all ads on the web. "Every time I stumble on a discussion about blocking ads on the web…
For many years now Eliza and I have preferred to slow down and take our time on road trips rather than feeling rushed to get to our destination. We like to visit tucked away places. Do a little shopping. Or enjoy a drink. This usually adds about a day of traveltime to any of our trips. On a…
Colin Walker, on his personal blog (which is looking sharp as ever) about what he gets from blogging in public: "I feel compelled to write, to share, and there is an intense satisfaction in doing so. The sharing is a secondary but essential aspect; while journalling is a rewarding process it doesn't fill the same emotional gap as…
In January 2021 I posted my typical day which resulted in some fun people following suit on their own blogs. Lately, my typical day is less than typical. I've been on a tear for about 12 months with side projects. This means that my day is jammed. But here is a glimpse… 5-6:00am – wake up, shower, daily…
Mandy Brown, on two modes of thinking and how we should all try to practice both to be useful to our colleagues: "Talkers need to recognize that not everyone loves to think out loud, and that giving space for writing is part of what it means to make use of the best brains around you. Writers need to…
Robin Rendle published Why are websites embarrasing? wherein he laments the state of design and accessibility on the web. But, he's hopeful. "I do truly believe that a website can be as well designed as any book, just as thoughtful, just as brilliant." I sympathize with Robin. The web, especially the news web, is a morass of user…
As an avid Safari fanatic, I’m reluctant to dive into a new browser backed by any company with a business model I find… elusive. I’ve been giving Arc a spin every few releases since signing up for the beta and each time it has improved a lot. Just yesterday I was chatting with our creative director at work…
Have you ever put off a task because you felt like it would take you far too long so you just procrastinate and simply never get it done? I do this all the time. And, for the most part, when I do finally get around to getting the task completed I find out that my fear was unfounded…
In the early days of the modern web – say, the mid-1990s through the mid-00s – my personal website was served statically. It was built with plain HTML (CSS didn’t exist at the time) that I copied and pasted when I needed to create a new entry (the word blog didn’t exist then either). But then databases happened….