I love reading, and I've been thinking a lot about how technology is affecting the way that we read now, and the way that people will read in the future. At the moment, I'm ambivalent; I love reading the New York Times on my phone, but I can't help but sense that something will be lost if all printed matter moves in this direction. I keep thinking about something Sven Birkerts said in a 1998 interview with Harpers: "If you touch all parts of the globe, you can't do that and then turn around and look at your wife in the same way." [PDF] Of course, one could be turn around and look at one's wife in a more informed, more educated way, but that's not the way he sees it. One can't help but be changed, and the change is resonant and irrevocable.
This is the top shelf on one of our book cases. It's comforting to have the books sitting there; they're like a version of myself, sitting on a shelf, disassembled and re-arrangeable.
I've been doing a lot of reading about the future of reading, and I figured ...
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29 Oct 08 · filed under: basketball, ideas, lit, tech, web · 
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Last weekend, I had an unlikely opportunity: I was invited to sit on a panel that discussed the future of small literary presses, non-profit publishing, and -- in general -- books that took place at Coffee House Press in Minneapolis. I love books, reading, and non-corporate media, so I jumped at the chance to talk about this stuff in public. You may ask: Why me? I have a person on the inside who knows that I like to talk.1
My fellow panelists were a murderer's row of publishing insight. Rick Simonson is the co-founder of Copper Canyon Press and a book buyer at the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle; Richard Nash is the publisher of Soft Skull Press; Patricia Wakida runs Wasabi Press; and, Michael Coffey is the Managing Editor at Publisher's Weekly (and the author of an excellent baseball book, 27 Men Out).
When we got started, I suspected I'd been tossed in a shark tank wearing a meat necklace. I found myself rattling on about things in my frame of reference -- technology, social media, iPhones, Kindles, stuff wanting to be free -- and I worried that all ...
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27 Oct 08 · filed under: ideas, lit, minneapolis, tech · (0) ·
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We have a house guest this week, and we've been doing a lot of hanging out while reading and listening to music. Last night, the discussion turned to Auto-Tune, and it quickly revealed the beauty of being at least somewhat Internet-literate.
Speaking of Internet-literate, this is our houseguest: Dave.
It started with Lil Wayne. I mentioned to Mara and Dave that Stereogum has an irritating post about Lil Wayne's use of Auto-Tune on SNL. It was irritating because, to me, there's a difference between using Auto-Tune to compensate for your own inability to hit the notes (e.g., Kelly Clarkson in "Since U Been Gone"), and using it to increase the funky quotient, as Lil Wayne does in "Lollipop." Anyway, Dave recalled a Pitchfork interview with Neko Case in which she has some salty words on the subject of Auto-Tune. [tappity-tappity]
Neko Case: When I hear Auto-Tune on somebody's voice, I don't take them seriously. Or you hear somebody like Alicia Keys, who I know is pretty good, and you'll hear a little bit of Auto-Tune and you're like, "You're too fucking good for that. Why ...
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30 Sep 08 · filed under: music, tech, web · (0) ·
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Oh gosh, hello again. I stepped away for a second, and the next thing I knew a month had passed. Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce the Internetz to the Cooper Journal, a blog that we're publishing at work. Launching it was part of the reason why there's been some radio silence, shall we say, but I'm planning on getting back in the swing soonsville. Anyway, check it out:
Yep, that's me on the couch.
22 Jul 08 · filed under: ixd, tech · (0) ·
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Yes, I appreciate Flickr. After all, it allows me to store my photos online, share them with others, and display them on my website. Yay. Thanks for that. Still, it frustrates me daily. Here's why:
Sequence of photo display is set in stone
If I drag a dozen pictures into the Flickr Uploadr, God only knows the order in which they'll appear on the site. But I care about the order in which they appear on the site, because the LAST photo uploaded ends up being at the top of my Flickr homepage, and in that position of prominence it says something about me. It annoys me that I can't control this more.1
Little control over homepage layout; no way to make stuff sticky
So, if I can't control the order of uploading, can I control what's displayed on my Flickr page? No. Can I make a set sticky, so that it stays at the top of the list? No. Can I display only sets? No. Of course, Flickr has introduced new layouts, but all of them are simply ways of arranging the most recent stuff. Not helpful to ...
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23 Aug 07 · filed under: flickr, ixd, tech, web · (0) ·
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I attended (and spoke at) my first UX Week last week in Washington DC, and it lived up to its billing as a good ol’ time. I met many amazing people, stayed out too late, and yet was still motivated to get up early every morning to see the keynotes. That’s saying something. Most conferences can be considered successes if just one of those things happens.
The UX Week program with my lucky cat.
Breaking it down
The sessions came in three varieties: (1) products and interface implementations; (2) design tools and processes; and (3) ideas and inspirations. Sarah Nelson at Adaptive Path organized the conference, and she recruited speakers who were not the usual talking heads.2 The mix of backgrounds, experience, and subject matter kept things lively. I especially appreciated the discussions of process by AP folks like Indi Young, Kate Rutter, and Jesse James Garrett during the panel discussion of CNN.com. All of these opened my eyes to new design tools and techniques, and exposed the fact that there is a lot of innovation going ...
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21 Aug 07 · filed under: ixd, tech, web · (0) ·
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Mara and I just moved into the Lower Haight earlier this month, and Google just released a new Maps feature -- Street View -- that has a picture of our place. If I weren't writing about this, I'd be speechless. Wow.
Our place is the yellow two-story walk-up that is bustin out of the top of the frame. I love that it was captured on one of those semi-sunny days where little wisps of fog drift through. So nice to not live in the fog belt. Incidentally, here's the Chronicle's fog forecast. Doesn't look good.
Street Level seems like useful functionality, esp. for fancy mobile devices, which I don't have. The controls are pretty straightforward and easy to use on a desktop, but I wonder about the ease with which one could navigate up and down the streets with those teeny arrows on a Palm or Blackberry. This is really nitpicky, but I think it would be effective to introduce more map navigation into the image, i.e. skipping to the next intersection, returning to the original destination, etc. Future-wise, ...
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29 May 07 · filed under: san francisco, tech, visual · (0) ·
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So apparently Google and Earthlink are teaming up to provide free WiFi service to all of SF (via Gizmodo). While we're still a ways from knowing what this will actually mean -- mainly, will be accessible at 14th and Valencia, third floor apartment? -- it is intriguing to me that Google is involved. Unlike Earthlink, Google has never gouged me, or failed to provide service that I've paid for, or sold my name and home address to direct marketers.
So I guess you could say that I'm hopeful. Maybe someday soon I'll be able to work from Pac Bell (er, I mean, SBC ... er, I mean AT&T) Park, or Buena Vista Park, or the little redwood grove outside the Transamerica building.
Or from my roof. (See the photo).
06 Apr 06 · filed under: san francisco, tech, tip · (0) ·
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