Cornell-style notes

This is like a web developer pinup photo.

With a new 24″, 1920×1000 resolution monitor, a new chair, and a daylight lamp, I am in pixel heaven.

Thank god for Craigslist connections happening to be other Web developers who need to move soon and were super generous and friendly!

Portfolio Sample: a new ShortwaveDesign.com.

I’m currently in the process of redesigning my business site, Shortwave Design, to fit my new needs.

Updating my portfolio is one of those things that has never been easy enough for me to convert into a solid habit, so it’s almost always behind.  Currently, it not only lacks my most recent work but also some of my best work, work that simply never had a screenshot taken of it.

I’m hoping to make the 2010 redesign of shortwavedesign.com as simple as possible, minimalist in both presentation and publishing philosophy. It simply needs to be.  This is the first conceptual version.

Pattern App

I don’t remember at all how I got to it, but I ran into a site called Pattern App, which catalogs and displays common user interface design patterns.

It’s unreasonably cool for a guy like me, but it’s also kind of neat for the average web user to see just how much thought and planning goes into simple things.  Take, for example, the “Always Visible” design paradigm; the example used over at Pattern is Facebook.  They certainly have some pretty cool designers.

Not that they deserve a feature film to be made about them…

Yeah. It’s happening. I just found out today.  It’s a bit weird.  I like the idea of overglorifying web developers and designers, don’t get me wrong, but we all know there’s not a single logical way that Zuck got as much action as that trailer seems to portray.  And why is Justin Timberlake in that movie?!

The D.C. of Today

Two weeks ago, I returned from the Federal District to my own city.  I was shifting locations in the 5th grade, so I missed that oft-remembered pilgrimage made by so many of my peers.  Having now fulfilled my American duty and seen the capital, I think the lateness of my hajj puts me at an important advantage.

I’ve reached the age of majority by Canadian standards, and am rapidly closing in on the MADD-determined age of majority here at home, and I think the initial trip to D.C. for any American is better spent if they know what the hell it means to be an American.  In one’s fifth grade year, the complex global political situation and the fallibility of some of the forefathers is completely unknown to the pilgrim.  I was able to recognize the hallowed white buildings instantly, but knew their imperfections.

I’m still processing everything I experienced, from a disabled Vietnam veteran at his comrades’ wall (and the dramatic way the design of that landmark is physically experienced as you delve into it) to the geometric, grandiose majesty of the National Mall Park.  But one particular photo out of the just-under-1000 I took stuck with me.

Take a look back at the photo at the top of this post.  Inexplicably forced upon the Reflecting Pool was a metal barrier (much of the Mall is littered with these), nearly bisecting it perfectly into two squares.  It was in the water.  God only knows why.  When MLK Jr. gave his speech, there was no stupid fence.  I could wax poetic here about how how it symbolized the division of our country; how it stood for something like “fundamentalist right vs. the elites” or “liberals vs. conservatives”.  But it didn’t.  To me, it stood for the duality of our world today: divided, yet flatter than ever; progressive, yet backwards; etc.

Coming to D.C. was a confusing head rush. I saw what we had built as Americans, and was awed.  Our history is not at all the perfectly heroic image we have built for ourselves in our schools, and the fifth-grade heads seeing D.C. haven’t had it spoiled yet, which is somewhat beautiful but guarantees the trip will be glossed in their memory.  But I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, knowing now how to react.  One should react to it with a mixture of genuine pride, healthy dissent, renewed citizenly vigor, and interior desire to improve our country and life for our countrymen.

As an American, I saw the formal side of our country, something the strip malls and the nightlife and the media sure as hell never portray, and it was honestly beautiful.  I felt what I can only assume is the feeling that underlies and fuels representative democracy: the hope that if I applied myself and worked hard to deserve the role, I too could become a member of the decision-making political class.

In sum, for this post has gone on too long, return to D.C. as an adult if you haven’t been in a while.  You’ll think about our country, and what you can do to protect its future; something that is somewhat devalued in our society, but a habit synonymous of all great Americans.  Basically, the trip made me want to man up.

An incomprehensive list of Chicago-founded Web startups

Fat trimmed, originally via Chicago Social:

• WinkVid, that Chatroulette-style dating site Thrillist recced a few weeks ago
• Peapod, Skokie-based food delivery (green trucks!)
• Newser, a news digest of less-common stories, optimized for quick reading by stressed Chicagoans
• Groupon, (obviously): our first big hit since Orbitz
• Foodie Registry, a Chicago fine-dining GC registry site (kinda hard to explain this one)
• Bride Buzz, daily product blogging targeted @ brides-to-be
• Threadless, natch
• Everyblock (incidentally, will you sign the Chicago petition for more comprehensive crime data from CPD?)
• Orbitz
• Songza, which searches YouTube for songs only
• iExplore, a travel site
• Viewpoints, 3 million product reviewers
• GrubHub, which probably sustains its entire business model on my girlfriend’s roommate
• Where I’ve Been
• Garmental, daily fashion blog from Chicago’s boutiques
• SwapSimple, trade and barter
• 37Signals (CS says its “so successful that you kind of want to hate it”, which is exactly what I kind of want to do)
• CouponCabin
• FanFueled

…and that concludes their list, anyway. One question: Why do so many of them “plan to launch nationally”? I understand that focusing is easy, but limiting yourself to one city seems, well, limiting. Is it because Chicagoans are less inundated with startups than New Yorkers or Bay Areans? Or is it because we love to love the home team, sometimes to a fault? Not sure. But very interesting.

Other observations: Most of them are stereotypically ‘yuppie’, and few are B2B. Also, apparently Chicagoans like to only view sites once a day, or hate feed-reader clutter, because a plurality of them are ‘once-a-day’.

Water droplets

Seen while resale shopping

Only $93!  At the Brown Elephant.

On the Restaurant Industry, the Newspaper Industry, and Other Symbiotic Industries

Every morning when I wake up, the news comes to me.  It doesn’t slap onto my front porch at some ungodly hour (I’ve seen the weary travelers who deliver these newspapers in the morning, always the sign of a good night out).  It’s not delivered by a person to me.  I don’t even take the paper; I don’t have to go down to the corner, tipping hats at friends and acquaintances on my way to the corner store or newsstand to buy a daily edition (of which I actually have at least 3 options within walking distance).

But like I said, the news comes to me.  It bleeps onto my iPhone and my waking-up procedure has gone from a quick check to make sure there’s been no texts or calls to reading the entire contents of the Chicago Tribune iPhone app.

From this...

...To this

I’m more informed, better at parties, et cetera.  But what I’m not doing, necessarily, is heading down to the neighborhood diner to discuss the news with my closest friends over coffee.  Now obviously, mostly retired people do that, but back in high school, I would occasionally meet friends at a very old-school diner right by our high school before going in for the day.  We didn’t always discuss news, and the only papers offered were lousy local ones, but I digress.  The point is, anybody can do it.  It’s a community thing, not a news thing, or a restaurant thing (those greasy spoons weren’t worth the trip without the friends).

Now I’m aware that social media and new tech have killed a lot of industries, but I’m not sure if people foresaw neighborhood diners and breakfast places closing because everybody reads the news alone on their smartphones nowadays. But it’s certainly true – there was one right by my old apartment that drastically cut its hours in response to fewer customers; right in front of the restaurant, there was a dozen-long row of (mostly full) periodical cases and newspaper machines.  The juxtaposition got me thinking, and here we are.

My point is not really to lament the death of coffee klatches, it’s to comment on the secondary and tertiary casualties in this ‘new’ economy, ‘new’ media, ‘new’-just-about-everything world.  As a web designer and computer science student, and a person that’s infatuated with old Americana and had family members who love to talk about days gone by, I see a conflict forming between what I do in my work and how rapidly the world changes.  So much of what ‘makes men men’ and made the good old days the good old days has shifted due to my industry.  Maybe I’m so interested in all that stuff because someone has to eulogize it as it goes down.

So, in sum: Investors need to be aware that there can be crazy, completely unforeseen, domino effects on industries as seemingly intrenched and immovable as a breakfast diner.  It’s not a ‘brave new world’ or anything — this is more of a reminder.  You probably should have gotten out of telegraph-machine manufacturers in the 20s.  It’s not hard.  You just have to look a lot harder as an investor today.  Allowing myself to even make wild guesses about what location services like Foursquare mean for nightlife and entertainment industries seems impossible, but if I was investing, I’d have to be doing it.