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 Trek.
As I turn 49, I’m looking ahead to 50 next year. I’ve decided that I want to be healthier at 50 than I was at 40. I need to loose weight, eat better and be more active. Basically a lifestyle change. I’m going to add a health category to my weekly Now page updates.
Still wondering if I should post these on Sundays instead of Saturdays.
Feels
Uncomfortable. The air conditioning went out in my office this week. That’s never something you want in Columbia in the summer.
One of my friends is leaving for a job at another school. I’m bummed, but it’s a great opportunity for her. Just a lot of changes at the office this summer.
I continue to be impressed with Kamala Harris’s campaign so far. I forgot what hope felt like.
Tired. My teacher wife reported to school this week, and the alarm started going off an hour earlier. Ugh. Need more sleep.
Health
Laying the groundwork for my lifestyle change. Getting apps ready to track, planning diet and exercise changes. Trying not to over do it. I’m giving myself a year to make this change.
I’m starting on Monday, because there’s still cake and other goodies in the house from my birthday.
Continuing to work on some other font ideas. I have several designs that I never finished, so I’m working toward wrapping those up and submitting them to MyFonts for sale.
Heard back from the publication I submitted my journal article to and I need to make a couple of minor changes before it heads to peer review. So that’s promising.
Entertainment
Lots of Olympics. Surfing. Basketball. Gymnastics. Swimming. Handball. Beach Volleyball. Regular Volleyball. I think I’ve watched at least some coverage every day this week.
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…
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 it’s going to be hard going back to reality on Monday.
Feels
I feel refreshed. I really needed to take some time off from work and reset. With the leadership change at work, I think I needed the break more than I realized.
I’m worried about the state of our nation, but I’m energized by the change in the presidential race. Biden stepping down, and Harris consolidating support has me encouraged.
Being open to changes. The camp our kids went to is also the camp that I attended and worked at. They changed pick up this year, ending on Friday instead of Saturday morning. I wasn’t sure about the change, but we attended a new final ceremony and it was great. I probably need to make this a full post, but we all need to accept that sometimes, change is needed.
I sketched out a couple of new font ideas while we were at the cabin in North Carolina. Was nice to have some time to sketch.
Entertainment
We were in a cabin without our normal streaming setup. They had a Samsung TV service that had a bunch of ad-supported channels with random reality shows, so we watched some American Ninja Warrior and Ice Road Truckers.
I started reading Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. Enjoying it, but having trouble remembering all the things that happened in the second book of the series.
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” social and added this footnote:
I recognize that the concept of an open social network from a large corporation might seem absurd in today’s environment, but you never know.
Five years later, we have Threads, a somewhat open social network from a large corporation with a track record of building toxic captive networks. The word “open” in this case is distinct from “indie,” since no one can ever claim that Meta is a small independent company. But in the case of Threads, they do seem to be moving toward being more open.1
I think it’s important to make a distinction, between open and captive social networks, but also between open and indie networks.2 Our goal should be interoperability between our networks. The indie web is a big part of this effort, driving the technology and the open social philosophy forward. But I believe it’s going to take some of the large players truly adopting open social protocols to make true interoperability a reality.
These layers are all complicated, and how we talk about it matters, especially when talking with less tech savvy audiences. As advocates for interoperability online, I think we need to do a better job communicating how our goals will benefit everyone. Using accessible language is a big part of that effort.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
There are indie social companies that are not committed to interoperability. ↩︎
Picked a really good day to unplug for a week.
Trying out a new taco place.
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.
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 others sick, but I’m pretty sure this was just a random virus.
Feels
I’m excited about upcoming vacation. It’s been too long since I took a significant amount of time off.
More progress on fonts. I inched closer to releasing my new typefaces. Just some refinements to make sure everything passes the quality assurance checks.
Submitted an article to a journal to review. Woke up in the middle of the night and decided to be productive. Finished the query letter and hit the submit button. We’ll see what happens.
Entertainment
Finished Star Wars: The Acolyte. I enjoyed the show and am interested to see if they give it a season two to finish the story.
I’ve been playing Pokemon Go with my son who just got a new phone.
F1 this weekend with the Hungarian Grand Prix.
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.
