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 were taken in Charleston.
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 to add.
- What I’m working on
- Recently written
- Recent media favorites
- Active websites and profiles
- Social media accounts
I also moved the status of the fish in the header to this page. The fish changes from time to time based on my mood so that explanation makes more sense on my “now” page.
I’m sure my approach will change over time. Everything needs to be manually updated and I’m thinking I’ll update every month or so.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
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 game… almost a day old. Eventually I gave up. It’s not the same.
Big win on the road, though. #1 South Carolina came from behind to beat #5 UConn. 🏀
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 routinely share posts of various lengths, but I’ve never changed my approach. As I try to get back in the rhythm of writing, I think I need to embrace the middle ground. Opting to post reflections more than complete essays. Questions instead of answers. Paragraphs instead of pages. We’ll see how it goes.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
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 are taking advantage of them.
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 great and I really enjoyed his commentary, so I kept listening. One day, after a particularly obnoxious sequence of callers, I tweeted something like “I’d love a sports talk show without callers” and tagged him. He responded, thanked me for listening, but said that most people didn’t want to listen to him talk for a couple of hours. They tuned in for the callers. That was the format.
Audience commentary is part of every type of media. With newspapers, we’ve long had editorial pages, op-eds and letters to the editor. Radio has a whole sub-genre of talk radio that features callers giving their opinions and arguing with hosts. Television never really developed a feedback format because of obvious technical limitations, but developed something similar. Panel discussion shows are basically talk radio with a standard roster of characters, arguing with each other and representing viewer opinions.
The internet made commentary even easier. In the early days of the web, every news site and blog added comments to their stories to encourage feedback. The feedback quickly turned to meaningless noise, filled with extreme opinions and spam. Social media took it one step further. Facebook and Twitter are essentially just the comments section. Commentary became the media.
Some people love to read the letters to the editor and listen to talk radio. Many people — judging by ratings — watch television shows with a panel of guests arguing with each other about news or sports. There are people want to read the comments on news sites, although I don’t understand why anyone would subject themselves to that. And there are people who truly enjoy social media. This is all commentary-driven media.
I’ve realized that I don’t like any of those things.
I like to read articles that provoke thought. I visit news sites and blogs that cover my (many) areas of interest. I use an RSS reader to track all of these sites. I follow photographers, videographers and creators who make original art. I listen to podcasts that add value and knowledge. I follow people on social media who are experts in their field, but I rarely respond or comment on their posts. Yes, I want to be entertained, but I also want to learn and be challenged. In contrast to the commentary-driven media, I suppose this is expert-driven media.
The reality is that most people prefer the commentary-driven approach. They feel part of the conversation. They can contribute if they want. They want to hear the opinions of others and argue about topics. Our current social media landscape was designed for them. They want to feel that their opinion is a vital part of the conversation. That is the format.
Cultivating an expert-driven media environment is tougher and it appeals to a smaller audience. But there is a significant audience. There are plenty of people who want to read posts and articles from people who know what they are talking about. An ample audience of people who want to listen to podcasts and watch informative videos. We just have to design a system that prioritizes meaningful content and encourages sharing well-thought out responses over quick, thoughtless knee-jerk commentary.
With the implosion of Twitter, I feel like we have an opportunity to build something different. I’m happy with Micro.Blog right now and look forward to its continued development. I’m interested in the resurgence of RSS 2 and the momentum behind new indie-web protocols like ActivityPub. I’m encouraged that so many people are experimenting with different approaches to “social” media. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
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Every third caller wants their team to throw more to the tight end.
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Some of us never let RSS go.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
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.