Long day ahead of me, but the weekend is on the other side.
Nine years ago, I wasn't in a mass shooting
I still have Facebook, primarily to check my memories. Usually, it’s something funny that the kids said, or some family pictures. But today was different:
“Just left Columbiana in a stampede. Rumored shooting. Scary.”
We’d gone to Columbiana Mall near our house to do some shopping and stopped at the Red Robin near the exit to get some dinner before heading home. After dinner, we stepped out of the restaurant into a stampede of people running toward us. A woman yelled “Go! There was a shooting!” as she ran past. We darted back inside Red Robin and left through their exits. I had Norah and Jill, and we got briefly separated from Ryan and my wife, Liz as we left through different doors. We found each other, ran to the car and got the hell out of there as police and first responders poured into the parking lot from all directions.
That is one of Ryan’s earliest memories. Four years old. Being separated from his sisters. He actually brought it up the other day and commented that he still hates going to the mall.
Here’s the weird thing. The mall locked down, but a shooter was never found. In fact, there was no evidence of a shooting at all. Best guess was that there was a fight, and someone fired an Airsoft gun. It was enough to set off the panic and the stampede. And so there wasn’t a shooting, but there was a panic. (Sadly, in 2022, there actually was a shooting at the mall.)
So thanks for the memory, Facebook. That’s one I’d rather forget.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
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.
I attended a lecture tonight at the University of South Carolina with Helen Armstrong, professor and researcher from NC State. The talk was well attended… mostly students with a handful of professional designers sprinkled in. I didn’t take notes, but figured I’d share some quick impressions.
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Designers need to learn to use AI. Think of artificial intelligence as a tool that we can wield to design more effectively. The point isn’t that AI will do the whole project, but that we can choose how to implement AI tools most effectively.
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Designers need to partner with data scientists to maximize the impact of AI tools. Helen talked about the importance of partnering with data scientists to understand the tools and help focus AI products.
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Designers can craft the interface to AI. Right now, we think of most AI tools as text prompts, but designers can work to help build the interfaces that allow people to get the most out of the tools.
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Students are nervous. During the question and answer session, several students wanted to talk about the role of AI in hiring and worried that employers who might value young designers less because an AI can do it. The nervousness surprised me a little, but it shouldn’t have. The tasks that young designers are often given are likely easier to automate. But I thought Helen made a great point… AI in the hands of a designer will be more effective that AI in the hands of non-designer.
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A great homework assignment. My friend Kris asked Helen for a homework assignment” for experimenting with AI and I loved her response. First, spend 15 minutes a day playing around with a large language model to familiarize yourself with the possibilities. Second, subscribe to a range of AI newsletters to keep up with advancements.
I purchased Helen’s book, Big Data, Big Design: Why Designers should care about artificial intelligence, from Amazon during the Q&A section. I’m looking forward to reading it.
I tend to be skeptical about the ability of AI to completely automate the creative process, but I agree completely with Helen that artificial intelligence is a tool that is here to stay. And that tool will make us more efficient as designers. She drew a comparison to the popularization of computer driven design in the 1990s. Desktop publishing changed what we designed and how we designed, but there was still an important role for designers.
I pay attention to developments in AI and play around with tools, but I think I need to get more serious about trying to find opportunities to incorporate AI into my creative process. And I probably should start to think about academic research topics into user perception of AI.
Unrelated to the topic of AI… it was so nice to be in McMaster 214 tonight with a small crowd. Back when AIGA South Carolina was rolling, we had a bunch of great lectures in that space. While AIGA SC didn’t survive COVID, I’m glad to see USC’s School of Visual Art and Design leading the way with some great programming and bringing the creative community together. I’ve missed it.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
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 never seen a grading scale this complicated. I’ve read over my last assignment several times and I can’t figure out for the life of me how I got an A.
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
New app lets iOS users weave together sources
When the Iconfactory announced their Tapestry Kickstarter, I backed it immediately. I’ve been a fan of the Iconfactory’s work for decades, and was a loyal user of Twitteriffic before Musk cut off the API. I’ve had beta access for months as a Kickstarter perk and I’ve been using it daily.1 Now that Tapestry is released to everyone, I wanted to write a little review with some thoughts about how it’s working for me.
One app for pretty much everything. Tapestry is a unified feed reader. You build a feed from a variety of sources and “connectors.” I’ve used connectors to bring in my Micro.Blog, Mastodon and Bluesky social timelines. I still use Feedbin as a traditional feed reader so I’ve also some of my favorite RSS feeds and some YouTube channels. I even have a podcast feed in there and, while I wouldn’t listen to a long podcast in Tapestry, it does works for short audio files. All of it pulled together into a single timeline.
You said “pretty much everything?” Correct. To be added to Tapestry, the sources need to connect to the open web. That means no Meta apps. So if you want to connect to Instagram, Facebook or Threads, there isn’t an API to allow for a connection. This isn’t a problem with Tapestry, it’s a problem with Meta. But don’t get me started on the importance of open APIs.
Algorithm free. Tapestry doesn’t add any annoying algorithms to your content feed. You decide who you want to follow, and you see their posts in the order in which they were shared. No engagement manipulation.
Interaction. You can’t like or comment directly from the Tapestry interface, but it’s easy to swipe and access a Safari web view. For example, if I see a Bluesky post I want to like, I swipe and Bluesky opens. I like the post, click done at the top left, and I’m back to my feed. It’s a smart solution to a complex problem. I’m not someone who likes or comments a bunch so this little bit of friction is completely acceptable to me. I understand if this isn’t enough for you, but it works for me. You can “Mark” items for follow up later, and I find that helpful for keeping track of good links and stories.
Muffle and Mute. You can build rules to muffle (collapse) or mute (hide) posts that contain keywords. I find this to be incredibly powerful. There’s a person I know — who I want to follow — who shares his Wordle every day. So I muffled “Wordle” in my feed. You can build those rules to hide whatever you don’t want to see. I loved it in Twitteriffic and will absolutely use this in Tapestry.2
Opportunities and rough edges. This is a 1.0 version. There are rough edges, but also clear opportunities for them to improve the app. The Iconfactory is committed to improving Tapestry and offering a Mac version eventually. I’m excited about where this is going.
I’ve really enjoyed Tapestry because I can just dip into the most recent information. And since Micro.Blog and Bluesky are currently my most used services, this integrates perfectly. It’s tough to explain, but it brings a social media style timeline together for a wider variety of sources. It’s not for everyone, but it is absolutely what I want.
Tapestry is now available on the App Store for iOS free with ads. Or if you want no ads and premium features, it’s just $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
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 feel so ancient this morning.
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.