Archive

Just started watching the first season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on Apple TV. Juggling all the time periods is a little complex, but I really like it so far.🍿

About 14 years ago, I was part of an organization that started a monthly coffee meetup. The organization no longer exists, but the monthly coffee meetup continues.

I watched UNC fans storm the court after the win against Duke last night, and it reminded me of the only court storming I’ve ever been a part of — South Carolina’s 1997 upset of Kentucky. It’s funny to listen to the ESPN broadcast now, which of course includes references to Hootie …

Ryan’s science fair project on soundproofing was titled “The Sound of Silence.” All of the judges asked if he knew who Simon and Garfunkel were… Turns out he didn’t. Just thought the title sounded good. 🤣

I wasn’t sure what to expect with Starfleet Academy. So far, it’s great. And as a DS9 fan, Episode 5 made me so happy.

Today is straight up chaotic. Ryan has the School District Science Fair and lacrosse practice. Jill has Admitted Students Day at the University of South Carolina. Liz has a hair appointment. And I’m just the chauffeur.

Always happy to support an Iconfactory Kickstarter. I’ve never been disappointed. I backed the new Ollie’s Arcade effort today, and if you love iOS games with a retro feel, you should back it too.

Went for a stroll around Mungo Park (which happens to be in our backyard). Sun is out, but there is still lots of beautiful snow-covered terrain.

I started reading about alternative academic publishing this morning. Some of the articles are 15-20 years old. I’m a little surprised that over that time, no one has built a successful alternative system. I guess all of the entrenched economic and cultural issues have been too much to …

We got a few inches of snow here in Columbia, South Carolina. Roads are covered with ice and everything is shut down. Staying home today.

Snow is falling steadily here in Columbia.

Looks like Columbia missed the worst of the winter storm. Still some ice out there. The kids have an e-learning day, so I’m grateful my teenage driver doesn’t have to navigate ice this morning. And I’m thankful for the late start for my work today.

Changing careers: For 13 years, I managed the visual brand of the University of South Carolina. I led creative teams and worked with vendors and agencies. I produced banners, designed signage, wrapped buses, worked on TV commercials, and installed 6-foot high USC letters. And while I loved my time as the “Guardian of …

Two new Fontstruct designs: SbB Crunch’d and SbB Papaya 26: I recently created a couple of new fonts over on Fontstruct: SbB Crunch’d and SbB Papaya 26. SbB Crunch’d SbB Crunch’d is a little random. Normally when I start working on a type design, I have an idea of how it will be used. In this case, I started with the shape of the …

Crossposting from Micro.Blog with two inline links: Different social media platforms varied in how they handled the inclusion of multiple inline links in a recent post, with Bluesky successfully displaying both links while Threads and Mastodon only showcased the first one.

Enjoyed Season 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney+.🍿

Back in 2024, I wrote about Honda’s new logo that was allegedly only for their EVs. They’ve apparently changed their mind, and it will now be used for all Honda Automobiles, starting in 2027. I’m wondering if the slow rollout is how they’ve decided to handle and potential backlash…

Waves at sunrise.

I love the beach in winter. A few shots from Isle of Palms this weekend.

There’s a lot to like about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Some interesting characters and the show looks amazing. Holly Hunter’s Chancellor Ake is delightfully quirky for a Starfleet captain. I look forward to seeing where the season goes.

During the outage yesterday, Verizon only shared updates on X. Brands and corporations need to start diversifying their messaging strategy. They have a Threads account that has never posted.

What restaurants do you miss?: I enjoyed this article in the NY Times about the sadness that you feel when your favorite restaurant closes. Every restaurant is a portal — a way to remember who you were and how things felt when you were, say, 19, or 27, or 35, but also to remember the particulars of a city, a neighborhood, a …

Saw this hawk out on the Horseshoe today. I didn’t get a shot of it flying, but it had a massive wingspan.

Twitterless: If you haven't left already...: The warning signs were there. Ten years ago, I wrote my first Twitterless article, followed by part 2 in 2017, part 3 in 2022, a “final” chapter in 2023 and an epilogue in 2024.1 My initial concerns were about Twitter’s financial shape, but after Musk took over, I quickly realized the new service …

I was initially skeptical, but the more I play around with Canva Affinity, the more I like it.

I love how quickly I can prototype a typeface idea in Fontstruct.

Even though it rained earlier, we got out to Gather Columbia late this afternoon. Lots of great food options. Fun atmosphere. Another cool addition to Columbia.

As I move into working on my dissertation, it feels strange to not have a “class” this semester. It’s been a long time since I wasn’t reviewing syllabi at the start of a semester…

2026: A Fresh Start: Each year, I set a theme for the year. Last year was incremental progress. I did write a lot during the year, and I released some new typefaces, but I wasn’t able to reach my health goals and organization is still something I want to continue to work on. For this year, I’m excited about a fresh …

Farewell 2025.

More Apple Logo Variations: One strange thing about Apple’s visual identity is that they allow logo variations that most brand managers would never approve. In the past, I’ve noted their environmental logo with a green leaf and their security logo that looks like a padlock. They have a gift logo that they use annually during …

I’m watching the World Darts Championship on Peacock and I have so many questions. Apparently, they are currently doing a speed round, the crowd is wild, and a couple of spectators are dressed as Ronald McDonald.

Our travel plans for Christmas changed at the last minute, so Team Wertz took a day trip to the Isle of Palms and Charleston.

An exciting and hectic 2026 ahead: I was thinking this morning about goals and themes for 2026, but as I thought through my plans, I realized that 2026 is going to be a big year for me and my family. New job. I have a new job, and it’s a massive shift from what I’ve done for the last thirty years. I’m excited, but I have a lot to …

I just made the move from an iPhone 12 Pro to an iPhone 17. Lots of advancements over the last 5 years.

Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas from Team Wertz.

The renovated Finlay Park in Columbia is gorgeous. They did such a great job with the update and it’s now such a vibrant space for the community. Love it.

A cubano at Indah Coffee.

Enjoyed Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. 🍿

My last day in this job is tomorrow… my office is mostly packed up and I’m checking off the last few things off my to-do list. I’m realizing that on Monday, I start an entirely new job with an empty to-do list and an opportunity to rethink how I organize notes, track tasks, etc.

Some personal news… I’ve accepted a different position at the University of South Carolina as Director of Research Training in the Carolina Grants and Innovation Hub. I’m so incredibly excited about this new role and can’t wait to get started next week. I’ll miss my team and coworkers. I’m …

Saw a McLaren on my way home from the grocery store today, close to my home. Yesterday, I saw a Lamborghini. I recently saw a Ford GT. Where are all of these luxury sports cars coming from?

Spending the day working a graduate school paper. Camped out at a coffee shop listening to New Order and writing. Hopefully, I’ll get my first draft completed today.

This afternoon has been a long day.

This really resonated with me this morning. Seth Godin on Captaincy: Captains set the agenda, create tension and lean into possibility. Captains aren’t just doing their job, they’re creating something that others thought was unlikely. They rarely have all the answers, but they’re very good at …

Seth Godin: “Stuck is a situation, stuck might be a problem, and stuck can be a choice."

I’m playing around with Affinity. Lots of good options to customize the interface. Some really nice typography features. But why can’t I export multiple artboards?

Completed: Hell Bent by Brian Recker 📚 I’m not the audience for Brian Recker’s Hell Bent. He’s writing for evangelicals (and former evangelicals) who are questioning their faith. I instead came to his book as a lifelong Lutheran who is baffled by how the Christianity that I grew up with has become …

Thirty years ago, Liz and I went on our first date. Crazy to think that we’ve been together for 3/5 of my life…

Watching Gamecocks Women’s Basketball. So much talent on this roster. I think they are going to be fun to watch this year.

One app, three modes: The most interesting thing about the new version of Affinity isn’t the price.: When I became a designer 30 years ago, you needed three types of apps: a page layout app, a photo editing app and a vector app. You purchased those apps from whoever had the features you needed. Quark Xpress and Adobe Pagemaker1 were your options for page layout. Macromedia Freehand2 and Adobe …

Watched: Star Wars Rebels S3E5, The Last Battle 🍿 “Battles leave scars, some you can’t see.”

I’m conflicted about Canva making Affinity free. On one hand, Affinity will continue to provide a high-quality option to an Adobe subscription that won’t break the bank. But I don’t trust free software to be there for the long haul…

My peer-reviewed journal article, Logo Love? An Exploration of American Consumers’ Critical Attitudes toward Logos, is finally live on Visual Communications Quarterly. Excited to finally get this released.

When you start your day discovering a plumbing issue… it’s not a crisis, but it is something I’m going to have to deal with when I get home tonight. Hopefully, it is something I can just handle…

Finally made it to City Limits Barbeque. Even with all the hype, it exceeded my expectations. Outstanding.

Impressed with the new Methodical Coffee in The Bull Street District in Columbia. Really awesome to see this area finally coming together.

I’m taking the day off from work to just be a Ph.D. student today. I’ve got a paper to work on, I’m attending a research symposium and I’ve scheduled a meeting with our grad school coordinator about my dissertation process and comps.

Rian Hughes is one of my favorite type designers. This brief interview covering his 30 years of type design and promoting his Kickstarter was wonderful. (Also, I completely backed the Kickstarter!)

So if I’m reading the Apple/F1 announcement correctly, my F1 TV subscription will be rolled into Apple TV, which I already pay for as part of the Apple One bundle… so… once less subscription, I guess.

Interesting that Microsoft released some process images on Instagram to explain the thinking behind their new icons. They are correctly treating this icon refresh as a type of logo rollout and people who care about the icons will appreciate the glimpse into the redesign process.

Hate to see that South Carolina basketball’s Chloe Kitts tore her ACL and will miss the season. She’s one of my favorite Gamecocks, and hopefully, she’ll come back strong.

Picking an NFL team: I typically watch one or two NFL games a week, and yet, I don’t really have an NFL team. (I’m currently watching the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night Football as I write this.) When I was little, I was a Cowboys fan. We’re taking about the Tom Landry, Danny …

I never thought I needed to install a clipboard manager on my Mac. I was wrong. I absolutely love the clipboard history integrated into Spotlight on macOS Tahoe.

Symbolism is strange: It’s always funny to me what pop culture symbols acquire added cultural meaning.

This statement from the ELCA bishops is strong: Love insists on the dignity of every human being. Love insists on justice for the marginalized and oppressed. Love insists that the church must reflect God’s diverse, life-giving community. Love insists that we listen, speak, and act with respect, …

This article is about software development, but I think this passage relates to leadership, too: When you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don’t know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the …

An interesting post from Simon Sinek on leadership. Most of us want to be noticed. We want our efforts to matter, to be acknowledged. But the best leaders I’ve ever met are the ones who don’t need the spotlight. They’re the ones who understand that leadership is the awesome responsibility to see …

I thought college football fans were intense on social media. F1 fans are on a different planet. Goodness…

The economics of academic publishing are strange. The whole thing seems powered by lots of free (or low paid) labor in the name of service to your field.

Hanging out on the back porch and enjoying a glass of bourbon after a long week.

Seth Godin on leadership today: Weak leaders (bosses, parents, captains and shift managers) resort to authority because they don’t trust themselves and their team enough to actually lead. This is so incredibly true. And just because someone has lots of “experience,” it doesn’t …

Maybe longevity isn’t a liability. (If you know, you know.)

Me: I can’t believe no one is talking about Clemson losing to Syracuse. Also Me: I forgot that I blocked “Clemson” and “Dabo” in my social media apps so I didn’t have to listen to people talk about Clemson.

Centralization of media was a mistake.: We live in a world now where our media outlets are owned by a small number of conglomerates. And while this is possibly a more profitable set up for the corporations that own these outlets, it also makes it easy for them to be manipulated by billionaires and governments. Our distribution channels …

F1 Qualifying is sometimes more exciting than a regular race. Today’s quali was incredible. Going to be tough to beat Max tomorrow.

It’s finally cool enough that I can drink my coffee on the back deck.

Home today for a warranty repair to our AC unit that developed a slow leak over the summer. Service is expected to take 3-5 hours. Goodness, they must be disassembling the whole thing.

I think I’ll likely stick with the base model iPhone 17 this year. It will be a massive upgrade from my iPhone 12 Pro. I’ll probably pick up a new Apple Watch, too, to replace my ancient Series 4, which I still wear every day.

Looking forward to the iPhone event tomorrow. I’m in the market for an upgrade… and whatever they announce will be a big step up from my iPhone 12 Pro.

The end of the Bills-Ravens game was wild. What a comeback.

Scout Motors partnered with local coffee shops to buy coffee for Columbia today. Pretty cool event, and we are happy to have Scout in our community. Thanks for the free drink today! (And the stickers.)

I bought a wireless CarPlay adapter for my car and it’s awesome. I can’t believe I didn’t buy one earlier.

Some thoughts on the Cracker Barrel rebranding fiasco from a visual identity researcher: My Ph.D. research is focused on consumer response to logos and visual identity, so as you can imagine, I’ve talked about Cracker Barrel1 a lot over the last few weeks. Everyone has an opinion and is eager to share it. I held off writing this because the social media chatter was just chaotic, but now …

Most of our neighbors have doorbell cameras and motion-activated cameras around their house. We don’t. This morning, one of our neighbors showed us a clip of a guy walking through our yard and trying our car door (which was locked). He then went to their house and tried to open their car …

I switched from the Tiny Theme to the Mythos Theme for my main blog. It’s really nice, but it’s going to take me a while to fully customize it.

I loved newspapers and magazines when I was young. My first job was delivering newspapers. Publication design led me into a design career. But times change, and I’m sad, but not surprised that the Atlanta Journal Constitution will stop printing physical papers.

I’m working in the School of Journalism’s grad student suite for the first time in a while. It’s so quiet up here. I’m going to try to work from here one night a week. It’s a nice change of pace from coffee shops or the kitchen table.

I really want to use Ulysses or Scrivener for my dissertation, but I’m hooked on Zotero’s citation management integration with Word. And the process of connecting Zotero with Scrivener seems… complicated.

I’ve been in two active shooter situations. One turned out to be a false alarm, but it caused a real stampede in a crowded mall. The other was a murder-suicide on campus that caused a lockdown. While I wasn’t really in danger in either situation, the feeling of panic sticks with you.

An active shooter on the University of South Carolina campus. I know my daughter is safe, but so incredibly terrifying.

According to Facebook, I started grad school seven years ago today. I finished my master’s degree in 2021, and have a single independent study and my dissertation left before I finish my PhD, hopefully in 2026. It’s been a long process – I feel like I’ve been a grad student forever …

My PhD research is on how people respond to logos. One factor for a successful rollout appears to be context. How will the logo be used? What’s the story behind the change? More context = better response. Neither Cracker Barrel nor MSNBC gave any real context. Here’s my published study on context.

Excited to see South Carolina switch from Under Armor to Nike next year.

Thanks Cracker Barrel and MSNBC! I needed some more recent logo backlashes for my dissertation.

My daughter and I are discussing the best fictional bands. And now, I’ve discovered Julie and the Phantoms and KPOP Demon Hunters. So what other fictional bands belong on my hypothetical list?

Working on a new typeface design that I started six years ago.

Modern cars have all the problems of a car, plus all the problems of a computer.

Digital permanence: A friend was digging through some college artifacts and found my 32-year-old business card from when I was an officer with Carolina Productions, the University of South Carolina student programming board. She sent me a picture and I noticed something funny: I still have the same email address. I …

I love these moments when Team Wertz is all together. Getting all three kids together at the same time is getting tougher and tougher.

Went to campus. Got caught in a rain storm. Now sitting at my desk completely soaked…

I can’t think of a sports parallel to F1 summer break. In the middle of the season, they take 2 weeks off where NO ONE on the team can work. They can’t even send an email. Everyone gets a 2-week vacation by rule. (I wonder if social media teams schedule the posts that appear during …

McSweeney’s with a gem: The EM dash responds to the AI allegations

An insightful read from the Nieman Lab on NY Times v Sullivan, the 1960s Supreme Court decision that is the foundation of modern American press freedom. Worth a read to understand how lawsuits were weaponized by politicians, and how NYT v Sullivan changed that.

This blog post about additive and extractive technologies by Cal Newport makes me think about the different tools I use daily. I specifically thought of @manton and some of the choices he’s made with Micro.Blog to be less extractive.

Really enjoyed the Fantastic Four. Fun story with great art direction. I adore anything retro futuristic.

Two new typefaces for my 50th birthday : Two new typefaces: SbB Nineteen 75 is a free download and SbB Certiphica will be available soon at MyFonts

In honor of my 50th birthday today, I decided to release a free font: SbB Nineteen 75.

Fell asleep after working on a paper for grad school. Just woke up to a nightmare that I’d actually turned it in… And it is NOT ready to be turned in yet. So rough. Anyway, been a while since I had a grad school nightmare. 🤣 I’m going back to sleep.

This paper for my independent study is a mess. I’ve read a lot, and I like where it’s going, but combining everything isn’t going well.

Scenes from a roadtrip: When Liz asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate my 50th birthday, I told her that I wanted to go to a Cubs game in Wrigley. I hadn’t been to Wrigley since 1988 when we moved back to South Carolina. Liz and I decided to make it happen, albeit a week before my birthday. Instead of dropping …

I really do think there is something to this: How TV Trained Us to Be Conspiracy Theorists.

Setting prices for type: I’m changing my pricing strategy for my typeface designs

We got some breakfast Hot Pockets and they no longer ship with a paper “crisper” sleeve, instead recommending an air fryer for a crispier crust. A hot pocket fresh out of the air fryer is indeed crispy, but; It takes 15 minutes! Not exactly a quick breakfast anymore.

Excited that Cotton Bureau has finally added custom stickers. I added a few sticker designs, including my old film camera stickers.

Me: I really need to wrap up this paper on deprofessionization in the design industry so I can move on to working on my dissertation. Also me: Digging FOUR papers out from past classes that I never did anything with and revisiting them.

Waking up to big F1 news. Christian Horner out at Red Bull. I guess losing to Nico Hulkenberg at Silverstone was the last straw. Is Max now more likely to leave for Mercedes? Less likely?

SbB Emote: A colorful faux emoji set built in Fontstruct: I built a set of adorable icons on Fontstruct.

Adobe's Project Indigo a home run in tough lighting: A quick comparison of two shots at a baseball game show the promise of Adobe’s computational camera app.

Fireflies baseball. A beautiful night to catch a minor league game.

My dad randomly asked me if I wanted the typewriter my grandparents bought him when he graduated college. He used it in seminary and his first call. Uh, YES! So I now have a Royal Safari manual typewriter. Seems to work well. Just need a new ribbon.

Watched the entire Cubs game today… 8 home runs. This team is fun to watch. Can’t wait to see them in person later this month.

Watching Cubs v. Cardinals on Apple’s Friday Night Baseball, which is actually on Friday afternoon for July 4. PCA with a great diving catch in the first inning. ⚾️

We’ve reached the part of summer break where one of my kids has decided they want to learn how to make bread.

Embracing old tools in new ways + two new Fontstruct designs: Experimenting with new features in Fontstruct, Photoshop, and Glyphs has inspired the creation of two new font designs, SbB Vertica and SbB Roundabout.

Happy Bobby Bonilla Day! Yep, the Mets are still paying him and will be until 2035.

Enjoyed this beautifully art directed and illustrated meditation on AI and art. Take a few minutes and spend some time with it.

My son wanted to play video games with me, so we pulled out the Sega Genesis Mini. All these years later, it’s funny how much I remember from playing Sonic and Streets of Rage II.

This restaurant doesn’t look crowded, but the number of Door Dash drivers coming in and out is substantial. It’s amazing how much these delivery services have changed the restaurant business.

Playing around with Adobe’s Project Indigo camera app. It’s interesting. Similar in goals to Halide’s Process Zero.

Artificial intelligence with a side of seasoned fries: A brief “review” of Bo-Linda: Bojangles AI-based drive-thru ordering system

Just finished my last assignment for my six-week summer class, which means that I only have a couple of independent studies and my dissertation left until I’m Dr. Bob.

Kia’s new EV2 is an adorably small electric SUV. Too bad it’s not coming to the US market. I hate the global perception that US consumers don’t want smaller vehicles.

My wife discovered the hidden yellow jacket nest burrowed in the ground when she steered the lawnmower directly over it. 12 stings later… she’s in a lot of pain. Plus Jilly got one sting rescuing her mom.

There is no better feeling than coming up with the perfect name for your typeface… and discovering it is actually unused.

Saw a double rainbow on my way back from picking up dinner.

Just watched Apple’s “haptic trailer” for the new F1 movie. Very cool effect. (You can find it in the Apple TV App on your phone.)

Thinking about Apple’s new Liquid Glass design… What if Apple used the camera on the back of the iPhone to create an AR passthrough effect like the Apple Vision Pro so it feels like you are looking through the phone? Your iPhone becomes just a sheet of “glass” with an …

If you want to watch two of the best teams in baseball, Cubs v. Tigers is MLB.com’s free game of the day.

Switching my blog into summer mode. My fish logo is now the summer vacation version with sunglasses.

Google Scholar is blocking searches from my computer and phone if iCloud Private Relay is turned on, claiming that my “computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.”

Working in a Starbucks that’s just been renovated. It’s located at a major interstate interchange and was clearly designed to be primarily a drive thru location. Very small inside. The long bench is new, and probably a better use of space.

Dr. Annie Andrews is running for Senate in SC. She’s on Bluesky and someone knows what they are doing because her username is her domain name. 👍

Rewatching Arrow Season 1. So delightfully over the top. 📺

Everyone is excited about Apple renumbering the operating system version, but there are still ways they could mess with people: macOS twentySIX macOS XXVI macOS Twenty6 macOS 20six 🤣

Sixteen years ago today, I shared my first Fontstruction… Big Thursday and it was selected as a Top Pick. Fontstruct has improved as a tool so much since those early days, but it’s still every bit as fun to play around with. (Oh, and back then, the editor was built in Flash!)

Some creations are foundational. If you design a typeface, other people create things using that font. Photographers and illustrators create works of art that can be incorporated into other designs. Brand design crafts visual and verbal foundations that others can build on. These days, I’m much more …

Beware hype without details: Remember the invention that was going to revolutionize transportation in the early 2000s? Apparently not…

My Three Fontstruct Color Competition Entries: Every so often, Fontstruct has a themed competition and the current competition focuses on the new color features. I’ve pulled together three color designs that try to use color in different ways — a pattern, a bright multicolor whimsical design and a 3D effect. One of the fun things about the …

Remember the hype leading up to the introduction of the Segway? Never believe the hype until you actually know what the product is…

Wrapped up a really long middle school lacrosse season. Ryan had a great season in goal and he’s continuing to learn the craft, but I am incredibly glad that we’re done for a little while.

I’m taking a six-week summer grad school class for the first time… and damn, there is a lot of work in a short time.

Spending the morning at the Subaru dealership while they make a warranty repair to our Outback. It’s a pretty nice customer lounge with extremely average coffee.

Luxury experience: Reflecting on a favorite hotel in Charleston, SC that was just honored as one of the best in America.

Did some grad school work after watching the Andor finale… I had some weird dreams mashing up the two…

Color fonts and signal flags: I’ve been thinking about color fonts lately. Experimenting with the color fonts features in Fontstruct and Glyphs. Trying to better understand how to create color fonts. And while I’m starting to understand how they are made, I’m left with one major question… why? Why do we need color fonts? If you …

Loved this: Stop Trying to Raise Successful Kids. And start raising kind ones. Overemphasizing individual achievement may cause a deficit of caring. But we don’t actually have to choose between the two. In fact, teaching children to care about others might be the best way to prepare them for a …

On tiredness: Reflecting on feeling tired and worn down.

I have no tolerance for people who preach compassion, but have no compassion.

Leo XIV is notably the first person named Bob to become Pope.

Prom pictures for my Jilly.

I’m writing a paper for class and I’ve just had to cite myself for the first time. That’s a pretty funny feeling…

I know that students love the food delivery robots, but my favorite campus robot is the little grass cutting bot over by the observatory.

I need to finish a couple of class projects for the semester, but instead, I’m designing typefaces.

Clean Slate: Slate Auto announced their new electric pickup truck this week, and I’m intrigued. If you haven’t heard about it, the Slate is a barebones electric truck — intended to be customized — all for under $20,000 with current Federal EV incentives.1 Some of these ideas have been tried before. Jeeps have …

The Cubs' offense is fun to watch this year. I’m glad they score lots of runs, because the team sure gives up lots of runs.

Return to Fontstruct: About 16 years ago, I started playing around with Fontstruct, an online tool for crafting modular typefaces. I’ve released 48 designs on Fontstruct and some of those have served as prototypes for designs that I finish in Glyphs, my favorite type design app. I tend to work in Fontstruct intensively …

Happy Easter from Team Wertz!

Quick favor. I need a few more responses for a pilot study on social media use that I’m doing for a grad school class. It’s a simple Google Form. Completely anonymous and it won’t be used for published research. It’s just for practice – and a grade. Thanks!

Watching the Rocketeer because it’s fun to watch the good guys fight the Nazis.

Spent today at Augusta National with no phone or digital devices. It’s nice to be forced to unplug for the day.

I’m back to playing around on Fontstruct. Just published SbB Powercore, a unicase, pixel-inspired design. I’m digging this combination of unicase characters. Still a work in progress.

One thing about going back to grad school in your late 40s… everyone thinks you are a professor.

Getting back in the habit of writing one of my elected representatives every day.

Today, we are thankful for protective lacrosse goalie gear.

Great game, Gamecocks! So much depth. Looking forward to the National Championship game on Sunday. 🏀🐓

Google’s AI Overview has already declared that South Carolina defeated UCLA on Sunday for the National Championship.

Spring is finally coming to campus.

As a South Carolinian, I’m happy to see Cory Booker break Strom’s record.

Looks like the Women’s Final Four will be South Carolina + the three teams that beat them during the season… Texas, UCLA and UConn. I think these are the four best teams in the country. And while I’m a Gamecocks fan through and through, Paige Bueckers looks like she’s on a …

Saw this last week and I’m still thinking about it… Procrastination is not a time management problem. It’s an emotion management problem.

Took the modular numerals from the 2025 McLaren F1 livery and built a font on Fontstruct.

I’m ready for an F1 race that doesn’t take place in the middle of the night where I live. I want to watch the Chinese Grand Prix tonight, but 3 am is… inconvenient. I love that this sport travels the world, but varied start times is one of the consequences of that.

Writing became secondary.: Reflecting on Dave Winer’s post about the Writer’s Web.

Today was disappointing. Tomorrow will be better.

I’ve settled into a morning routine of playing Apple News+ games in the morning: Quartiles, Mini Crossword, Soduku. It’s funny that I play these games more than I play Apple Arcade games, which are also included in my Apple One bundle.

I accidentally started listening to an old playlist that is much happier and more upbeat than my normal playlist. And wow, that makes a difference.

Stayed up late last night to watch the Australian Grand Prix. Rainy races are so incredibly stressful.

Reflections on a DIY Dryer Repair: Repairing a 14-year-old dryer using a YouTube tutorial…

I’m curious how font foundries are structuring licenses for web apps like Canva or Adobe Express, especially when implemented at an enterprise scale.

Sitting in the lobby of the Alumni Center waiting for Jill to finish her finalist interview for the South Carolina regional science fair.

Is it unusual that Columbia doesn’t have an Apple Store?: Columbia, South Carolina lacks an Apple Store, which is unusual given its size compared to other cities that have them.

Slightly melted: During lent, our church switches to a slightly melted cross recovered after the church burned in the 40s.

📺 Watching Drive to Survive Season 7. Ready for the F1 season to start next weekend.

I think every social media platform should allow multiple links in a post.

Rich People Are Firing a Cash Cannon at the US Economy—But at What Cost? Apple News+ / Bloomberg Another reason why severe wealth inequity is bad for the long term economic health of the nation.

Five lectures: Five lectures that sparked my interested in grad school research: Lehrer, Gladwell, Larson, Tufte, Vinh.

Yesterday, my middle schooler lost his backpack with his school-issued Chromebook, his homework and two library books. It’s a long story, but after a period of panic, we found it in the high school front office. Last night, we put an AirTag on his bag… just in case it happens again.

My sleep schedule has been a little bit off lately… went to bed early, woke up a little after midnight, came downstairs and my daughter was still up finishing homework/procrastinating.

Eight years ago today, I attended an Edward Tufte workshop in Atlanta. I left questioning so many assumptions about how designers present information and how people process data. It was one of the driving forces behind my return to grad school.

My son’s middle school has been sending an email, a text message and a pre-recorded phone call every Sunday night at 6:30. Thankfully, the principal just mentioned in the email that she’s not going to do the phone call anymore after talking to parents. There is such a thing as over …

The start of another season. Ryan had some really nice saves today. 🥍

Nicknaming places: Does your family give places random nicknames? Mine does…

If you don’t value government, everything looks like waste.

Long day ahead of me, but the weekend is on the other side.

Nine years ago, I wasn't in a mass shooting: Nine years ago today, a family outing to a mall turned chaotic when a false alarm about a shooting caused a stampede, leading to lasting fear and memories.

It’s been a long week, y’all.

They are about to start work on the riverfront trails near my house, eventually connecting to 27 miles of riverfront trails. They’ve been trying to make this happen for as long as I can remember. Would be fun to ride a bike from the suburbs along the river to downtown Columbia.

AI and Design: It’s what you make of it.: In a lecture at the University of South Carolina, NC State’s Helen Armstrong emphasized the importance of designers learning to use AI as a tool, collaborating with data scientists, and overcoming student anxieties about AI’s impact on the design profession.

Long day ahead of me today. A couple of important meetings, a 3-hour grad seminar, more meetings… and then if I have the energy, I’m going to try to go to a talk on campus about AI and art.

I’m taking an asynchronous class on survey development. The professor’s comments on assignments are constructive and helpful, but her grading rubric is massively complex. We’re talking fractional points with varying weights. I’ve been a grad student for a really long time and …

I’ve pretty much stopped posting to Instagram. I have issues with Meta, but that wasn’t the driving factor. In fact, it wasn’t really an intentional shift… I just stopped enjoying Instagram. Now I’m posting images to Micro.Blog and cross posting to Bluesky and Threads.

Shots from last night at Craft and Draft in Irmo. Lizzy was very entertained by, well, everything.

It’s easier to destroy than to govern.

Proud of Jilly. Honorable mention in the district science fair.

The senior citizens in the doctor’s office waiting room are talking non-stop. So many personal details being screamed out across a whole room of strangers.

I love Iconfactory’s Tapestry – a unified timeline for my iPhone: Tapestry is a new iOS app that functions as a unified feed reader, allowing users to integrate various social and RSS feeds without algorithms, while providing customization options for managing content visibility.

It’s almost time for the college baseball season to start. Beautiful day at Founders Park.

My 17-year-old daughter wanted to listen to her new “Oldies” playlist on the way to school. First song: U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Yep, the “Oldies” playlist is an 80s and 90s playlist. Sigh. She’s not wrong, but I …

It’s dark. And my son is still in the backyard getting ready for tryouts next week. Trying to make the high school JV lacrosse team as a 7th grade goalie.

Sitting on a bench on the Horseshoe and A SQUIRREL JUMPED ON MY KNEE and then took off. I think he was as startled as I was.

Enterprise has me in their system as “Roberta” instead of “Robert A.” They just called asking for Roberta, and were very confused. Almost as funny as how Pet Smart has me in their system as “Bub” instead of “Bob.”

Today would have been my mom’s 80th birthday. Thinking about her today.

After two weeks of kids being sick and snow days, today I have the rarest of occurrences… a normal day without a single scheduled meeting. If you are looking for me today, I’ll be at my desk getting things done.

Big party at Craft and Draft Irmo to celebrate their 5th anniversary. That’s right, the opened in January 2020 right before COVID shut the world down. So glad our favorite local bar is still thriving.

Parasocial: In one of my early grad school classes, we had a conversation and some readings on parasocial relationships… mostly one-sided relationships you “build” with people that you watch on tv, listen to on the radio, or subscribe to their podcasts. We think we know these people. Maybe at some point we met …

Six years ago, I wrote a blog post encouraging people to ask “why” they post to Facebook? I reread it last night and at the end, I found this gem: Now the hard part: Start asking “why” before you post? Understand the impact of your words before you comment. Or like. Or share. In all …

Iconfactory’s Tapestry is nearing release. I love being able to scroll through a unified feed with Micro.Blog, Bluesky, YouTube, RSS feeds and more. I’m so impressed with how it’s come together and steadily improved during the beta process.

For a class research project, I’ve been reading some journal articles about how to build more positive social media platforms. Sadly, I’m not sure it’s possible. I admire the people who are legitimately trying, though.

Had to take a few more pictures of the snow before it melts… the park behind our house is beautiful when blanketed in snow.

A little snow in Columbia, South Carolina is a big deal.

If the Bills win, it will set up a battle between Taylor Swift’s boyfriend and Hailee Steinfeld’s fiancé.

Helping my 7th grader understand linear regressions for his algebra class… I suppose this is normal? I was much older when I learned how to do linear regressions. As in, grad school.

Just ordered a custom Timbuk2 backpack to replace my 12-year-old custom Timbuk2 messenger bag. The messenger bag is still in good shape… pretty impressive for over a decade of daily use.

Reflections from 1.19.2025: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. My first “Now” update of 2025. The start of the year has been chaotic. Cold weather and threat of snow, but only a couple of flurries. Then, last week, both kids had the flu. The semester …

Enjoyed Star Wars Skeleton Crew. Fun show. Loved the 1980s Goonies vibe and would love more Star Wars like this.

I’m going to get a Micro.One subscription for my dad. He wants a place to share family geneology, stories and pictures and I think Micro.One is perfect for him.

My wife and I are making some changes around the house. Mostly rearranging existing furniture and cleaning out stuff we don’t use. But every time we make an improvement, we see something else that we need to tackle. It’s a seemingly never ending upgrade cycle.

People are talking about the “new” Honda logo that is used on their Honda Zero electric car prototypes they showed off at CES, but in reality, they announced that logo quietly last year.

I think it’s time to phase out bowl games. With opt outs, the transfer portal and and the playoff, they are an unnecessary relic. Switch to a 16-team playoff. Let everyone practice through December.

Then: Reflections from 12.31.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. The last day of the year. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks leading up to Christmas and before New Years. A minor car accident complicated the already busy season. Everyone is fine, and it was the …

2025: Incremental Progress: My themes for 2025 are essentially the same as they were last year. And the year before. I need to get healthy. I want to write and be creative. I need to stay organized. It’s somewhat boring that my major themes have stayed the same for three years. I’ve made progress, but I still have a ways …

Our family has been going at full speed since Thanksgiving. Three birthdays, exams for the kiddos, a car accident (everyone is fine), parties, Christmas, family visiting… Thankfully, not much on the calendar for the next few days until I go back to work on January 2. I need some time to …

My daugther’s school has banned use of any unauthorized internet-connected device during school hours. She’s going to miss her music during study hall. I’m thinking about how to get her music copied over to my old iPod. Or even better, a cassette to use in an old Walkman…

Had to come back home this morning to pick up a package. And was able to confirm that my “Turn the Christmas Tree lights on when I get home” automation works as designed.

Thanks to the librarians at the University of South Carolina, I have a scan of my 1997 honors thesis. It’s not terrible… and it is full of fun 1997 acronyms, like UPN, CNNSI, ESPNET and CNET.

Then: Reflections from 12.15.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. First up, Happy birthday Norah! My oldest turns 20 today. Two decades is a long time and so much has happened… and yet, it feels like it has flown by. I’ve seemed to settle in writing these …

My favorite eight pictures from 2024.

Tracking down a copy of my thesis from 1997: I want to find a copy of my 1997 honors thesis.1 I wrote it on a Power Mac 7500 in Word Perfect 3.5 on the classic Mac OS 8. It probably fit on a floppy drive, but I know I saved a backup copy of it on a Zip drive. At some point, I decided that I needed to move things off the Zip disks and …

Listening to a podcast this week and I realized that my 1997 honors thesis about media branding in the age of cable TV and the internet is actually relevant as media branding continues to change. I might dust it off and turn it into a history of media branding instead.

You say “Bless you” when someone sneezes. My son wanted to come up with something to say when someone coughs. We’ve settled on “May God have mercy on your soul.” 🤣

I started watching F1 this season with the Canadian Grand Prix and adopted McLaren as my team. So cool to see them win the Constructors’ Championship. And overall, such a great season for me to start with… so much fun to watch.

Subscribed to The Verge’s new subscription plan. I think $7/month is a reasonable price for everything that the site offers and I’m happy that I can support quality tech journalism.

Enjoyed Skeleton Crew last night. It does feel like a Goonies + Star Wars mash up. They’ve built an interesting premise and there seem to be some interesting avenues for them to explore. Looking forward to rewatching it with my son.

I think professional wrestling might have more consistent rules than Formula 1.

Then: Reflections from 12.01.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. Thanksgiving week was busy. I worked Monday and Tuesday, took Wednesday off and the university was closed for Thursday and Friday. It was a much needed rest. We had Norah home from college so it was nice to …

Hey Siri. Play Sandstorm. Down goes Clemson. South Carolina’s offense isn’t always pretty, but they fight to the end. LaNorris Sellers is a winner. 🐓🏈

As a McLaren fan, it was a fun F1 Sprint Race this morning. I imagine it was boring for everyone else though.

Post Thanksgiving date night at Craft and Draft Irmo.

Excited to see the first two episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew on Monday. I’m interested in seeing this interpretation of the Star Wars universe and glad they are releasing it early.

I added the “Quiet Posters” feed on Bluesky. It shows people you follow, but who don’t post very much. It’s amazing, because in most cases, it surfaces the stuff I want to see. This type of smart feed could be really powerful.

Random thought for my Columbia SC creative friends… what if I resurrected InShow? I miss it.

Dear Rick Wertz of Indiana, Please stop giving people my email address when you mean to give them yours. Also, your AAA membership is about to expire. They keep sending me reminders. You might want to take care of that. Thanks, “Not Rick”

Reflections from 11.24.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. So I accidentally skipped last week. I wrote the post, but never actually uploaded it. So I’m incorporating some of what I wrote last week to cover the last two weeks. Happy birthday to my youngest, Ryan. …

Just saw a headline that SMU is going be in the ACC Championship. I’ll be honest. I completely forgot SMU was in the ACC.

Tomorrow, our youngest turns 13. Which means that until December when Norah turns 20, we will have three teenagers in the family: 13, 17 and 19. Pray for us. 🤣

Refining my social media approach: The last two weeks has seen a surge in Bluesky usage. I’ve been on Bluesky a little since the early days. I liked the service, but I didn’t know any one there. That’s changed now and lots of friends are posting. That’s added a touch more complexity, so I figured I’d …

I’m thinking about setting up an email account on a domain that I own. Last time I did this, I used Google’s free option that they phased out a while back. I don’t need a free option, but I also don’t want to spend a ton of money. What are my best options?

A nice update outlining all the Marvel shows and movies that are planned and when to expect them. I had no idea that “What If…?” Season 3 was coming this Christmas.

Bluesky and Micro.Blog make a pretty complementary social media set up. And the integration keeps getting better.

Just changed my username on Bluesky to my domain name. Micro.Blog makes it so easy if you already have a blog with a custom domain.

Checks mentions. Sees a bunch of replies from Bluesky. Pretty sure that’s new. So thanks @manton.

South Carolina’s offense isn’t always pretty, but they’ve got heart. Go Gamecocks! 🏈

At this point in the semester, Team Wertz is heading to study at Starbucks every weekend. (Ryan usually has some homework, but really just joins us so he can get a lemon loaf.)

One of the fun things about being a Ph.D. student married to another Ph.D. student is that you randomly discuss research methods over your morning coffee.

The number of people I actually know on Bluesky has increased significantly in the last week.

How the Ivy League Broke America. Incredibly thought provoking article about education, society and the concept of merit. When income level is the most important division in a society, politics is a struggle over how to redistribute money. When a society is more divided by education, politics …

I haven’t been active on Twitter in a very long time, but I deactivated my account this morning. Now I have to find all of the links to Twitter on my blogs and other profiles and delete them. Going to take a while.

Really, really don’t understand how people are still on Twitter. Communities will reform elsewhere. So many people have left, your follower count is an illusion at this point. There are other options. I just don’t understand.

Then: Reflections from 11.10.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. I skipped last week’s post. Sunday, I was busy with schoolwork and didn’t have time. I planned to post something later, but the election happened and I just didn’t feel like posting at …

Today, everything in my life seems small. My job feels inconsequential. My career choices, misguided. My research, misdirected. My dissertation, pointless. The world is so broken. I feel like I could have — should have — committed to making more of a difference… somehow… I have grad …

According to Facebook, 15 years ago today, I got a Google Wave invite.

Then: Reflections from 10.27.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. This week was busy like the last couple, but felt much more manageable for some reason. I have an insanely busy week ahead of me and as the semester wraps up, I have a lot of school work to do. But …

Just a reminder that aggressive tariffs and the resulting trade war were one of the causes of the Great Depression.

I got a really great score in Quartiles this morning. I wondered if I could easy share my score on social media like I could on Wordle. While Apple has a share button, it’s just a link to the puzzle in Apple News+ that few can access. Missed marketing opportunity.

I thought it was interesting that during the start of the Scout Motors unveiling, they promised to never sell their customers’ data. Privacy matters.

Scout Motors is unveiling their new vehicle designs later this afternoon. I’m excited because I want to see how they interpreted the old design into a new EV. But also, they are going to be built right here in Columbia, South Carolina.

I know I should probably vote early, but it’s my daughter’s first presidential election and I want her to have the full experience of going to the polls.

Then: Reflections from 10.20.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. Another busy week. I feel like a broken record at this point. The kids' schedules are busy. We went to the South Carolina State Fair. I was thankful that I didn’t have class this week for Fall Break, …

SEC football this season is incredible.

Went to the SC State Fair to see a giraffe.

Pluralistic: You should be using an RSS reader: RSS basically works like social media should work. Using RSS is a chance to visit a utopian future in which the platforms have no power, and all power is vested in publishers, who get to decide what to publish, and in readers, who have total control …

I really enjoy the Apple News+ game, Quartiles. It’s fun and challenging and I’ve started to mix it into my daily morning routine.

Got the email that my latest journal article was accepted for publication. I’ll soon have one more entry on my Google Scholar profile.

I bought my first Retro 51 pen at Origami Ink in Asheville, an amazing pen shop that was destroyed in the Hurricane Helene flooding. So when I saw that Retro 51 was offering a special edition to support Origami Ink, it was an instant purchase. Amazing pen. Cool design. Great cause.

Then: 10.13.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. Tough week to summarize. It was a challenging week for several reasons. Work wasn’t great. We were busy at home. Running constantly. And in the middle of it, I had a little bit of a professional …

Next: Many years ago, I was having coffee with a successful designer. We were discussing career challenges and he just offhandedly commented “I just don’t love design any more. In fact, I’m thinking about winding down my business.” I was still a pretty young and ambitious designer and left the meeting …

Then: 10.6.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. This week provided confirmation of how bad Hurricane Helene devastated the people and places that we love in Asheville. We’ve heard from all of our friends and they are fine, but the destruction is …

Just found out that my favorite pen store in Asheville, Origami Ink, was completely destroyed in the flood. I assumed that was the case because they were located in Biltmore Village, but the owners posted an update today confirming the sad news. Such nice people. I’m devastated for them.

It’s funny to see how a post shows up when crossposting. In Micro.Blog, it’s a link with some tiny thumbnails. In Bluesky, a link with all four images. In Threads, a link with a preview, but the featured image is my Micro.Blog fish avatar.

Parker 25B: My first vintage fountain pen: My dad texted me one afternoon that he’d found some fountain pens at a local auction and asked if I wanted to bid on them. He’s shared links in the past and I’ve never seen anything that looked interesting. From the look of the pictures, most of the listings looked well worn. But one of the pens was …

In general, I avoid Twitter and Facebook. But Twitter is still useful for live sports. And Facebook is useful for checking on people after natural disasters.

Really enjoyed The Armageddon Protocol by Dan Moren. 📚

Then: 9.29.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. Hurricane Helene hit us in Columbia, South Carolina this week. Early Friday morning, we lost power with 60+ mph wind gusts. Trees down everywhere. In Columbia, we weren’t prepared for a storm of this …

Expected Helene to be bad, but we don’t normally get hit this hard in Columbia. Lots of trees down and power outages across South Carolina.

For several reasons, I decided to work from home today. I know that many (most?) people love it, but I really, really don’t enjoy working from home.

The NY Times on the White Sox' historically bad season: Baseball is a cruel game. Other sports cap your suffering at a reasonable number. In the N.F.L., the most games you could ever lose in a season is 17. In the N.B.A., you could theoretically lose 82. (The record is 73.) But baseball’s season is …

Academics: A CV and resume are completely different things. On their websites: “Click here to view my CV/Resume.”

Got a revise and resubmit with minor revisions on a journal article today. Excited to get this one out in the world. I wrote the paper for a Ph.D. class a couple of years ago, presented it at a conference and then improved the paper. Happy with how it’s turned out.

Then: 9.22.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. This week was a little more relaxed than the last few. I took Friday off and spent some time working on projects. The weeknights were busy, and our middle child had driving lessons on Saturday and Sunday. …

Today was my 10th race watching F1. I started with the Canadian Grand Prix. Since then, we’ve had 7 winners from 4 different teams. I think I picked the right time to start watching. What a fun sport. I’m hooked.

Then: 9.15.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. A very busy week. I had a significant work event on Wednesday, and needed to help my daughter with some of her homework in the evenings during the week. Completely wrecked my sleep schedule. Need to be …

Blind copying people on emails is silly. There is really no good reason to do it.

Then: 9.8.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. A draining week and weekend. Not bad, but exhausting. I almost forgot to post my weekly update. We celebrated Jill’s 17th birthday this weekend. (Her actual birthday is next week.) It was wonderful, …

ESPN is bringing Gameday to Columbia next weekend for South Carolina and LSU. Campus is going to be busy this week.

Great win for my Gamecocks today against Kentucky. The defense looks stout, even if the offense is a work in progress.

So I shipped a typeface a few months ago. And then today, I came across a new release with exactly the same name. I did all the searches I could do and thought it was in the clear. I’m sure they did the same… but it’s still a little disappointing.

Cooking some turkey breasts on my Weber Kettle tonight. I know it’s old school cooking with charcoal, but I really enjoy the process.

Then: 9.1.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. I had an up and down week. Some good days, but I also had one of those days that was terrible from start to finish. Really thankful for the long Labor Day weekend. I’m going to start updating the Now page …

Today was terrible. Start to finish. Just rough. Tomorrow is a new day, but today’s going to stick with me.

Trying to troubleshoot cross posting to Threads from Micro.Blog. Was working fine… and then it wasn’t.

Because of an accident on the interstate, took the LONG way to work this morning, all back roads through the country. Including several roads that I never knew connected to each other. I made it to work eventually.

Hey @manton. FYI: Something is broken with Threads crossposting. I’m getting a “Threads: Error creating media container.” error in the logs when something tries to crosspost. (And Bluesky is working fine, so I don’t think it’s an issue with the post.) Happened a couple …

The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down: “We’re not crooks,” he told me. “We’re just guys trying to get something good done.” He said he was inspired to help found Próspera after reading Machiavelli’s writings on the impossibility of reforming a system from within. A movement inspired by …

The Red Lobster near me has closed, and I’m kinda sad.: Red Lobster has been struggling through financial troubles for a while and the chain is the process of being sold. Today, they announced that the location closest to me in Cayce, South Carolina has closed. I’ve eaten at that Red Lobster once in the last five years and it was an unmitigated disaster. …

Papaya ≠ Orange?: My daughter has gotten us all into F1. Jill’s become a hard core McLaren fan. My wife seems to have settled into cheering for George Russell and Mercedes. Ryan is a Max Verstappen fan. As for me, I tend to be pulling for McLaren. Which causes a problem. Their color is papaya… which is …

Then: 8.24.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. The start to the school year continues. I had my first grad school class of the semester this week. Looking forward to learning more about qualitative methods. Liz starts her Ph.D. class this week and the …

Harris Walz supporters should add the US Flag emoji to their social media bios. 🇺🇸🇺🇸 Partially to show support for freedom, but also to point out that there aren’t emoji for the Confederate flag, the Gadsden flag, the Trump flag or any of the other flags the far right prefers.

This week has been strangely draining. Not sure why…

Tucked in that Obama speech last night at the Democratic National Convention was a critique of social media culture. Just after the 26:00 mark. “We chase the approval of strangers on our phones.” He argues that social media divides us and makes us feel alone. Amazing speech, and worth a …

Businesses are trying to make their offices more like hotels, resorts or spas in an effort to lure people back to the office. I’m all for a nice office experience, but I don’t think that’s going to motivate people who simply prefer to work from home.

Professionally, I feel like I need to maintain a LinkedIn profile. Also, I have no idea what to do with LinkedIn.

Found my wife’s old 11-inch MacBook Air and compared it to her new 13-inch MacBook Air. She used the 11 for a very long time and loved it, but when she started grad school, she upgraded. That 11-inch still feels impossibly light and tiny.

I’ve seen a 1990 Acura NSX around town lately. One of my favorite cars from when I was younger. So I’m kind of excited that Acura might release an “NSX-type” electric sportscar.

Then: 8.17.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. Liz and the kids are back in school. We moved our oldest into an off-campus apartment. Starting to figure out everyone’s schedules. It’s been a busy week. Feels Our oldest, Norah, moved into …

Survived going to both Trader Joe’s and Target in a college town on move-in weekend.

Got my oldest about 2/3 moved into her off-campus apartment today for her sophomore year. Apartment is unfurnished so we had to move in a bed, dresser, desk, etc. We’ll move the rest in the morning. Thankfully, she’s on the second floor, because there is no elevator.

Seth Godin on “The paradox of lottery thinking:" What could we do if we spent the next four years on it?

Shadows.

Our twelve-year-old son made dinner for the family tonight. He was very proud of himself, but after dinner, he asked each of us if we had any feedback on his cooking. 🤣

Then: 8.10.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. Reasonably good week. We’re getting our oldest ready to go back to college. I’ve started my plan to be healthier at 50 than I was a 40 — working out a little bit and eating better. Lifestyle change is hard. …

First day of school postponed because of the storm. Thankfully, just a lot of rain here in Columbia, SC. I know a lot of people are upset about the cancelation, but the last time schools ignored a scary weather forecast, my wife’s car was impaled by a tree on her way to teach. So I’m …

Watched part of the Harris/Walz event… And now I understand why Harris picked Walz.

I’m always fascinated with the desire to delete your old social media posts. I’m always trying to save mine. But The Verge has a nice how-to post on purging your past.

Liz and the kids think I look like Jedi Bob.

Yesterday, Liverpool and Manchester United played in Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia. It was fun to see a football stadium packed for soccer. We didn’t go — tickets were more than I paid to see Taylor Swift and sold out in minutes — but I met people from all over who came to SC to see the …

Gym floor lettering.

Then: 8.2.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. I celebrated my 49th birthday this week. My kids have an annual tradition where they bake a cake for me, usually with a high degree of difficulty. This year, they attempted to make a Borg Cube from Star …

I keep thinking, surely, this is the moment where they will come to their senses.

I’m really enjoying watching the Olympics this year, and I think part of the reason is how good the streaming experience is on Peacock.

I think Biden’s proposal to reform the Supreme Court makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t really favor one party over another… term limits and ethics guidelines seem pretty non-partisan.

Peacock promoting Paris-themed Hallmark movies alongside the Paris Olympics is an inspired bit of marketing. (And my wife is very happy…)

I like how my now page has become a type of weekly journal of how I’m feeling and the stuff I’m working on. I’m not disciplined enough to keep a daily journal, but I think I can handle a weekly one…

I picked a good season to start watching F1.

The new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds preview clip is wonderful. I can’t wait for the next season.

Dawn Staley is having the time of her life at the Olympics, going from event to event and meeting athletes. Her Instagram feed right now is a blast.

Then: 7.27.2024: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. Just had a relaxing week of vacation with just my wife and me. The kids were at summer camp for the week so we decided to celebrate our 25th anniversary early up near Asheville. We had a great time, but …

Watching the women’s Olympic cycling time trial this morning and the competitors all have aerodynamic handlebars, helmets and wheel covers. It reminded me of Greg LeMond’s time trial in Paris to win the 1989 Tour de France.

Opened Facebook. Criticized some obvious political spin. Got blocked by my cousin. Sigh. I hate election season.

Open Social vs. Indie Social: Choosing our words carefully I wrote a blog post in early 2019, trying to make a distinction between “open” social platforms that thrived on interoperability compared to “captive” networks that trap you in their system. As an aside, I also noted the difference between “indie” social and “open” …

Picked a really good day to unplug for a week.

Just noticed that the Mercedes F1 team is sponsored by Crowdstrike. Funny that a racing team is sponsored by a company that’s now known for the biggest crash of all time.

Then: 7.20.24: Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page. Weird week. I got randomly sick for an evening. I woke up at 2 AM with a fever that only lasted a couple of hours and no other symptoms. So strange. Whenever I get sick now, I worry about COVID and getting …

It’s an early beta, but I really like where Iconfactory’s Project Tapestry is going.

That fact that one bad update to a third-party system can completely shut down businesses, hospitals and airlines… scary. You’d think these systems would be more resilient than that.

Woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep so I finished submitting a manuscript to a journal for peer review.

Sticker Mule: A bad equation: The Sticker Mule email arrived in my inbox, but I didn’t see it at first. Instead, I saw the backlash on Threads. Here’s the thing, I knew the owner was conservative, but it didn’t really matter to me. I’d randomly order stickers (or keychains) whenever they had a great …

Comfort Star Trek : I’m home sick today and was thinking about shows I watch when I’m just killing time. Episodes I love to just put on in the background when I’m working (or sick). Most of the time, I open Paramount+ and play Star Trek. I figured I’d share my favorite “comfort” episodes. Warning: A couple of mild …

Spent the evening troubleshooting some fonts that I’m going to sell through MyFonts. Finally think I’ve got everything fixed, but I want to look at again with clear eyes in the morning.

I wish Cotton Bureau made stickers.

The ACC and Florida State/Clemson are going to settle, right? These cases will be in the courts for years, probably heading all the way to the Supreme Court. The uncertainty will hurt the ACC and Florida State and Clemson will end up in the Big 12, where neither of them want to be.

We bought our soon-to-be middle schooler a phone today. Pretty sure he was the last in his friend group to get a phone. We’re still not letting him get social media apps, but he was cool with that because none of his friends use social media. They just text each other.

Fun fact: One of my favorite pieces of memorabilia in my office is an autographed Dr. Ruth program from when she visited the University of South Carolina in the mid 1990s, signed “Bob, Great brochures! Thanks, Dr. Ruth.” She signed autographs for hours after her talk. RIP Dr. Ruth.

Then: 7.13.24: Posts titled “Then” were originally shared on my “Now” page. Good week, although still way too hot in Columbia, South Carolina. To be fair, it’s too hot pretty much everywhere, it seems. I’ve stolen a brilliant idea from Sven Dahlstrand (@sod on Micro.Blog) and I’m going to …

Stopped by Rutledge on my way across campus today.

The South Carolina Women’s Basketball team deserved the ESPY for Best Team. Undefeated national champs. Glad they won. 🏀

Early in my career, the president of the insurance company I worked for told me “When you are losing money, you can’t make it up in volume.” I thought about that when I read this collection of clips and links that Michael Tsai pulled together about the economic realities of AI.

So tonight, I’ve learned that Lego is releasing a Jedi Bob Starfighter that will be released on my birthday. And my family thinks that Jedi Bob bares a striking resemblance to me. So I guess I know what I’m getting for my birthday this year.

According to Facebook Memories, 13 years ago, I was sharing Google+ invites with friends. 🤣

I’m taking (and sharing) a lot fewer pictures this year compared to past years. I’m not actually sure why… It’s not a conscious decision… I think I just need to get back in the habit of taking pictures of the world around me.

What an exciting British Grand Prix. As a new F1 fan, I never got to see Hamilton when he was dominant. So cool to see him win this one at Silverstone.

I’ve decided to publish a Now page again. I’ve tried it before and I didn’t stick with it. I like the concept though so I’m going to give it another go.

Then: 7.6.24: I’m giving the “Now” page concept another go. I love the idea, but I just haven’t figured out how to make it work for me. For now, I’ve settled on an opening paragraph and three category prompts: feels, projects and entertainment. Should capture a nice snapshot of what …

My 12-year-old tried again to watch the Lord of the Rings, but gave up after about an hour. He really wants to like it, but he just can’t get into it.

Dead Mall Memories: I know that enclosed shopping malls have fallen out of fashion, but I’m of an age where malls played a major role in my childhood. An abandoned mall in Columbia is being torn down and I was thinking today about all the malls that have played a role in my life. I figured I’d share a couple of …

Rok-Tahk on Star Trek Prodigy is one of my favorite new Star Trek characters. 🖖 Enjoying the new season of Prodigy on Netflix.

Holding down the fort with a skeleton crew at the office on the Friday after the Fourth of July.

Micro.Blog as my home base: I was thinking this week about how Micro.Blog has become the home base for all of my online activity. I’ve had an account since I backed the Kickstarter in 2017, but recently, I’ve started slowly moving everything from my old Squarespace1 site: Blog Hosting. This blog is hosted on …

Happy Fourth of July, designers. 🇺🇸 The red, white and blue. 🇺🇸 The Pantone 193C, White and Pantone 282C. 🇺🇸 The #BF0A30, #FFFFFF and #002868.

Twitterless: An Epilogue: I wrote a post in 2016 asking how I would deal with the inevitable demise of Twitter. And followed up with posts in 2018, 2022 and 2023.1 In each of the post, one common refrain kept resurfacing. There is no equal for following a live event on Twitter. The last month or so, there have been several …

I had numerous captions on some of my old posts over on Squarespace. I didn’t want to lose the captions when I move the post into Micro.Blog. Today I learned that the Figure and Figcaption HTML elements work really well.

I missed that Lego released a refined visual identity a couple of weeks ago that includes a new typeface, Lego Typewell, based on brick proportions. I really like it. The best detail I’ve found on the typeface is on this review from BP&O.

SbB Fonts: My new two-color type design site hosted on Micro.Blog: I decided a while back that I wanted to separate my typeface designs onto their own site. They’ve always lived alongside my blog and other creative projects, but they needed a home of their own, especially since I plan to expand the offerings in the near future. I’ve been noodling around with …

Can we stop for a second and appreciate that “Wookiepedia” is the best named web site on the Internet?

Watched the Austrian Grand Prix. Quite a race. Feel bad for Norris.

I love pixel fonts, so I was absolutely delighted with this presentation from Marcin Wichary. Enjoy!

After watching a particularly violent episode of The Acolyte, my son turned on Bluey for a much needed change of pace.

Saw a bald eagle circling over our neighborhood today. Pretty uncommon sight in Columbia, South Carolina.

I noticed today that I’m listening to fewer tech podcasts. I think I’m just tired of everyone’s hot takes on artificial intelligence, intellectual property, regulation, spacial computing, the DMA… I just don’t feel like listening to them any more.

I’m completely procrastinating right now. Need to get in gear and finish up a couple of things this afternoon.

That’s an interesting place to end the episode.

Excited to see the plan to finish the Three Rivers Greenway. They’ve been working on it for over 20 years, slowly adding sections as they get approvals and funding. Once all these trails are complete, I’ll be able to ride a bike from the park in my backyard all the way to downtown …

I had to have a conversation with my 12-year son that parts of Star Wars fandom is toxic. And that some people who complain about Star Wars are motivated by their opinions on race, gender or politics.

Voted in the SC primary on the way into work today. In and out in less than 5 minutes. Remember that your vote counts — especially during primaries where the turnout is low. Support good candidates now so they will be on the ballot in November.

I watched most of Apple’s WWDC Keynote today. Still not particularly interested in the AI features, but there were plenty of other features I’m looking forward to using.

Our SC state representative is texting about how he’s “fighting liberals to secure the border.” Which border is he talking about? Our border with North Carolina or Georgia? Because pretty sure the SC state government isn’t responsible for any other borders.

Suicide is often ignored in the gun control debate. The NY Times has a heart-wrenching story about a woman trying to change perceptions in Montana: Murder rates and mass shootings make national headlines, defining the discussion over pervasive gun violence. But most gun deaths in America are …

Woke up to the noise of a couple of chatty Barred Owls outside our bedroom window. 🦉

Fireflies are out in force in our backyard.

I’ve never really watched any car racing, but out of nowhere, my 16-year-old became interested in F1. Just watched the Canadian Grand Prix and you know what? I get the hype. That was fun.

Watching F1 with my daughter, who keeps surprising me with her race knowledge.

I took tomorrow off from work to have a “retreat” day. I’ll hole up in a coffee shop. Plan projects and grad school. Write. Maybe work on some typefaces. I try to do this twice a year, but I missed my regular January kickoff at the start of the year. I really need this day to get …

While I think most designers overreacted to the change in the Adobe Terms of Service update, I did go ahead and upgrade to the latest version of the Affinity Suite.

Here’s the other one I’m finishing up: SbB Directorate. Inspired by scifi bureaucracy and named after the government in Buck Rogers. Weight, width and slant axes.

I’ve been working on a couple of variable typeface designs lately. This one is SbB Departure Mono, based on a old Fontstruct design of mine. Two axes: Weight and Slant.

Working on a typeface design tonight and I’m really grateful for the comprehensive documentation available for Glyphs 3. Good user manuals are a lost art, and sometimes, you just need a reference guide to look something up.

Enjoyed the first two episodes of The Acolyte. Looking forward to seeing where the show goes…

Watching old episodes of Eureka tonight. Forgot how much I liked the show.

My wife’s car was totaled in a particularly horrific accident. (She’s fine) I’m still getting text and email updates on the car’s status… battery low, tires flat, etc. and it looks like the only way to stop them is to call OnStar… sigh.

School’s out and I don’t have to take my daughter to high school, so I’m the first person in the office today. Been a while since that’s happened, but I really do love getting into the office when it’s quiet.

I tried to help my wife with an issue on her work-issued PC laptop. I struggled so badly with the built in trackpad, that she pulled a mouse out of her bag for me to use. It was even worse than my kid’s school-issued Chromebooks. I am completely spoiled by Apple’s trackpad designs.

Pretty much the only reason we have an Alexa in our kitchen is for AnyList. It’s a shame that Amazon is going to make it harder to add items to our AnyList shopping list via Alexa.

A neighbor has built a custom motorcycle sidecar for his golden retriever. I’ve never seen a dog that happy.

I have yard work to do… so obviously, I’m reading up on how to customize the Tiny theme with microhooks.

Today, I was surprised to learn that my 16-year-old daughter is a secret F1 fan.

Just a reminder on Memorial Day that using the Stars and Stripes in advertising is a violation of the U.S. Flag Code.

15 years of Fontstruct: I realized this morning that I’ve been using Fontstruct for 15 years. Fontstruct is an online tool for building modular typefaces. My first typeface design — Big Thursday — debuted on May 26, 2009. Since then, I’ve publicly released 49 fonts on Fontstruct and 19 have been selected as “Staff Picks.” …

A designer on Threads asked what tool he should use to build a simple portfolio site, and the answers were anything but simple… get-a-good-text-editor-and-build-it-yourself, Wordpress, Squarespace, Adobe Portfolio, a bunch of services I’ve never heard of…

Finally got around to finishing X-Men 97 on Disney+. I read X-Men in the 1990s and watched the cartoon. What a wonderful reboot and a delightful nostalgia trip. Looking forward to the next season.

Project Repost: Moving select posts from Squarespace to Micro.Blog: I started a blog in early 2008. Over the years, I wrote hundreds of posts and articles. Some of it good. Much of it forgettable. I authored a bunch of InDesign tips that generated search traffic, but over time, I became less interested in writing about Adobe Creative Cloud and design issues. A few …

A former coworker was arrested two years ago on a collection of shocking sexual assault charges, but at the time, there were few details. Now that court filings are beginning, our local paper has details and it’s somehow worse than I thought. Nauseating. It’s a strange feeling to have …

Reading back over 14 years of blog posts... and deciding what to do with them.: Several years ago, I moved all of my blog posting from my Squarespace-hosted sketchbookb.com to my Micro.Blog-hosted bobwertz.com. I’ve been happy with the move. My plan was to switch my Squarespace blog over to more professional posts, but that never really happened — and I don’t really feel like …

Web pages are disappearing. Links are broken. This Pew study tries to assess how bad link rot is… But even as users across the world rely on the web to access books, images, news articles and other resources, this content sometimes disappears from view.

When I was in high school in 1992, an alternative radio station popped up in Augusta, GA. Channel Z 95.1 was amazing, but by 1996, it was gone. I just discovered that someone launched a website for the now defunct station, complete with a “reproduction” of the live broadcast and Spotify …

So I ended up in the Threads test group with TweetDeck-like columns. And you know what? It’s really good.

Jay Kuo dissects the NY Times Battleground Poll: The New York Times is out with its Battleground States Poll, so time for everyone to panic. But not me! I’m here to make sure everyone takes a deep breath and puts out any fires they may have set to their hair.

I’ve got an old Squarespace site with over a decade of posts. I’m hesitant to scrap it all and start over, but I feel like I need to scrap it all and start over.

Does social media content become popular because people like it? Or does it become popular because the algorithm likes it and that is the only content that users see?

CNN has an article about how Victorinox might create new Swiss Army Knives without knives. I stopped carrying mine after 9/11 when security tightened and kept forgetting to leave it at home. Personally, I’d love a knife-less multitool that I could attach to my keys.

My wife is about to start a PhD program. She has a Dell PC for work, but her home computer is an iPad with a keyboard case. It works for what she needs now, but looking ahead to grad school, some of the apps she’ll need won’t run on the iPad. We’ll get her a Mac, but if Apple wants …

Just had a fun conversation with my girls about how Gen X and Gen Z use social media differently. They are baffled about what I post to Instagram. I didn’t even try to explain how I use Micro.Blog. 😂

I’ve always picked up wiper blades from my local auto parts store, but I have two really short blades on this Buick that are hard to find. So I went to Amazon and found a company that will assemble a set of all three blades specifically for my car. Massive timesaver and significantly cheaper.

Now that the semester is over and I’m not teaching classes or taking classes, I’m really looking forward to working on some personal projects. I want to do a little more customization to my Micro.Blog theme, I’ve got some fonts to finalize, and some merch to design.

Connections Puzzle #329 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 I haven’t been playing Connections lately, but today, I got them all, but from the hardest answers to the easiest. Never done that before.

Strands #61 “A shade envious?” 🟡🔵🔵🔵 🔵🔵🔵 I’ve been playing the NY Times’ Strands for a couple of months. Still in beta, but a lot of fun. Didn’t need any hints today…

Bad Batch finale was wonderful. Loved every moment.

Glad to see Instagram is trying to shut down the accounts that simply rip off original content. I’m interested to see how well the algorithm changes work.

What value does a national organization offer?: I’m noticing a tension growing between national organizations and their local affiliates. Just three recent examples that have crossed my path: I was once an AIGA1 chapter president and stepped down to go back to graduate school, but I was also disillusioned with the mission and how the national …

Every time I’m reading online and a “subscribe today” box pops up over the top of what I’m reading, I just leave the page.

Explaining to my teenage daughter what microfiche is, and how we used it for research before the internet.

Today was rough. Not sure why, exactly. Nothing particularly significant happened. It just sucked the life out of me.

My inlaws were getting “Breaking News Alerts” from Messenger. Someone was sending them “news” through Facebook, and because they have notifications on, they looked like legitimate news updates.. But they were a bunch of MAGA nonsense that was probably actually Russian …

Why didn’t the airbags deploy?: An incredibly strange accident, but my wife and son are fine. Two weeks ago, Liz and Ryan were driving to school early in the morning in a midst of a rain storm when a pine tree blew into their path and impaled their 2020 Buick Envision. The tree was about 24 feet tall, passed through the headlight, …

NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth. It’s amazing how NASA has kept Voyager 1 and 2 operating. The probes were launched in 1977. 🪐

The last few weeks have been a blur… busy at work, wrapping up the semester as teacher and student, dealing with the aftermath of my wife’s car accident (she’s fine), buying a new car, my son’s lacrosse season… but I think I’m starting to round that corner back …

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast, and Gill Sans: Separating work from their creator?: I watched a couple of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer tonight. The show was once one of my favorites and creator Joss Whedon could do no wrong. I loved Buffy, Firefly, The Avengers and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I even watched Agents of SHIELD. But eventually, it came to light …

Turned in my final paper for the class I’m taking this semester. Not completely happy with it, but finished with it for now.

Finalizing a paper for grad school on a rainy Sunday. Soundtrack is the new Pearl Jam.

Dealing with replacing my wife’s totaled car is a full time job.

My wife and son were in a car accident last week and her car was pretty much destroyed. Liz and Ryan were fine, but a tree impaled their car, going through the headlight, engine and stopping between the headrests. She just got a notification from her iPhone reminding her where she “parked” her car.

So even though I don’t work on the athletics side of things at the University of South Carolina, it’s going to be a fun couple of weeks celebrating Dawn Staley and these amazing Gamecocks.

National champs! Great game, Gamecocks!

📷 Micro.Blog April Photo Challenge #7: Wellbeing. A view from my back deck. Breeze blowing. Birds chirping. A little lizard running along the deck rail. Taking time to relax.

Anyone have recommendations for fountain pen friendly notecards?

📷 Micro.Blog April Photo Challenge #6: Windy. Steady breeze at Ryan’s lacrosse game this afternoon.

New women’s basketball fans who’ve been following Caitlin Clark are about to discover that undefeated, #1 South Carolina has flown under the radar this season because they don’t have one star player, they have nine. Will be a great game on Sunday. Looking forward to it. 🏀

📷 Micro.Blog April Photo Challenge #5: Serene. Calming green tea, after a Gamecock victory. On to the championship.

📷 Micro.Blog April Photo Challenge #4: Foliage. The Horseshoe at the University of South Carolina.

Remember when you had to manually set the RAM limits on old versions of the Mac? Microsoft may be bringing it back for Edge.

📷 Micro.Blog April Photo Challenge #3: Card. Ace of Spades.

Panera closed an old location near us and built a brand new building. We ate at the new location tonight. It’s nice, but is significantly smaller, has kiosks for ordering, a drive thru, pick up area and outdoor seating. It seems like a post-COVID design, with less emphasis on being a community …

📷 Micro.Blog April Photo Challenge #2: Flowers. My wife’s amazing new sunflower tattoo, by Carly at Ophidian Tattoo in Columbia, SC.

📷 Micro.Blog April Photo Challenge #1: Toy. A vintage Micro Machine. Tiny, but with tons of detail.

Is it just me or are people and companies extra April Foolsy this year? Sigh

I just added another retro tech shirt on Cotton Bureau: 1.2 MB: The 5.25 in floppy disk.

Inherent. Indestructible. Permanent.: Almost 100 years ago, in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, typographer Eric Gill 1 wrote “An Essay on Typography” and addressed the tension between art and industrialization: “But tho’ industrialism has now won an almost complete victory, the handicrafts are not killed, & they cannot be …

I’m not sure how I feel about the Canva acquiring Affinity. They were both battling Adobe, but their products are very different.

Was changing the battery in my wife’s Buick Envision and couldn’t figure out how to release a box on top of the battery. Finally watched a YouTube video and figured out where the hidden latch was. Another win for YouTube how-to. Battery replaced.

The Dunkin’ Donuts near our house is closed for remodeling. While it does look a little dated, the real reason for the remodel is trying to accommodate the massive volume of DoorDash and other delivery services that flood the location with orders. The physical space needs to be renovated to …

Spending my evening sitting on the back deck with a glass of bourbon, grilling hamburgers and writing. It’s a little bit cool, but I can’t complain. 🥃🍔💻

Our local minor league team, the Columbia Fireflies announced an alternate identity… the Carolina Grits. This is in addition to their La Copa de la Diversión look, the Chicharrones de Columbia. One alternate is fun… two might be overkill. Minor league teams will do anything to sell …

After all the upsets yesterday, I was surprised to see my ESPN bracket is in good shape. My entire Elite 8 is intact, I’m at 96.1% among the ESPN brackets and first in my office pool. Not too bad for someone that didn’t watch a lot of men’s basketball this season. 🏀

Liz and I walked a couple miles in the park behind our house. Everything is starting to turn green. The birds are out in force. And the pollen. Springtime in South Carolina.

I’ve gotten back into designing shirts and I’m sharing them on Cotton Bureau. Today’s shirt is a salute to the 3.5 inch floppy disk. As a student, I swear I could fit an entire semester worth of work on one of these.

As a creative person, your job should not be your sole creative outlet. Even if you work at the coolest design firm in the world, you still have clients and deadlines. Maintaining personal creative outlets is a key to remaining creatively fulfilled.

More car manufacturers are showing interest in developing less expensive electric vehicles. This report from Ford caught my eye. I saw an old Ford Ranger on the road the other day and commented that they don’t make small trucks like that any more. A small EV pickup would be a great option to …

Green beer for St. Pats at Craft and Draft in Irmo, SC. 🍀

The Jobification of Volunteer Work: Almost 20 years ago, I was in San Francisco for my first AIGA Leadership Retreat. AIGA is a national organization for design1 and I was a first-time president for the South Carolina chapter. I’d just finished attending a session on leadership and one of my new friends who’d been a president …

A new BBQ restaurant opened nearby and I was excited to try it. My wife and I ate lunch there today and it was terrible. Really terrible. I’m so disappointed.

Started writing a blog post about how local call-in radio shows are just like modern social media. And then, I remembered that I already wrote a post about this over a year ago.

On April 8, a solar eclipse will occur over the middle of the United States. If you are going to be near it this time and want to celebrate the occasion, I updated my shirt from the 2017 eclipse and you can buy it on Cotton Bureau. But order soon to make sure it gets to you before the big day.

Watching an old episode of MacGyver where he’s trying to find a crashed experimental aircraft, the GX-1. The GX-1 is an F-14 and the aerial combat footage was lifted straight from Top Gun. Also, the Russians have a psychic.

I put Jump Around on my grad school study playlist. Good choice, although it’s impossible not to dance when it comes on.

The South Carolina women had a buzzer beater yesterday. I was waiting for a take out order at a Chinese restaurant and following along in Apple Sports on iOS. The time went to 0:00 and assumed they’d lost. Then, a second later, the score changed. When I saw the replay, I realized the shot was …

South Carolina Women’s Basketball goes to 31-0 on a last-second three pointer by Kamilla Cardoso. Her first made triple of her college career. Incredible.

How big is the Rivian R3?: Electric truck and SUV manufacturer Rivian announced their new R2 SUV today, but surprised everyone with a smaller R3 version as well. I love smaller cars and I’ve been waiting for new smaller EVs to hit the market, hopefully at a lower price point. The R3 looks adorable and it reminds me of a …

The Rivian R3 looks exactly like what I’m looking for… And by the time it comes out, I should be in the market for an electric car.

Took today off because I knew I had grad school work to do. One task is to write a review of a journal article for the health and science communication class I’m taking. Opened the article and the topic is news coverage of suicide and cyberbullying. Challenging topic to start my day off …

Went to the Apple Store in Charlotte for an Apple Vision Pro demo. It’s an experience. I can absolutely see the potential and the flaws, but I’m impressed.

That time my 89-year-old grandmother “helped someone old”: I used to dread calling my grandmother on her birthday. My mom died on that day and so every time I’d call, she’d start with “Well, you know, I wish Nancy was still here.” And that always bothered me and usually made me tear up, so I would wait as long as I could to call. I was pretty sure that I …

Forgot how much I like the “Relics” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A nice send off for Scotty. 🖖

Retiring “International Bob is Grumpy Day”: March 3, many years ago, my mom died unexpectedly. In perhaps one of the greatest understatements ever, I struggled with her loss. Some days, I still struggle with her loss. I discovered that on March 3, every year, I was grumpy. Kinda pissed off. And in general, not a fun person to be around. So I …

Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka Swissmiss) commented over on Threads that she misses the in-person office culture. I agree completely. I understand why others don’t miss it, but I think we lost something that can’t be replicated by Teams or Zoom.

The end of the Apple Car: This isn’t the revolution they thought it was… : Apple has canceled its decade-long program to build an electric car. And while I think it’s probably the right call to end the program, I do understand why Apple tried. Ten years ago when Apple started the project, it was the perfect moment to rethink the automobile. With the change to battery …

Today, I learned that Tim Hortons has locations in the United States. Had coffee this morning at a location near our hotel in Atlanta.

My first guess in Wordle today eliminated all but one word. Solved in two.

The Apple Sports app for following games in progress is so much better than using ESPN’s web site. Simple, but really well done.

Just thinking … @manton … would it be possible build a Facebook import into Micro.Blog, similar to how the Twitter import works? I shared family memories when my kids were little, and I’d love to have it on my site. Facebook allows an export, but I don’t know how …

I’m really glad I was able to export my tweets and move them to Micro.Blog. It gives me a record of all of my activity on Twitter on a site I control, but it also discourages me from going back to Twitter because I know the listing at bobwertz.com/tweets/ is complete.

The price of taking yesterday off is seven meetings today.

One irritating thing about working on your PhD at the same university that you work at… If you take the day off to do school work, and you need to email someone a school-related question, you see all of your work email that you were trying to avoid.

South Carolina Women’s Basketball just beat #11 UConn by 18 points, without leading scorer Kamilla Cardoso who is off this week playing for Brazil in Olympic qualifying. This team is incredible. I think it’s the best team Dawn Staley has assembled, and that’s saying something.

My daughter was in the student section 1.5 hours before the start of the South Carolina/UCONN women’s basketball game. Colonial Life Arena is going to be hopping today.

I changed my Micro.Blog avatar to my little fish logo. I change the logo on the top of my site based on my mood and I would change my avatar, too, but I think the avatar is too small to see what expression the fish has…

The Church Sign Problem: An extended metaphor for many things in business and life.: An established church in a small town has a simple sign by the side of the road. The town is growing and the road in front of the church is getting much busier. A new church down the road installs a large sign. Not wanting to fall behind the times, the established church installs a new sign, too. …

Trying out a new Starbucks that just opened. This location was clearly designed to primarily be a drive thru and pick up location. It looks tiny from the outside, but actually has a lot of seating.

I like the way that @manton has improved crossposting in Micro.Blog.

So happy that Project Tapestry is funded. Congrats to @Iconfactory@iconfactory.world and let’s keep going until we reach the stretch goal!

In a crowded Starbucks. I glance up to see if they’ve called my name. I didn’t hear them, but it’s been a while. A woman waiting for her drink looks at me and spells my name with sign language. I nod and then realize what she did. B-O-B is pretty easy in sign language, but it was …

We Asked A.I. to Create the Joker. It Generated a Copyrighted Image. - The New York Times I don’t have an issue with the concept of AI, but especially with imagery, how you train the model matters. The most popular generative systems were trained on copyrighted material and that’s a problem.

A good week for South Carolina basketball. The men beat Kentucky. The women beat LSU on the road to remain unbeaten. 🏀

More than 30 years ago, I used a Mac for the first time in high school and was instantly hooked. I finally saved up enough money to purchase my first Mac my sophomore year in college. A Power Mac 7500 that I used for a very long time until I bought an iMac. Happy birthday, Macintosh.

So I’m working my full-time job, taking a class and teaching a lecture class this semester. I’ve got a pretty good plan for managing my time, but every so often, I wake up at 1:30 with an idea in my head and end up working for a couple of hours in the middle of the night.

Seth Godin on Variety and the Long Tail: It’s easy to miss the feeling of a monoculture if you grew up with it. Hits gave us something to talk about, adhere to or even work against. There are so many pockets of culture, it can’t help but feel a bit more lonely from a certain angle. I might also …

Honda shows off EV concepts – and two new logos: A new look and branding for Honda EVs Honda showed off two new EV concepts under the new Honda Zero brand at CES — the Saloon and the Space-Hub. Most of the coverage is focused on the futuristic looks of the concept cars. As someone who grew up going to the Chicago Auto Show and seeing the cars of …

The Atlantic: If There Are No Stupid Questions, Then How Do You Explain Quora? Provocative content started to take over, perhaps because it led to more engagement and then, in turn, to more advertising revenue. Also available on Apple News+ for those of you with the Apple One bundle.

The user experience for setting up a kid’s account on most services is terrible… I understand why people just set up normal accounts for their kids and type in fake birthdates. It’s frustrating.

Over the holiday, I had to search on Google for some obituaries and I’ve learned there are tons of sites that scrap obituaries, funeral home sites and social media and then flood Google results with AI-generated, ad-covered garbage.

Both of the textbooks I need for the class I’m taking this semester are available as ebooks, but my options are Kindle or a proprietary publisher owned system. Of course, I can read them on my computer, but now I’m pondering buying a Kindle.

Reset, Continued: 2024: I adopt a theme each year and last year, the theme was Reset. That theme included focusing on physical and mental health, writing more, getting organized and rediscovering creative endeavors. I made progress with three out of four goals. I wrote more, getting my first journal article published and …

Got word a couple of days ago that a coworker of mine passed away unexpectedly. She’s got two young kids. Just devastated for the family.

It’s Christmas Eve and two of the presents we ordered haven’t arrived. One is scheduled to arrive Dec. 26. The other one hasn’t shipped.

How to fix American democracy, from ranked-choice voting to open primaries - The Washington Post There are some interesting ideas for reform in this article. I was especially interested in the idea that maybe the House of Representatives needs to be significantly larger.

2023 Favorite Eight: I always pull together my favorite eight shots of the year (as a contrast to those algorithmically generated “Best Nine” posts). I love that it gives me an excuse to go back over all of my images from the last year and relive a lot of great memories. Our oldest decided to attend the University of …

I was thinking about buying my middle child a non-smartphone camera for her to experiment with. She loves taking pictures and has a great eye. I looked at what’s available and realized that the market only offers really cheaply-made cameras, or really expensive cameras. Virtually nothing in …

Woke up this morning to low water pressure. Turns out a water main at the front of our neighborhood burst overnight…

How NASA Learned to Love the Worm Logo - The New York Times Now the worm is back. And the meatball is still there too, still the official insignia for NASA. Enjoyed this article about the two NASA logos. As designers, we typically preach consistency. But in this case, having two logos seems to …

Had my last in-person class of the semester this morning. It might be my last in-person class of my PhD program. I have mostly independent studies, online classes and my dissertation to go. I’m a part-time student, so I still have a couple of years left, but it seems like some sort of a …

Every Sunday afternoon after a shift change, the music at this coffee shop switches to 100% Taylor Swift. My daughter and I call it the Taylor Shift.

I know we are a women’s basketball school, but the South Carolina men’s team just beat Notre Dame to remain undefeated on the season. These guys are really good. We’ll see how they do in the SEC once conference play starts.

This NY Times articles on the changing nature of the American workplace took an unexpected turn: In an ironic twist, other workers are now also finding themselves nostalgic for the age of the cubicle. Not sure about that. As someone who recently moved from a cubicle to an actual office with walls, …

SC defeats Mississippi Valley State 101-19. I knew this year’s South Carolina Women’s Basketball team could score, but holding any team to 19 points in an entire game is an impressive defensive performance.

Had some downtime today and built a quick monospace “pixel” font over at Fontstruct. It’s still a work in progress, but you can download it.

This year, I’m thankful for all of the alternatives to Twitter.

Leaving the office for Thanksgiving break. And I will be thankful on Monday that I left myself a detailed to-do list of everything I need to knock out next week so I can hit the ground running.

Years ago, I had a professor who discouraged the use of “non-profit” and preferred “not-for-profit.” Her logic was that the goal of a not-for-profit organization was the mission, not the profits. But that didn’t mean there weren’t profits. Most large non-profits …

I’ve been involved in many non-profits over the years. And many of the boards I’ve been a part of try to run the non-profit like a for-profit businesses. The tension between fulfilling the mission and keeping the lights on is real, and the only background most of us have is rooted in …

I watched the most insane high school football playoff game last night. The final score was 68-53. The running back on the losing team was essentially unstoppable and had eight touchdowns and 306 yards rushing. My nephew’s team just kept scoring, though. On to the next round of the playoffs.

Completed: All Souls Lost by Dan Moren 📚 Fun paranormal detective story with side of tech. Great work, @dmoren@zeppelin.flights. I hope to see more of these characters.

We’ve reached the point in the fall in South Carolina when it’s cold in the morning and warm in the afternoon… which also means that my son leaves his jacket at school in the afternoon, and doesn’t have it when he needs it the next morning. 🤦‍♂️

South Carolina Women’s Basketball starts the season by dropping 100 and 114 on Top 25 competition. They lost their entire starting lineup to graduation last year including the WNBA Rookie of the Year… and somehow got better offensively?

Over a decade ago, some Petsmart employee typed my name into their system as “Bub.” So every time I go to check out, the well-trained cashier enthusiastically greets me by name: “Welcome back, Bub!” And I start laughing. (They’ve offered to change it, but I won’t …

I think one of the reasons I’m skeptical about generative AI is that every other thing the VC-obsessed tech world has been hyped about for the last decade or so has been underwhelming.

South Carolina’s new look women’s basketball team looks ready to pick up where the last team left off.

Social media was misnamed. We should have called it “comment media.” People are more interested in sharing their take than building relationships.

Took today off to work on some classwork and recover from the chaos over the past couple of weeks.

I watched tonight’s Apple event and followed commentary on Threads and Micro.Blog (where I follow some Mastodon users). No Twitter, and you know what… I didn’t miss it. Live events were the last place that I felt like I needed to log into Twitter for extra info. Guess I’m …

I’m reading some PR readings for class and the acronyms keep tripping me up. To me, CSR is “customer service representative,” not “corporate social responsibility.” Likewise, I read CSA as “community-supported agriculture” and not “corporate social …

The leaves in our backyard are starting to fall.

I’ve never really been into crosswords, but I’m enjoying the Apple News+ puzzles. I’ve pretty much added it to my daily routine each morning.

Ryan’s last two lacrosse games for this season were earlier today. He’s been a goalie for a year-and-a-half now and he’s gotten pretty good, expecially since he’s just 11. It takes a special mentality to stand in there, shot after shot. If you notice in the image above, the …

Social media is history — just ask the kids! The kids have moved on from the “social media” as we know it. They have their own platforms and their own behaviors.

If you ever think we know how the world works, read an article on quantum physics (Apple News+) and revel in how little we know about the building blocks of our universe.

Barnes & Noble Undergoes a Back-to-Basics Redesign - The New York Times: Mr. Daunt has demonstrated that consistency doesn’t rank very high on his priority list. New York City has nine Barnes & Noble stores featuring four different logos above the front doors.

I went to the UCDA conference this weekend. (University and College Designers Association.) I drove to Atlanta on Friday night, attended sessions Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Returned to Columbia Monday night. I may be creatively recharged, but I’m straight up exhausted.

Saw lots of electric cars on my trip to Atlanta this weekend including a Lucid Air. First time I’ve ever seen one. It looked really impressive.

At my son’s lacrosse game today and a family’s dog came onto the field and attacked one of the players when the play came close to the sideline. The kid had to go to the ER and get stitches. I know people love to take their dogs everywhere, but maybe they shouldn’t…

Milestone: My first published research paper is now online: I’ve reached a big milestone in my academic career: my first published research paper. Brand new: How visual context shapes initial response to logos and corporate visual identity systems has bene published in the Journal of Product and Brand Management. It’s available now online and will eventually …

I really enjoy Apple’s new crosswords in Apple News.

Flat tire today sidetracked my plans for the day. Now I’m working from a waiting room.

Finally updated to macOS Sonoma on my Mac and iOS on my iPhone. My watch didn’t update because apparently, I don’t have enough space… not sure what that is all about.

Absurd Ahsoka Finale Speculation: Tomorrow night, the Ahsoka finale airs on Disney+. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve enjoyed the show. It’s not perfect, but I love Star Wars Rebels and it’s great to see a continuation of the story line. I’ve got a few absurd ideas about the finale that I figured …

My son, Ryan, is back in goal for another fall lacrosse season.

Weather is beautiful today. Hanging out on the back deck and cooking out on the grill.

Columbia’s Soda City Market is hoppin’ today. I remember when they only took up two blocks of Main Street.

Overheard at a grad school symposium: I mean, we’re grad students. We should geek out about our research.

Loved this story on the Washington Post about the evolving color palette of Lego bricks.

As a designer who is also a Ph.D. student, I don’t understand why all diagrams in academic journals are poorly crafted.

Reading back through some journal articles for class from 2001 about the potential of the internet to shape public relations. It’s a flashback to a moment after the popularization of the web, but before social media. A very different world. (I miss that world.)

Got to film in the South Caroliniana Library on campus today. Hadn’t been in since the renovation started in 2015. Designed by Robert Mills in 1840, South Caroliniana is the oldest freestanding college library in the United States. The renovation/restoration is phenomenal.

Sports talk radio all over South Carolina is going to be a dumpster fire tomorrow.

Rewatching the first few episodes of Ahsoka again. Thrilled to see the Star Wars Rebels storyline continuing.

Today is a holiday, but my daughter needed to study and I had some grad school work to do so we headed out to Starbucks. This was the only coffee shop near my house when I started grad school and I was here for long hours most weekends. It was open late and was seemingly always filled with other …

I realized a long time ago that watching South Carolina play football on TV just stresses me out. So I’ll follow along with the game against UNC on the ESPN website. I’ll be happy if they win. And I’ll be less frustrated if the lose.

The wifi at my daughter’s dorm room is slow and she has a hybrid class that starts this week. I dropped off an ethernet cable and a USB-C adapter today and now her internet incredibly fast. Wifi is convenient, but ethernet is fast and reliable.

Saw these flowers outside of a restaurant this evening.

I had a great view of campus today. From the 8th floor, you can really see how many trees are all over the University of South Carolina campus.

I follow a handful of Mastodon accounts here on Micro.Blog. Every so often, I notice them replying to some controversy swirling around Mastodon. Or arguing with a particularly rude commenter. I’m glad I can follow Mastodon accounts on Micro.Blog, because I don’t think I’d enjoy …

The Beekeepers Who Don’t Want You to Buy More Bees - The New York Times: “But that’s an agriculture story, not a conservation story,” Mr. Black said. “There are now more honey bees on the planet than there have ever been in human history.”

Streaming killed the TV clip show: Recently, we started rewatching Alias, the 2000s ABC spy thriller by J.J. Abrams.1 All five seasons are on Disney+ and we started from the beginning. Season 1 has 22 episodes, which was once considered a “full season.” Now, a streaming show rarely has more than 8 or 10 episodes a season. …

Dropped my oldest off at college today. She is living in the same building that my wife lived in her freshman year. She’s only 20 minutes away from our house, and my office is 6 blocks away, but it’s still a big change for Team Wertz.

With the start of school, my wife’s sleep schedule has changed radically. She goes to bed much earlier because she wakes up much earlier. The result is that I’m going to bed earlier, too, but waking up at 1 am. Not fun. I’ll get used to the new schedule, but it will take a couple …

Just discovered that the Apple TV MLB app lets you stream minor league games if you have MLB AtBat. (AtBat is the radio broadcast streaming MLB product which is much cheaper than MLB.TV.) Currently watching the Cub’s Low A Affiliate Myrtle Beach Pelicans play our local Columbia Fireflies.

The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think - The New York Times: Today, solar and wind power are the least expensive new sources of electricity in many markets, generating 12 percent of global electricity and rising. This year, for the first time, global investors are expected to pour …

Finally got around to watching the season finale of Strange New Worlds. What a great season with an intense ending. Ready for season 3… which won’t be coming for a while. 🖖

Rewatching Alias on Disney+. I forgot how engaging season one was. The cliffhangers at the end of each episode. The rapid pacing. The costumes. The Rambaldi mystery. The twists and turns. So much fun. I know the plot gets messy as the seasons add up, but I’m enjoying these early episodes.

The only Barnes and Noble in town is one of the last tenants in a dilapidated mall that is about to be redeveloped. I was nervous that they would just close the store, but they announced that they are moving to a new location. Good news.

This article makes me want to use periods even more. No More Periods in Texting. Period. - The New York Times

It seems to me that fewer people are posting on social media, but the people that are posting are posting more frequently. Could just be algorithm changes favor the heavy posters. Could just be the people I follow. But I think heavy social media users are worried about losing their audience and so …

Picking out my pens and pencils for the Fall semester.

I’m working on revisions to a paper that is going through a peer review with a journal. It’s a long, intimidating process. I’m hopefully nearing the finish line, but the process wears you down.

Just got a minor revision decision on a manuscript. Excited to push this paper across the finish line.

I’m surprised that the Strange New Worlds musical soundtrack isn’t on Apple Music yet.

The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Musical Episode is amazing. Lots of musical talent on the cast. Enjoyed it so much. 🖖

This ESPN story about Florida State wanting to leave the ACC is bananas. Where would they go? The SEC isn’t adding anyone else. I don’t think the Big 10 wants to add a Florida team, although who knows? Sounds like their ego is bruised because they don’t make as much as they think they should.

Thanks to the Barbie movie, my girls have discovered the Indigo Girls. I love it.

My daughter just declared that her favorite font is Times New Roman, and I can’t think of a bigger sign that the kid is destined to be an academic.

I’m at a local coffee shop that’s normally packed with college students. But students aren’t back in town yet. Completely different clientele. It’s funny how a college town changes when school isn’t in session.

My academic research is primarily in branding and visual communication, but I’m discovering that as a media scholar today, part of my research always overlaps with social media in some way.

Spent my morning working on some typeface designs in Glyphs. I really enjoy working with fonts, and I have several designs that I’ve started and not finished. I need to prioritize creative time – not just writing, but also sketching and type design.

Threads as a "federated" brand solution: When the exodus from Twitter first started last year, many tech-savvy people were moving to Mastodon and I wondered if brands would move their accounts to self hosted instances. After all, from a branding standpoint, @offical@starbucks.com is better than @starbucks@mastodon.social. At the end of …

The University of Georgia School of Journalism took over a community newspaper that was about to go out of business in nearby Oglethorpe and started running it with students. This reflection digs into what has worked, what hasn’t and what smaller communities want as news…

Finally got around to adding a fonts page to my Micro.Blog site.

I’ve been reading the coverage of the Twitter rebranding and the most interesting framing is related to legal issues. It’s not an issue typically covered when a company rebrands… but it’s not a typical rebranding.

A coworker of mine took Twitter off her iPhone home screen today and replaced it with Threads. She’s been a heavy Twitter user for a very long time. More and more people I know are making the jump away from the service formerly known as Twitter.

Last day of vacation. Caught a Columbia Fireflies minor league baseball game. Had a great time and my son chased down two foul balls. Back to work tomorrow.

I’ve worn contacts since 10th grade, but for some reason a few months ago, I decided to just wear glasses and see if I wanted to switch back. I gave it a few months, but I missed my contacts. Had my eye doctor appointment his morning and I’m back to contacts.

Twitterless: The Final Chapter: I’ve been preparing for Twitter’s demise for seven years, but I didn’t see ‘X’ coming. I’ve been preparing for the end of Twitter since 2016, when Twitter was struggling with some financial issues and the future was uncertain. I pondered what would happen of Twitter went away suddenly. 2016: …

Road-trip to Charleston and saw a bunch of cool EVs. One Rivian, a Mercedes EQS, a BMW iX and a car carrier with (6!) Cadillac Lyriq SUVs heading to a dealership somewhere.

Beach day today at Isle of Palms. Found a couple of nice shells, too.

Back in 2018, I wrote a second blog post about preparing for the sudden demise of Twitter. The illustration I did for the post seems appropriate to reshare today.

My academic research is typically focused on logos and branding. When I look at the Twitter-to-X rebranding, all I see is future citations and research questions.

We’ve always had independent media. Why should social media be any different?: New social media outlets prove the viability of indie social. The invention of the printing press made mass media possible. Printing houses produced popular books and bibles, but they also spread the writing that powered the Reformation. Major newspapers became was the dominant media for decades, …

I don’t know why the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover came out early, but it’s delightful. 🖖

Day two of vacation: Caught up with my sister and her family. Always fun to get the cousins together.

When we got married, Liz wasn’t planning on being a teacher… so a late August anniversary wasn’t a big deal. Now our anniversary falls on the first week of school every year and we never really get to celebrate. This year, we decided we would celebrate our 24th anniversary a little early.

Day one of vacation. Hanging out at the pool.

My daughter (ACL repair) and my dad (back surgery) were in physical therapy at the same time this morning. They were both so excited to see each other. It was so sweet.

Two long days to start this week. Productive days, but exhausting.

Working this afternoon from the Ph.D. student suite at the School of Journalism at the University of South Carolina. I don’t work from this office often, but I could get used to this view.

Was the first person in the office this morning. It’s so quiet, but I’ve gotten a lot done.

I was going through my sketchbooks today and realized that I haven’t been sketching lately. Need to get back in the habit.

Trying to add some academic journal RSS feeds to Feedbin. Most of them have feeds, but some of them try to push you to subscribe to an email update.

Went down a rabbit hole and discovered that iron-air batteries are a thing… Each iron-air battery is about the size of a washer/dryer set and holds 50 iron-air cells, which are then surrounded by an electrolyte (similar to the Duracell in your TV remote). Using a principle called “reverse …

My daughter is getting playing around with her new MacBook Air. She’s used to her iPhone, and various Chromebooks that she has been given by her school since 6th grade. I’m noticing just how differently we use computers.

Seth Godin with the reminder that you can’t always have the good without the bad.

Sharing Apple News Links: I get Apple News+ with my Apple One bundle and I actually use it frequently on my Mac. My local newspaper, The State, in included in News+ and I can read articles that are normally behind a paywall. Once I’m there, I tend to find other things to read and share. But sharing Apple News story …

After watching this week’s Strange New Worlds, I went back and watched Amok Time. They’ve really done a nice job of building a Spock/T’Pring/Chapel backstory that adds depth to The Original Series episode. 🖖

Signed my oldest up for her college move-in time. Now headed to the Apple Store to get her a computer. It’s getting real.

Vampire cat.

I’ve had this small task hovering over my head for about a week. Finally sat down this morning and knocked it out in about 30 minutes. Someday, I’ll learn to just make some time each day to knock out the small stuff.

Insomnia is kicking my ass tonight. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

According to Facebook Memories, 12 years ago, people were asking me for Google+ invites. Just a reminder that initial hype doesn’t translate into long term success.

Threads arrival shows social media is fragmenting like traditional media did - The Washington Post Social media has now splintered in the same way the traditional media did, with unclear long-term effects.

Billboard companies always give me PSD (Photoshop) templates and I don’t understand that at all. Who builds billboards in Photoshop?

Predictably, the mass media narrative about Instagram Threads is 100% Twitter vs. Threads and Elon vs. Zuckerberg. Mastodon, Bluesky, ActivityPub and Fediverse only rarely appear in news articles.

Just plotted out a walking loop inside our new office building. It’s too hot right now to walk outside at lunch.

So there are lots of rough edges on Threads, and it’s owned by Meta, which is problematic. But their killer feature is audience. I’ve been in for about 12 hours and I see lots of people I know. Will they stay? No idea. But it’s off to a solid start.

So I got access to Bluesky about 5 minutes after I started a Threads account. Lots to like about both, and I think they could both turn into solid Twitter alternatives. But I’m still happiest here on Micro.Blog.

The Instagram Threads launch and media effects theory: Yesterday, I mentioned I was interested in the media narrative surrounding the introduction of Instagram Threads. I wanted to expand on what I’m looking for, and to do that, I need to start with some mass communications theory. I’m a Ph.D. student that mostly researches visual effects, but I’ve …

I don’t know much about how wine is made, but after reading Maggie Harrison’s War on Wine, I’m fascinated with the whole process…

This article on the The Verge about the changing social media environment resonated with me. You could argue, I suppose, that this is just the natural end of a specific part of the internet. We spent the last two decades answering a question — what would happen if you put everyone on the planet …

Three questions ahead of the release of Instagram's Threads: I looks like Meta will release their text-based, Instagram-branded Twitter competitor this week. Am I excited about Instagram Threads? Not really. I’m happy with the current state of my social media usage. Am I curious about it? Absolutely. We are in a fascinating period of change in the …

My son lost his AirPods a few weeks ago. (These were my first generation AirPods that I replaced when I got AirPods Pro.) Today he found them in their case in a neighbor’s yard. These AirPods have been sitting exposed to extreme heat and rain for 2+ weeks, and guess what? Somehow, they still …

Walking across campus today and saw South Carolina Women’s Basketball Coach Dawn Staley and her dog, Champ. Funny thing is, Champ came around the corner first and I recognized him instantly…

Made a batch of boiled peanuts tonight. So good. Y’all are likely familiar with roasted peanuts, but in the South, we boil them. You don’t really need a recipe… Green (raw) peanuts. A copious amount of salt. Boil for a few hours. Enjoy.

With the July 4 holiday falling on a Tuesday, pretty much everyone at the office took Monday off. Except me. I’m holding down the fort tomorrow…

Made the jump to using the Tiny Theme. Still a lot of CSS tinkering to do, but happy so far. Added my fish logo to the top, updated the color scheme and switched some of the headers to one of the typefaces I designed. Thanks @Mtt for such great work on this theme.

Just took a walk on the trails behind our house for the first time in a couple of months. It’s a little tougher walk with Columbia, SC heat and humidity…

Happy Bobby Bonilla Day! ⚾️

I’ve been trying to go to bed earlier. The result is that I am simply waking up earlier, which isn’t necessarily helpful.

On a road trip from Columbia to Durham yesterday, I drove on five different interstates… I-26 > I-20 > I-77 > I-85 > I-40.

While on a roadtrip to Asheville, NC this weekend, I was looking for what electric cars I’d see along the way. This weekend, in addition to a bunch of Teslas, I spotted two Rivian SUVs, a Kia EV6, a few Chevy Bolts and a Polestar 2. It’s the first time I’ve seen a Rivian R1S in …

View from a stoplight in Asheville, North Carolina.

I moved out of my cube today for a new office slightly closer to campus. And while I love my new office – the natural light is wonderful – I’m a little sad to see the old cube go. It’s amazing how a place can become so meaningful over time. Even a simple beige cube.

Saw this article in the NY Times about the Southern Baptist Convention kicking out a megachurch for ordaining women. We are ELCA Lutherans and my children have always had a woman as a pastor. So here’s a shoutout to Pastor Karen, Pastor Ginger and Pastor Joanna. I’m grateful that you …

Havard Business Review with an interesting (academic) take about how developers should view the Apple Vision Pro: Developers looking to profit off the platform Apple has created would do well to focus on applications that provide users with hard-to-access contextual information at just the right …

Got to work. Found out I grabbed the wrong laptop. Sigh.

Finally got a chance to watch the keynote and read the reactions of people who’ve tried the new Apple Vision Pro headset. Going into WWDC, I didn’t know if Apple could pull off the technology and I had no idea why I would use one. After reading everything, it sounds like they aced the …

I’m tired. But also, I can’t sleep. Sigh.

Months ago, I scheduled my daughter’s college orientation for tomorrow. Which means that instead of watching the Apple Keynote, I’ll be watching presentations about adjusting to college life.

Spending some time tonight thinking about my dissertation topic. Do I stick with the research topic that I’ve worked on for the last few years? Or venture out with a new topic? There are pros and cons to each approach. Just not sure what I want to do.

For a short week, it’s been a long week.

One of my favorite bakeries closed after a long successful run, but I found out yesterday that another wonderful bakery is taking over its location. They’ve been selling cakes at local markets and haven’t had a permanent space. It’s the circle of life, but for bakeries.

I’ve been to a lot of high school graduations over the years. And most of them aren’t great. They start late. The guest speakers and district officials give speeches that aren’t particularly inspirational. The student speakers share a bunch of inside jokes that make sense to a …

Our oldest graduated from high school today. Next stop, studying English at the University of South Carolina.

Hanging out on my deck after a long weekend of home improvements. Beautiful evening.

Saw this beautiful flower on campus yesterday.

You are currently being recorded.: Our neighbors installed a new security system a couple of weeks ago. When you walk anywhere near it – and that radius includes our driveway – a recording plays: “You are currently being recorded.” We have great neighbors, but when I first heard it, I was a little annoyed. My …

I’m really intrigued by Adobe’s approach to generative AI. Building AI tools that assist the process of creative development, but don’t seek to replace it. The Generative Fill feature that they are building into Photoshop looks seriously useful.

Jamovi is so much easier to use than SPSS.

Just submitted my revised journal article. I was pretty discouraged when I got the long list of feedback, but honestly, with all the changes incorporated, the new revision is significantly better. We’ll see if the editor and reviewers feel the same way.

My 11-year-old’s orchestra teacher is retiring and he’s rallying his fellow students to make a giant card to thank her. He’s working so hard on it and the whole thing is so sweet.

RE: Paywalls. I want writers and publications to make money, but I also want to share the great things that they write — often with people who would never pay to support online writing.

My favorite new coffee shop is in a restored Victorian house that was once a funeral home. The historic preservationists who worked on this project deserve an award for the amazing work they’ve done to turn the house into a coffee shop and apartments.

After being sick last week, my sleep schedule is all kinds of messed up. It’s not insomnia… I’m getting sleep. But I get tired earlier and then wake up in the middle of the night. I’m like a toddler who has their days and nights mixed up.

I have to pack up my cube to move to a new office in a couple of weeks. While I’m looking forward to having walls and a door again, I’m not ready to pack everything up. I’ve been in this spot for six years – longer than I’ve ever been in a work space before. Going to feel …

When I see people arguing about Mastodon vs. Bluesky, I realize that we need to ask an important question: What do you want from social media? It’s not about what service is best. It’s about what’s best for you. And that answer is going to differ from person to person.

I’ve been sick for the past few days. Pretty minor symptoms. Pre-COVID, I would have just toughed it out, but now I take even minor symptoms seriously. I don’t want to get anyone sick. (FYI: Just got back from the doctor. All the tests were negative. I just have a bad cold.)

The rush to hype: Not everything is going to change the world tomorrow I’m not sure when the “hot take” era started. It predates the internet1, but social media really seems to have kicked it into the stratosphere. There’s a rush to hype everything as the next disruptive invention. Wearable devices. Foldable …

Taylor Swift put on an amazing show last night in Atlanta.

My daughters are making sure the whole family has appropriate attire for tomorrow night’s Taylor Swift concert.

Spending the day at the coffee shop with my daughters who are reviewing for AP exams next week. I’ve been working on finishing up the revisions to my journal article, but I keep going down rabbit holes…

I had no idea that the Denver airport was such a hub for conspiracy theories: A Towering, Terrifying Demon Horse Isn’t Even the Weirdest Part - The New York Times

The willingness of my children to wear mismatched socks perplexes me greatly.

My daughter’s high school lacrosse season ended last night. It’s been a tough year for her, missing her senior season with a torn ACL, but she cheered her team on from the sidelines and attended every practice. I’m so proud of her and how hard she fought along the way.

Today starts an amazingly busy couple of weeks for my crew. Playoff lacrosse games, school field trips, five AP exams (for two high schoolers), birthday parties, a 5K, Taylor Swift and a high school prom. All in the next two weeks. I’m tired just thinking about it all.

Saw @davew@mastodon.social post a link on Scripting News about the Washington Post’s study into what sites are included in AI training databases. Turns out my other personal site, Sketchbook B, is included in Google’s C4 database, with about 71K tokens…

I use Apple Pay with my watch all the time. And cashiers are always surprised that I can do that and claim they’ve never seen someone pay with their watch. Apple Pay on the watch is the easiest way to use Apple Pay. Why don’t more people use it?

Working on editing a journal article that I got a revise and resubmit on. This is my first time through the academic publishing process, and I have to admit that it’s a challenging process. I’ve lived with this research for years and I’ve rewritten some version of this paper so …

Hey @manton. I was able to upload the archive that I got from Twitter and it started a new blog and installed the plugin, but it’s been over 24 hours and I don’t see any tweets. How can I tell if it’s still in process, or if it’s stalled? Thanks for your help (and this …

Made it to the ocean today with a day trip to Isle of Palms in South Carolina. Beautiful weather to walk along the beach and gather shells.

Diving into Micro.Blog custom themes. It’s a little out of my comfort zone — I usually stick with messing with the CSS — but I’ve got something specific in mind and I think creating a custom template is my best bet.

Liz and I took a walk around the trails behind our house after hosting Easter dinner. After a few days of constant rain, it was nice to see the sun.

Happy Easter from Team Wertz.

Brought back two pimento cheese sandwiches from the Masters for my daughter. She’s impressed. They were $1.50 each.

Tomorrow, I’ll be at Augusta National, but I can’t share pictures because no cameras — or phones — are allowed at the course.

Our kitchen is small, but it has hosted a surprisingly large number of spontaneous family dance parties over the years.

Gruber linked to this article about GM phasing out CarPlay on future EVs. My next car purchase will be an electric car, and I won’t consider a car that doesn’t have CarPlay. We currently own two Buicks, but I guess I won’t be considering a GM vehicle when it’s time to replace …

We added another mile of trails to our walk today. Some parts of the old-golf-course-turned-park have been reclaimed by shrubs and trees. Other sections look like you could play a round. Lots of wildlife and wildflowers. And oddly, 24 Apache attack helicopters.

My daughter is interested in shooting with film. I’ve got some old 35mm cameras, but haven’t shot film in over a decade. Anyone know about the best options for buying and developing film? A Google search reveals some online services, but I don’t know anything about them.

Star Trek Picard Speculation: Chekhov’s Starship: What’s in Hanger Bay 12? WARNING: Spoilers and speculation about Star Trek: Picard. In Star Trek Picard season 3, episode 6, The Bounty, the USS Titan jumps to the Starfleet Ship Museum to get help from Commodore Geordi La Forge. The first exterior shot of the museum includes a selection of familiar …

The Women’s Final Four is tonight and while both games should be great, you need to catch the South Carolina - Iowa matchup. South Carolina’s suffocating defense versus a hot-shooting Iowa team. Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark on the same court. ESPN at 9:00 ET. Go Gamecocks. 🏀

Photoblogging challenge complete. 31 days of photos in March was actually more challenging than I thought I would be. Really glad I completed it, although I may now need to take a few days off from sharing images. 🤣

📷 March Photo Challenge #31. Practice. My son at lacrosse practice. (He’s the goalie all the way on the other side of the field.) Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #30. Mirror. Buildings reflected on Main. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #29. Slice. Or rather, slices of bacon. Love having breakfast for dinner. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #28. Prompt. My car is prompting me to get gas. Columbia, SC.

🏀 Excited that my South Carolina Gamecocks are heading to the NCAA Women’s Final Four. Two more wins to another championship.

📷 March Photo Challenge #27. Support. Tonight was Norah’s Senior Night. Lots of people have supported her during her lacrosse career, especially during this season which ended early with an ACL tear. Chapin, SC.

Watching Louisville/Iowa women’s basketball game and both these teams can score. Fun to watch.

📷 March Photo Challenge #26. Instrument. My wife’s ukulele. Columbia, SC.

I wrote up my quick first thoughts about Adobe Firefly, but my 11-year old has also started playing with it. Here’s his bronze steam-powered robot walking in a cityscape.

First impressions of the Adobe Firefly Beta: The beta service gives some insight into how Adobe views AI’s role in the creative process. I recently got access to Adobe Firefly, a beta generative AI system. It’s not a surprise at all that Adobe is experimenting with generative creative tools. Adobe is clearly looking at ways AI can …

📷 March Photo Challenge #25. Spice. Random assortment of seasonings. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #24. Court. Basketball practice facility at the University of South Carolina. Go Gamecocks. Columbia, SC.

I just got access to Firefly, Adobe’s new generative AI beta service. It’s supposedly trained on images that they have the rights to scan. Right now, it’s limited, but I’m intrigued. I’ll write a longer post with examples later after I’ve had a chance to …

📷 March Photo Challenge #23. Chance. Flipped a coin. Heads. Columbia, SC.

I came up with my silly U2 “The Fly” insect photo post for today, thinking that I wouldn’t have time to track down insect shots today because I was with a video crew on campus all day. Our first stop, though, was a public health lab studying ticks, mosquitos and parasites.

📷 March Photo Challenge #22. Insect. Listening to U2’s new version of The Fly. Columbia, SC.

Amazon is shutting down camera review website DP Review. I always thought it was weird that they were owned by Amazon, and I guess that eventually, the cost to run the site was more than DP Review generated in sales.

📷 March Photo Challenge #21. Tiny. 1950s Hit subminiature camera. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #20. Houseplant. Up close and personal with the plant in our office. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #19. Analog. Weber Kettle thermometer. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #18. Portico. Not a grand entrance, but it’s home. Columbia, SC.

Just watched A Sort of Homecoming, the Disney+ U2 documentary/concert video with David Letterman. It’s fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

📷 March Photo Challenge #17. Early. Meeting a friend this morning at Curiousity Coffee. I’m early. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #16. Road. Crossing a street by campus. Columbia, SC.

As someone who once drove a VW Rabbit, I have to say that I’m interested in the VW ID.2all concept. I want a small electric car, and this would be perfect. Sadly, I doubt it will ever make it to the United States.

This laser printer “review” from Nilay Patel at The Verge made me laugh. I wanted to buy one of these during the early days of the pandemic, but they were sold out. After years of flaky inkjets, I eventually bought a Canon Laserjet M15w and love having a black-and-white laser printer at …

📷 March Photo Challenge #15. Patience. Waiting for my food at a busy restaurant. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #14. Horizon. View from my office on the 7th floor, overcast. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #13. Connection. Monitor Cables. Columbia, SC.

My iPhone case is starting to fall apart, so I’m going to go case-less for a little while and see if I can get used to it. (Or more precisely, see if I can get over the feeling that I’m going to shatter the glass.)

One nice side effect of the Micro.Blog March Photoblogging Challenge… I’m taking more pictures… not just for the challenge. I’d gotten out of the rhythm of shooting for fun and posting a photo every day has sparked that habit again.

📷 March Photo Challenge #12. Shiny. “Holographic” fish stickers from Sticker Mule. Columbia, SC.

Easy Category Pages in Navigation on Micro.Blog: Customize your navigation with filtered categories When I first moved my blogging over to Micro.Blog, I struggled with the perceived rigidity of the navigation. It took me a little time to refine it, but I eventually figured it out. I’ve had a couple of people ask about my solution, so I figured I’d …

📷 March Photo Challenge #11. Gimcrack. My home office knick knack shelf needs dusting. (I had to look up “Gimcrack,” so hopefully I got it right.) Columbia, SC.

Adventures in algorithms: My daughter shared a link to a prom dress she liked. I clicked on it. Now, Instagram is serving me prom dress content.

📷 March Photo Challenge #10. Ritual. I love that my favorite local coffee shop gives me a teapot and mug when I order hot tea. Gets me in the right frame of mind for writing. Loveland Coffee. Irmo, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #9: Together. Our son’s lacrosse practice means we get to walk together. Crooked Creek Park. Chapin, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #8. Walk. Lunchtime stroll at the SC Statehouse. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #7: Whole. Rings closed. Crooked Creek Park. Chapin, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #6: Engineering. Backup generators. Columbia, SC.

It’s rare to see a thoughtful discussion of the U.S. National Debt. This interactive story from the New York Times dives into what it would take to balance the budget, and why it’s easier said than done.

📷 March Photo Challenge #5: Tile. The entrance to the new independent bookstore, All Good Books, in Five Points. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #4: Zip. The accessory pockets on my 10-year-old custom Timbuk2 messenger bag. Columbia, SC.

Just learned that, by default, Micro.Blog only includes JPGs in the photos page. So if I want to add illustrations to my blog posts that I don’t want mixed in with my photo gallery, I can just save those as PNG. Clever solution.

Volkswagen’s Scout revival will build new electric SUVs and pickups in a new $2 billion factory in Columbia, South Carolina. I’m looking forward to this, and not just because they picked Columbia as their home.

📷 March Photo Challenge #3: Solitude. Just me in the office this afternoon. Columbia, SC.

📷 March Photo Challenge #2: Weather. Raindrops on a sunroof. Crooked Creek Park. Chapin, SC.

Enjoyed the Mandalorian Season 3 premiere.

📷 March Photo Challenge #1: Secure. Main Street, Columbia, SC.

I’m looking forward to the Micro.Blog March Photo Challenge. I’m going to try to integrate shots from my lunchtime walks during the week and backyard hikes on the weekend.

Our local bus system has a park and ride service that I really wished worked for me, but the timing just doesn’t work out.

Reflecting on my first two months of being healthier: Solid progress One of my goals for this year is being healthier. Eating better. Moving more. The hope was that by breaking some bad habits I developed during COVID, I could lose some weight and feel better. I wanted to post occasional updates to keep myself accountable. Two months in, things are …

Six years ago today, I drove to Atlanta to attend a one-day seminar with Edward Tufte. In many ways, that class started my grad school journey because so much of what he presented ran counter to my marketing-based assumptions about how design worked.

Another milestone on my Ph.D. journey… got my first “Revise and Resubmit” today on a journal article I submitted. Most of the comments are fair and straightforward to address. Some of them are more complicated. I’ll make the changes and we’ll see what happens.

It’s not quite grilling weather, yet… but I still decided to cook out tonight.

Hiked the loop behind our house this morning, but in the opposite direction from our normal routine. It’s strange, but simply reversing the route was a very different experience. Also explored a nature preserve nestled between the old golf course and some subdivisions.

Enjoyed my son’s honors elementary orchestra concert. Pretty amazing these kids have been playing for less than a year.

Sadly, Facebook and Twitter are still very useful to check on friends after mass shootings. Praying for Michigan State.

Beautiful day on campus today.

Tried out a new trail on our Sunday morning walk.

Excited for the big game today… No, not the Super Bowl. #1 South Carolina vs #3 LSU. Last two unbeaten teams in women’s college basketball meet in Columbia in front of a sold out crowd of 18,000. Game tips at 2:00 on ESPN. 🏀

Hey @futuregeek. What do you think?

My five favorite new Star Trek characters: New Star Trek means new characters Star Trek is all about the characters and relationships on the ship. With all the new series on Paramount+, they’ve introduced a bunch of interesting characters that I’ve grown to love. With Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard starting next week, I figured …

Just stumbled across a video of the commencement address from when I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1997, given by lengedary author Pat Conroy. I’ve long said my graduation speaker was the best. Now I have video evidence.

Just saw a picture of me from six years ago today… wearing the exact same shirt that I’m wearing today.

I’m excited about the new Canon R50. I’ve wanted to buy a mirrorless Canon for a while, but the M-series were clearly a dead end and the R-series were a little too expensive. I think this probably hits the sweet spot for me. Also, weird to see all the sample images in this DP Review post …

Saw a Mercedes EQS 450 on the road this afternoon. Beautiful electric car. Tesla has some serious competition on the luxury side of the EV market.

My daughter bought a bag of Brach’s Wisecracks “End the Conversation” Hearts with messages like “NOPE,” “FRND ZONE” and “4 NEVER” printed on the candy hearts.

I knew I’d gotten out of the habit of writing regularly over the last year, but I realized tonight that I also haven’t been sketching, either. The last entry in my sketchbook — prior to tonight - was from August. I need to make time for exploring ideas with pencil and paper.

Adding a "now" page: I decided to add a now page to my site. My challenge was deciding what to include on the page. I already had a pretty complete about page. After looking at a collection of now pages, I realized that there isn’t a single formula or approach. So for my first attempt, here’s what I decided …

I missed Twitter today during the South Carolina/UConn women’s basketball game so I went over to Twitter to check out the chatter. (Gamecock ‘Fams’ are notoriously active on Twitter during games.) Instead, Twitter kept serving up tweets from yesterday’s men’s …

Medium length posts: I feel like I always write things that are either “tweet” length or “long.” I don’t feel like I ever post anything in between. This tendency isn’t new… I’ve always written that way and I’m not sure why. Most of my favorite online writers …

Just picked up The Cruel Stars by John Birmingham from the library. I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction lately. Ready to read some sci-fi. 📚

I think this “Baby Space Scooter” is my favorite of Dana’s baby space Lego series.

A friend is building a “baby-scale” homage to Classic Lego Space and posting pictures to Instagram. They are absolutely amazing.

CNN reports that the Chinese surveillance balloon just passed over Asheville, North Carolina near the Biltmore Estate. Maybe they are just scouting excellent vacation locations in the US. 🤣

Since I stopped using Twitter, I’ve been following a handful of Twitter users that I care about with Feedbin. It’s worked well, but I assume that feature in Feedbin will go away with the new API costs and restrictions.

I wrote a review of Four Shades of Gray: The Amazon Kindle Platform for New Media & Society. It’s just a short review, but it’s my first bit of academic publishing.

At my son’s orchestra concert. 200 or so fifth graders from across the school district performing together for the first time. Should be interesting. 🎻

Thinking about adding a “Now” page to my site, but I already have an “About” page and a “Links” page.

Still working on my MarsEdit workflow. Just accidentally posted a bunch of drafts to my timeline.

I’ve got to figure out what to do with my old blog. I don’t want to lose 600+ posts. But I also don’t want to continue to pay Squarespace for hosting.

Went for a walk in the rain today. Everything was going great until a gust of wind destroyed my umbrella. I guess I’m in the market for a new umbrella now.

I heard the rain when I woke up this morning and assumed we’d skip our morning walk. I was wrong. Liz still wanted to get our walk in. We headed out back and walked for a couple of miles in a cold drizzle. We’re incredibly lucky to have these trails in our backyard and I’m glad we …

Moving past commentary-driven media: Maybe it’s time for something different. For years, I listened to local sports talk radio on my commute home. I live in the middle of SEC country, and — especially during football season — the talk shows were full of callers who were mostly annoying and overly opinionated.1 The host of the show was …

Six years ago today, I wrote a post about some Micro.Blog Kickstarter that I was excited about.

Just finished a nice hike.

I know the name is officially still in use, but if Apple ever manages to release an electric car, they should recycle the name “Claris.” Apple Claris sounds like an EV.

My wife and I are discussing a tropical vacation to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We visited a couple of resort web sites and I followed a couple of interesting options on Instagram. Now, every ad I see is for a Caribbean resort.

I occassionally do this thing where I go to bed early, then wake up at 2 am and work until about 4 am. I find that I’m more productive after some sleep. Thankfully, I’ve learned to schedule my emails for delivery at normal times, so people don’t think that I’m insane.

Our house is on a golf course that went out of business. Long story, but the course was eventually purchased by the original developer and gifted to the local rec commission. It’s taken a while for them to rebuild pedestrian bridges and do some improvements, but now, the park has about 4.5 miles of …

Finally got around to watching Glass Onion. So much fun. Going to have to watch it again to catch all the details.

I enjoyed Seth Godin’s podcast episode about why blogs are important.

I’ve been walking on Main Street at lunch this week. Today, I ran into a bunch of friends who were also out and about. Almost had a pre-COVID vibe.

Looks like BMW has found a use for color e-ink technology… car exteriors.

Every time Sticker Mule has holographic stickers on sale, I end up buying some. I love the way they look and $29 for 50 die cut stickers is a great deal. Just got to figure out what I want to order.

My 11-year-old son is cleaning out his backpack after winter break. I’m not sure how he accumulated so much junk and trash.

Getting back into the normal rhythm this morning. My wife has to work today so the alarm was set for the first time in two weeks. Brutally early. Tomorrow, the kids are heading back to school and I’ve got work, but I wanted to get back on schedule so I’m up, too.

The Verge wants us to bring back personal blogging.

2023 was a great year for Star Trek. Strange New Worlds was my favorite new Trek, but lost in the shuffle was Star Trek: Prodigy, which just wrapped up its first season with a spectacular finale. Smart show with a solid arc. If you like Star Trek, give it a shot on Paramount+.

I want to keep a daily journal in 2023. I’ve tried DayOne several times in the past. Love the app, but I’ve never stuck with it for more than a few weeks. Any recommendations for other apps/services/approaches that have worked for you?

Who Wants the Metaverse? An interesting academic look at the history of the term “Metaverse.”

Reset: 2023: Trying to find balance I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I ever found my footing after the pandemic shut everything down. I’ve been trucking along keeping everything going, but the last half of 2022 was especially challenging. This rhythm and pace is not sustainable and it’s time to reset the balance …

Got word this week that a book review I wrote for New Media and Society was approved for publication. It feels so wonderful to have this finalized before the end of the year.

Just bought some Nanoleaf smart lightbulbs for our bedroom lamps. Setup with HomeKit was incredibly easy and the price was reasonable. I really like them.

At my daughter’s physical therapy session and it’s hard to believe she had an ACL repair just over a month ago. She’s moving really well and her leg strength is improving rapidly.

Merry Christmas from Team Wertz. 🎄

I’m intrigued by Keychron’s Alice keyboard releases. I love my current Keychron K2 and I don’t really need another keyboard. But I’m tempted.

For years, our Alexa was incredibly reliable, but about six months ago, accuracy dropped significantly. I bought a new one recently thinking the issue was with the older hardware, but nope. Still bad. We are having better luck with Siri and our Apple HomePod Mini and I think we’ll start using that …

Had coffee with a friend this morning and was telling him about Micro.Blog. I followed his Mastodon account and he was able to follow me on Micro.Blog, which worked great. I need to polish up my Micro.Blog sales pitch, though, and my explanation of Activity Pub.

The little suburb I live near doesn’t have a historic “Main Street” like a bunch of the other cities around us. (Irmo was founded in the 1920s as a railway stop for nearby dam construction.) The weird thing is that they’ve just decided to insert a new Main Street into the …

📺 Rewatching some Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episodes. Such a great show.

Taking all of my index cards from my planning session this morning and capturing it all in Notion.

Hanging out at a coffee shop today and working on 2023 planning. Trying to settle on some goals and themes for the year ahead.

Hitting the pause button: Time to reset the balance “I don’t know how you do it?” I get this question a lot. I balance a full-time job, my family and grad school. I’ve been in grad school part time since I started my Master’s program in 2018 and I’ve become pretty good at carefully planning out and scheduling my time. In …

Post Formatting: Testing out how I want to format my longer posts. I haven’t had this Micro.Blog site for long, but I’ve written at my other site – Sketchbook B – for almost 15 years.1 Over time, my long form blog posts there developed a pattern. I had a basic structure with headers, …

📺 Rewatching Hawkeye on Disney+ and I forgot how much fun this show is.

So apparently, 15 years ago, I joined Twitter. They wanted me to post about it, but they didn’t say it had to be on Twitter.

I added some of my own typeface designs to my Micro.Blog site. I’m really getting into the idea of creating all of the assets that I use in my designs… typefaces, illustrations… now I need to build my own template.

I took Monday off to be my “retreat” day to plan and set personal goals for 2023. I’ve done it the last five or six years and I enjoy taking the day to focus on what I want to do – and honestly, what I don’t have time to focus on right now.

I’m trying out MarsEdit like all the cool kids.

I’m a fan of limited edition candy and sodas, but fruicake-flavored Mountain Dew is a bridge too far.

I’m really happy with how my Favorite Eight pictures turned out this year. ❤️8️⃣

2022 Favorite 8 Photos: My ❤️8️⃣ from 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣2️⃣ This year was unexpected. Just about nothing went as planned — sometimes better, sometimes worse. Looking back over my photos, I took fewer “artsy” shots and mostly focused on my family. Here are my favorite shots from the past year, starting top left: Evening snowfall. We …

I love writing in Ulysses, but for all my grad school papers, I wish it could handle integration with my preferred reference manager, Zotero, the way Microsoft Word and Google Docs do.

Favorite 8: Picking out my favorite pictures from the last year. Back in 2018, Instagram users started posting their algorithmically-generated “Best Nine” — essentially the nine shots from the year that had the most likes. When I looked at mine, the images that everyone else liked weren’t necessarily my …

Found this sweet Skee-Ball alley at an arcade near my house.

Working on a behind the scenes video for Colonial Life Arena and Gamecock Basketball. Double header today. Starting with the women’s team vs. Liberty. 🏀

I guess crazy conspiracy theories aren’t just a uniquely American thing: Prince Heinrich XIII and the Plot to Overthrow Germany’s Government

Go-kart fun.

My son was watching How Old Paintings Are Professionally Restored on YouTube this morning. Completely fascinating look at the restoration process.

I’m not really using Twitter or Instagram on my iPhone much. Micro.Blog use has grown, obviously, but I’ve also rediscovered games on my phone that I downloaded a while back and never deleted. So instead of doomscrolling… Mario Kart Tour.

Been a long week. Busy weekend ahead.

Facebook trying to build a Twitter competitor… inside Instagram? Sounds like a bad idea. 🤣

Interesting article about a new “automated” McDonalds restaurant design. (It’s not automated.) The new design focuses on customers who order ahead with apps or use delivery services. A great example of how changes in consumer behavior can drive changes in the way our physical …

So now, I follow newsletters, Twitter users and Instagram feeds in Feedbin and Mastodon users in Micro.Blog. Interoperability is pretty cool.

I set up Instagram as a feed in Feedbin. It’s really strange, but I like it.

One of my favorite things about Micro.Blog is being able to bold and italicize in short posts. But I forget about it…

This post on software pricing from iA is really interesting. They present a history of pricing options, discuss the pros and cons of different approaches and then ask how much you would pay for their forthcoming presentation software.

Celebrating my wife’s birthday tonight at the War Mouth.

I always forget how crowded coffee shops get in a college town during exam week. (Next week, this place will be a ghost town.)

It’s been a Monday, y’all. It was rainy and gloomy all day. I’ve gotten a lot done, but I feel like my to-do list grew faster than I could check things off.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I purchased a tiny laser printer, an HP M15w, to use at home. It’s perfect for printing drafts of the papers I write for school. After years of using crappy inkjet printers, I’m really happy with this simple little black and white printer.

Finally got around to watching the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special and I’ve got to say, I really enjoyed it.

This week marked the end of another semester of PhD work. Still a ways to go before I finish. I really need the next month to hit the reset button, clear my mind and get organized.

Seth Godin has some thoughts on why search engines are getting worse.

Brands: Federated: Self-hosted social There’s lots of hype about Mastodon as people flee Twitter, but lately, I’ve been thinking about how brands will function on federated social sites. If the big brands in the world are going to give Mastodon a shot, they aren’t going to just join an existing instance… they’ll host …

Just placed a JetPens order.

SOUTH CAROLINA UPSETS CLEMSON!!!! 🏈

I’m trying to edit down a longer study for a journal article… and the editing is 10x harder than writing the original draft.

Recently rediscovered Tot by the Iconfactory. It’s an incredibly useful little app for storing those little snippets of short term information.

Quiet at the office on the day before Thanksgiving and I had some time to clean up my workspace.

I know “federated” is a more precise term, but I think people are confused by it. For ActivityPub, I think “open” social networking is a better framing for most users. It also draws a direct contrast to the “closed” networks offered by Facebook and Twitter.

Bob Iger is back at Disney.

I don’t need an Apple Watch Ultra, but I tried one on at the store today and I have to say, I like the way it looks on my wrist. Still not going to spend the money, but it looks sharp.

🏀 If you are a basketball fan, college women’s basketball is incredibly fun to watch. Lots of elite teams all across the country — South Carolina, Stanford, LSU, UConn — constantly challenging and pushing each other.

🏀The #1 ranked South Carolina Women’s Basketball team came from behind to beat #2 Stanford in OT today. Such an impressive win on the road. Coach Staley has built an amazing program and they are so much fun to watch.

The balance between broadcast and engagement: Content is more important than commentary. When the internet was becoming popular, I remember being told that traditional media was just broadcasting. The internet promised more than just broadcasting, it offered “engagement.” Don’t let people fool you. Engagement happened before the internet. …

Watching the highlights from last night’s Tennessee v. South Carolina game and I can’t believe that South Carolina scored 63 points. 🏈

Taking the rest of the day off to try and reset my work/life/Ph.D. balance. Always hard to balance everything at the end of a semester.

Studying with my daughters at Starbucks.

Liftoff! 🌎->🚀->🌛

Do I stay awake to see the first launch of Artemis and the SLS system…?

Six hours after the presale began, I was able to successfully to purchase Taylor Swift tickets.

There are “2000+ people” in line ahead of me, but at least I was finally about to get in the Taylor Swift presale queue. I wonder how long this will take… I’m guessing some time this afternoon?

As expected the Ticketmaster/Taylor Swift ticket purchasing process has been awful. I’m still not able to get in line.

This line on the Ticketmaster site concerns me: “Ticket prices may fluctuate, based on demand, at any time.”

I’ve been tasked by my daughter with getting Taylor Swift tickets at the presale today. Talk about pressure.

Time for another AIGA vision quest: “Re-envisioning AIGA Moving Forward Together” Today, AIGA sent an email out to all members announcing the departure of their executive director and the beginning of a new attempt to reimagine AIGA. (If you don’t know, AIGA is the professional organization for design, formerly known as the …

Just hit a (small) milestone for my long Ph.D. journey. My first solo IRB approval, and tomorrow, my web-based experiment goes live. Now fingers crossed that the students who are supposed to take the survey actually take the survey.

This line from Brent Simmons on Inessential feels particularly dead on: The internet’s town square should never have been one specific website with its own specific rules and incentives. It should have been, and should be, the web itself.

I’m dusting off my CSS skills so I can customize my Micro.Blog blog. I’m having fun and I want to keep experimenting. That said, I’m terrible at it. 🤣

I just created a Link Out page on my Micro.Blog site that has all of my active (and less active) online accounts. Basically a DIY linktree page. I’m going to use it on all of my bios.

Showing his grandparents all the things he can play on his viola.

🏀 Pretty good basketball night for my South Carolina Gamecocks. The women’s team – #1 and defending champs – defeated a ranked Maryland team on the road and the men managed to finally beat Clemson.

I gave the fish at bobwertz.com his own verified check mark. He seems pretty happy with it and I didn’t even have to spend $8.

I’m going to download all of my Tweets and Facebook posts, and then use Blurb to produce a physical book containing all of them. I’ve got lots of great stories from when my kids were little that I shared on social media. Would be a shame to lose them.

📺 I’ve enjoyed Andor. Such an interesting extension of the Star Wars Universe. I wasn’t sure I was going to like this show when it was announced, but I think it’s one of their best shows yet. Can’t wait to see all the pieces come together over the next three episodes.

I’m interested in the new version of Affinity Designer, Publisher and Photo. I have v1 of all of the apps, and will likely upgrade, but I still find myself using Adobe apps because that’s what I’ve used for my entire career.

One of the weird things about working on a Ph.D. at this point in my life… You head to the coffee shop to study for an exam, and your high school kids want to tag along to work on their homework.

The woman in the elevator just complimented my “sippy cup” and now I think I need a new travel mug.

7 subscriptions I happily pay for: Worth every penny It seems like everything is going to subscription pricing. I subscribe to a whole host of streaming services, bundles, news sites, and software. Many of them don’t always seem worth the money, but as I look at what I subscribe to, I realize that I don’t mind supporting products and …

✅ We voted this morning. In and out in five minutes. Make the time to vote today. Your vote counts.

✅ Pro voting tip: Always check your state’s sample ballot before you head to the polls. That way, you won’t be surpirsed by the random constitutional amendment or ballot question that gets added to the end of the ballot.

Twitterless, Part III: Preparing for a future without Twitter. I’ve been preparing for the demise of Twitter since long before Elon Musk made the offer to purchase it. In 2016, I wrote a post — Twitterless — about what would happen if Twitter “disappeared tomorrow.” I outlined a couple of key areas that would be …

I’m trying to create a new habit of using Micro.Blog instead of Twitter. I’m trying to post daily… but I have crossposting turned on so it looks like I’m using Twitter more than ever.

27 years ago, we had our first date. Celebrating with a drink at Craft and Draft in Irmo.

Getting work done at Starbucks this morning.

Live events and social media: One thing that Twitter excels at — which will be difficult to replace — is commentary during live events. Last night, I was able to follow a range of commentary on several college football games and the World Series all from my Twitter feed. It’s not just who I follow, it’s also the way the service …

I’ve spent a little time today working on my Micro.Blog setup. I customized the CSS on bobwertz.com. Now, I’m dusting off the Ulysses integration. I need to add a couple more things to the site, but I’m happy with how it’s coming together.

I know lots of people are jumping to Mastodon, but Micro.Blog has always been my Twitter implosion backup plan. Great service and community. Lets me cross post to Twitter if I want to. I love the concept of using RSS (or JSON Feed) as the foundation of an open social network.

My 17-year-old is telling our 10-year-old about an old technology from her childhood… cable television.

Semester has started and I’m working at the coffee shop on some homework.

Just introduced my children to the Blues Brothers.

Reading over the syllabus for one of the classes I’m taking this semester and I’ll be using R and Python. (And trying to learn Swift on my own…) Hopefully my brain can keep it all straight.

Love the new Lego Galaxy Explorer, but the new Lion Knight’s Castle is the most perfect nostalgia Lego set for me. I loved all the castle sets when I was a kid.

I’ve now done enough academic writing in grad school, that I’m starting to come around to the Oxford comma.

I love writing with fountain pens, but I’m just not using them enough every day. I cleaned out a bunch of pens tonight and mixed up my rotation. I’m down to two fountain pens in my pen case… a TWSBI Eco with green ink and a Lamy AL-Star with black ink. ✒️

Working from a coffee shop this afternoon. Made progress on a project for the class I’m taking this semester, but ended up spending more time sketching and working on a new typeface.

I finally got around to setting up Universal Control on my MacBook Pro and my iPad. I’ve got to say, it’s pretty impressive. I’m not sure how often I will use it, but I can see some situations where it will be helpful.

I helped my high schooler study for her Spanish exam … I took seven years of German and don’t speak Spanish. That was interesting. I hope it helped her. 😜

I took today off for a personal “retreat.” Working on planning for the rest of the year and thinking through what I want to accomplish with my side projects, grad school and more. I need to do this more often.

📷 #9: Bloom: Tiny roses.

📷 #8: Union. Sky+Ocean. Sun+Sand.

I’m glad my kids love lacrosse, but I’m really excited that both Norah’s and Ryan’s seasons are over and our evenings and weekends return to normal for a few months.

📷 #7: Park. At a park today for the last 10U lacrosse game of the season.

📷 #6: Silhouette. Elton’s down there somewhere… from a few weeks ago.

📷 #5: Earth. Dried and cracked mud.

📷 #4: Thorny. A little bit literal with this one. The rose bush in our front yard. 🌹

📷 #3: Experimental. This week, I’ve been experimenting with charcoal grilling. I’ve always had a gas grill, but wanted a different experience so we purchased a Weber grill and a chimney starter. New recipes and grilling techniques. Having fun, but still learning.

Interesting study on sleep finds that for middle aged and older adults, seven hours of sleep is ideal. Confirming that I need to sleep a little more… 😴

Second attempt at using our new charcoal grill. 🔥 Heat issue is resolved. Although now, the temp might be a little too high.

📷 #2: Photo. The cover of a 1970s photo album.

📸 #1: Switch. Keychron K2 with red hot swappable switches.

I’m starting with a clean Micro.Blog slate. Still trying to configure things so I post on my Squarespace blog, it comes to Micro.Blog and then posts to Twitter.

The Curious Case of the Missing Apple Logo: Two notable logo trends from Apple This post was originally posted on April 22, 2021 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. Apple has one of the most recognizable logos in the world. Which isn’t surprising because they are …

Podcasts are the new special interest magazines: Detailed, up-to-date and authoritative This post was originally posted on July 4, 2019 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. I grew up loving magazines. Any time I’d be interested in something, I’d head to the magazine aisle in …

Captive Social vs. Open Social : Language matters. This post was originally posted on January 13, 2019 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the language we use to talk about social media and content creation on the …

Design + Math: Designers don’t want to admit it, but math is important to the profession. This post was originally posted on September 29, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. My first class in graduate school was a quantitive …

The parable of the third soap dispenser: It never runs out of soap… This post was originally posted on August 9, 2018 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. The bathroom at my office has four sinks and three soap dispensers. Each soap dispenser has a clear plastic …

I made a red velvet cake. And learned an important lesson about fear.: This post was originally posted on January 7, 2018 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. I made a red velvet cake last week. From scratch. It was a recipe that my mom made when I was growing up, but it was originally my …

Twitterless, Part II: A year ago, I decided to lessen my reliance on Twitter. Here’s my progress so far… This post was originally posted on January 3, 2018 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. A little over a year ago, I wrote a …

“You choose your dysfunction.”: I’ve used this phrase for years to describe changing jobs. Maybe I was wrong… This post was originally posted on May 8, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. Every place we work has its own dysfunctional …

I’m excited about indie microblogging.: This post was originally posted on January 20, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. – Manton Reece has big plans for microblogs. A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about what would happen if Twitter disappeared or …

What I love about Draplin...: This post was originally posted on November 19, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. This man loves to create. I saw Aaron Draplin for the fourth time on Thursday night when he came to the Half and Half in Columbia. Over …

Formatting a really long web address: This post was originally posted on November 15, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. 4 steps to simplifying URLs I was behind a truck in traffic yesterday with an URL boldly printed across the back. And since traffic was …

Twitterless: What would happen if Twitter disappeared tomorrow? This post was originally posted on November 9, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. I’ve been on Twitter since 2007. It’s part of my daily routine and probably my …

My most influential classes: This post was originally posted on October 17, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. Some classes just stick with you. I was talking with a friend a couple of weeks ago about influential classes that I took in college – …

ASAP: The lowest priority: This post was originally posted on September 12, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. Real jobs have deadlines. As a designer, I hear “As Soon As Possible” an awful lot. Most people are shocked to learn …

i dont care about my business @gmail.com : This post was originally posted on March 23, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. All professionals need a personalized email address and a home on the web. And Gmail accounts and Facebook pages don’t count. I …

Stealing time: This post was originally posted on January 12, 2016 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. 2015 was a long year for me. Literally. My 2015 was three hours longer than 2014 because I rang in the new year on the West Coast. For me, …

Solving problems... in the future: This post was originally posted on December 11, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. Today at work, I mentioned that I had participated in a Future Problem Solving competition and, much to my shock, someone else on my team …

What it’s like to have three kids…: This post was originally posted on November 13, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. I get asked a lot what it’s like to have three kids. Mostly from people with two kids thinking about whether they want to have …

You get what you test for…: This post was originally posted on September 29, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. A few years ago, I stopped at a fast food restaurant in rural, upstate South Carolina where a car was circling the drive thru over …

Paths to Success: This post was originally posted on June 13, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. I’m more of a college basketball fan, but lately, I’ve been watching some NBA playoff games. And now that the finals are upon us, …

B.A.R.E. (Bad Acronyms aRe Everywhere): This post was originally posted on May 14, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. Why are so many people and organizations obsessed with acronyms? Especially acronyms that spell another word. From small nonprofits and …

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.: This post was originally posted on March 29, 2014 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. I had one of those geek out moments with a client this week. I mentioned that I typically drink a cup of Earl Grey tea each morning. To …

Fuzzy PowerPoint Math: This post was originally posted on August 5, 2013 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. A little math problem for you… One 15-minute PowerPoint1 presentation has 5 slides. Another 15-minute PowerPoint presentation has 15 …

Soup, Spoons and Social Media: This post was originally posted on November 12, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. I went to Subway last week. I don’t typically eat at Subway, but there is one by my office and I didn’t have much time for lunch. …

Evolving Screen Design: Star Trek and the Viewscreen: This post was originally posted on June 1, 2009 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site. One of the defining design characteristics of a ship in the Star Trek Universe is the forward viewscreen. And in the J.J. Abrams reboot …