{ 2008.05.27 }
Waxing poetic on video about design and programming with Ethan Eismann and Nico Lierman.
Being locked into a single vendor technology silo is no longer tolerable. Information, media and creative projects should be available and accessible without having to pay to keep them that way. The value of open source isn’t readily apparent to the average technology user until after he or she has been locked in to something else, and by then it costs too much in both time and money to break out. Is this the price we pay for beautiful, unified design and experiences? If so, the price tag might be too high.
John McPhee’s Annals of the Former World is a 660-page masterpiece of science writing. If everyone went around thinking about their lives and their civilization within the context of the geological timescale, the world would certainly be a less frantic and less stressed place. A million years is nearly incomprehensible for the human mind, but represents hardly a sliver of the earth’s entire history. Also, denizens of the Bay Area should read book 4, “Assembling California.” Fault lines and earthquakes were never more fascinating and terrifying.