posts, page 19

I’m an extrovert, and lately it’s felt so good to be able to see and meet people again that I want to do a lot more of that in the next few months.

So, if you’re in or around New York, let’s hang out! I made a cute little form to keep things organized. Don’t be scared, don’t be shy, come on in the water’s fine. ✌️

I’ve been reading Daniel Bogan’s Uses This (née The Setup) interview series since I was a teenager. They chronicle interesting people’s hardware and software setups and end up being a fascinating window into the subject’s priorities and tastes when it comes to tools and toys.

My own interview just went up on the site, so now you can read all the nerdy details of my setup. Let me know what you think!

A few years ago, I let folks on Twitter ask for software recommendations for any problem they need solved with an app. People loved it and I loved helping people find the perfect software solutions to their quandaries.

This Friday at 3 PM ET, I’m experimenting with a version of the same thing on Clubhouse co-hosted by my friend and colleague, Jillian Meehan. It’ll be be a fun, nerdy time and we’d love to see hear you there.

PS: If you need a Clubhouse invite, let me know and I’ll send you one.

My 2021 yearly theme is Invest 📈.

• Spend time, attention, & money on things with potential. 🕰
• Build systems, relationships, & habits to last. 🏛
• Evaluate bets consistently and adjust. ⚖️

Last year’s theme was about making commitments. Getting married was one of them, but so was writing more consistently on my site. This year builds on those commitments with a focus on things with longer timelines.

If you’re curious about the idea of yearly themes, here’s the latest Cortex episode on the topic.

Thanks to everyone who dropped by the livestream last night and donated to Trans Lifeline. Thanks to the generosity of 108 of you, we raised $6,963 to help trans people in need. Best birthday ever. 🏳️‍⚧️🎂

Tech is always political. The way data is collected and handled is often biased, and many products are neither accessible nor inclusive. Ethical Design Guide is made to share resources on how to create ethical products that don’t cause harm.

Sarah L. Fossheim just released this wonderful collection of resources (and monthly newsletter) on how to make digital products more inclusive. It covers topics from accessibility, to race, to gender. I know I’ll be bookmarking this and referring to it often. Huge thanks to them for putting this together.

The now page now includes a playlist of music I’m enjoying lately called Heavy Rotation. In totally unrelated news, I miss Rdio.

This was the first year in many that I managed to regularly update and publish content on my personal site. In past years I started strong (usually around New Years) with fresh writing, energy, and enthusiasm. But somewhere around February or March, things died off and I could never find that momentum again.

Why was this year different? In this post I've tried to tease apart factors that made writing and editing easier this time around – hopefully there's something in here that may be useful for your own personal website.

Like Brian writes here, for me 2020 was the year that my personal website saw some regular updates. Looking forward to 2021, I plan to keep up the momentum and increase the number of long-form posts here.

Lovin makes some great points in this piece about ways to make that easier on yourself by maintaining an ongoing list of ideas, turning conversations you’re having on social media into articles, and making the process of publishing as seamless as possible.

For Sloan and her partner, the answer became clear after the two spent a couple months together at the beginning of the pandemic because of COVID-related travel restrictions—and they decided to choose both. “I knew this was the person I wanted to marry, and I wanted that so strongly that the odd circumstances didn’t even bother me.” said Sloan. Though they’re still living in different countries now, the two were wed in a small ceremony in Madison Square Park this November.

In general, you don’t need a reason to want to start a relationship with someone far away. Regardless of your situation, sometimes you find a person, you both feel a genuine connection, and you can just tell their company would enrich your life. That can all happen online with someone who doesn’t live near you, with the same sort of chemistry as a more proximal partnership. When it works, it just works—and it’s more than worth it.

Some people have their weddings announced in The New York Times; Kate and I are clearly more of a VICE couple. But seriously, if you’re curious about how to date online or whether you should consider long-distance relationships, this piece by Chingy is a must-read.

Tone indicators are most popular within some Twitter and Tumblr communities of young people with overlapping interests in identity representation, anime and K-pop fandom, twee aesthetics, and sensitivity toward mental health and gender issues. It’s a milieu where inclusivity is considered a paramount virtue. These people use and like tone indicators because they want to help others have better experiences online.

In recent weeks, several users have posted lists containing dozens of tone indicators ranging from “/j = joking” to “/lh = lighthearted” and “/nsx = nonsexual intent.”

I love how much folks in gen Z are using the tools of the internet and their digital-literacy to improve inclusion, how much they’re thinking about the needs of neurodivergent people, and how this kind of accessibility is gaining a kind of mainstream momentum.

As technologists, we should be following these conversations closely and finding ways to build support for tone indication, content notes/warnings, and other new ideas about communion directly into the tools where appropriate. We should be enabling and empowering better, more nuanced conversation within the software itself.

This week I was excited to appear as a guest on the Everyday Robots podcast, hosted by Jonathan Ruiz. We discussed my career as an iOS developer, the making of Buildwatch, and the latest Apple event. Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts.