Misc Loquacious Linquacious Cascade

It’s rare for me not to sleep great. And… I’ve not slept great the last few days. The rain prevented watergoing for a few days. And now it’s persistent wind preventing ocean swimming and bodysurfing. Yes, I need the water.

I mentioned The Magic Mike wetsuit in April last year and now that my prior wetsuit really is giving in I’m wearing it. I got some good ideas for how to affix the zipper to the collar in the sewing channel of a Slack I’m in and feel hopeful to fix it soon.

I have tab backlog! I don’t let it get too big usually but when I’m not on my grind things back up. Time to digest and share some links that have evaded sharing.

I bookmarked whatpwacando.today a few weeks ago and have played a bit. Pretty amazing how much a mobile browser can do. I have been toying with some code to use the Web Share API.

I didn’t share the surfboards I made in CSS a few weeks ago. I don’t think I added the expanding checkerboard either, which has gotten some positive acknowledgement on CodePen. For that one, make your browser plenty tall.

gRegor has been working on an indieweb book club (GitHub) — I love the idea but my overall appetite for reading longer form text is not what it once was. That doesn’t prevent me from acquiring new books and comics though. Speaking of gRegor, his post from 2013 when he first encountered the IndieWeb I still vibe with, very mucho.

There are some great third-party services that make it easy to create and interact online, but then you are at their mercy. Companies go out of business — or are bought and shut down — and the content disappears along with them

And while I’m mentioning friends and colleagues who are smart and sensitive let me point to James’ post Notes on facilitating technical discussions in meetups which is a thoughtful peek behind the curtain at one of the IndieWeb’s best meeting hosts:

A significant part of my responsibilities as host is ensuring that everyone feels included. Nobody wants to join a meetup that they think is interesting and then feel like they don’t quite fit in. For this to happen on the account of perceived knowledge one must have — often an impression made by discussions being too technical, or using too much in-speak — is a failure.

I developed similar skills when I was a kid. But it was at San Diego City College when I realized that skill could be more formal. The class “Broadcast Studio Operations” taught all the skills in a tv studio. We learned to all the parts of directing a tv show, and part of the formal process was to direct camera operators to move to the person talking. To do that the director had to be aware of not just the technical staff but the conversation happening on a “talk show.” With a 2 camera set up you had to listen and be ready for an answer. If Camera 1 was on the interviewer and Camera 2 was on the guest, you listened to the interviewer setting up a question and over the audio channel for the team I would say “Camera 2 go to a closeup on the guest” and then the technical director to “Ready Camera 2” and then to “Take Camera 2.” And when just one person is dominating conversation there’s nothing to do. If the show is a conversation there ought to be a give and take, at least in a show like that. This very technical aspect of making what we called “television” (is it still that?) actually let me hear the flow in a conversation and made me (a bit) less likely to dominate conversation. I still am a loquacious dude, but I can usually tell if I’m running on and on and I am trying to figure out how to complete my thought, I swear.

James is usually in Scotland, and this Rock map of Scotland is just charming. Maybe I’ll make a similar one of California. Or at least Southern California cf. beachgoing

Ramona Fradon died last week. Read about her. Cartooning into her NINETIES. May we all be so blessed.

Also in the cartoon and comics space this post It Took Nearly Two Years To Design The Hundreds Of Characters In ‘Across The Spider-Verse’ I really loved. I definitely vibe with a Spider House-Cat.

Speaking of ol’ Webhead, Mark Evanier talked about his primary creator Steve Ditko, regrettably seldom mentioned, and said this:

What I would have written (and may yet some day) would have included my opinion that Steve Ditko was one of the ten-or-so great creative talents in the kind of comics he did. His work was usually quite brilliant and quite popular and I doubt I’ll hear from anyone who wants to argue the point.

I have somewhat less respect for Ditko the Philosopher and many of his stated principles. And I really don’t understand how someone takes a vow of silence about his career, refuses all interviews, finally writes a little many years later, then expresses shock and outrage that the history of his collaborations with Stan Lee has been written Stan’s way. Gee, I wonder how that happened.

If that interests you at all, please drop everything and watch In Search of Steve Ditko:

It’s the 60th Anniversary of Jonny Quest this year.

jwz notes, frustrated, that links suck these days. Well, I click links.

He also shared this Leap Day Bugs which is appalling overall. Dealing with dates in the archives pages of this site and at my last gig with insurance policy terms, renewals and modifications and calculating elapsed policy terms I am sympathetic. But the solution is to test, test, test your code. Unit tests, people. And include those weird ass cases like Leap Day. Leap Days exist!

And here’s an oddball article with terminology I feel skeptical about but I definitely think of myself as an expert generalist in things in a web technology vein.

And Al wrote again, I enjoyed his piece on digital relationships for the IndieWeb Carnival for February.

Manu’s wrap up piece is masterful and splendiferous. His blog is so spartan and elegant it has even me, the packrat, trying to sort out how to minimize some of the frippery on my site. Gorgeous site.

Andrew Soria’s Welcome to the Neighborhood is a lovely series of collages that give the feel of the look of (mostly westside and downtown) Los Angeles spots. I lived in Koreatown and then Cheviot Hills for a number of years and despite them being surreal, or maybe hyperreal they give me nostalgia.

And can typography be political? V is for Vocal Type answers: yup. Design, communication, typography are not abstract purely cerebral fields. They live in a complicated and often unjust world. Typography can absolutely confront that.

Radical Emprints is a press that takes a shot too.

And my local favorite Burn All Books (I’ve participated in some anthologies with my comics) does too. A Black Lives Matter print lurks behind The Iron Giant in a New Robot Day post of mine from 2020.

And I’ll end with a link I just read today Lynn Fischer’s case study on the site refresh she did. I have loved playing with CSS custom properties and this is next level. She’s been an inspiration for a while and that’s not letting up.

I challenge you to go get inspired!

Onward, kids!