Some Thoughts
Early in the development of this website I wrote a few articles outlining my thoughts on keeping my writing environment and this website simple. Since then I've added a few thoughts on other topics.
Some Thoughts On Writing and Website Design
- On Writing in Plain Text
- A Mobile Writer's Kit
- On Designing a Simple Elegant Website
- Oliver Reichenstein on Responsive Typography
In A Mobile Writer's Kit I wrote a few words about some hardware and applications that make a mobile writing workflow practical in a connected world. Here is why I write in plain text, why I keep my files small, and where I file them.
We are rapidly moving toward a post-pc world where most of us will be using portable tablets and smart phones to do what we have been using desktop and laptop computers to do, especially reading and writing.
Selfishly, when I set out to design this website, I wanted something simple and elegant to show off my pictures and my writing on the browsers I use.
Oliver Reichenstein and the Information Architects team faced some interesting challenges in building iA Writer, their highly acclaimed suite of applications noted for their uncluttered, distraction free, writing environments for the Apple OS X desktop and iOS mobile platforms. Some of the typography design principals he outlines in Responsive Typography: The Basics have influenced me in designing this site.
Some Thoughts Following the Death of Michael Brown
- Shocked and Awake: on Race and Freedom
- Let America be America Again
- A Riot is the Language of the Unheard, MLK, Jr
It took the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson MO and the protests that followed to shock me with the extent of the racism, the police violence, and the more subtle suppression of people of color and other minorities in this country in recent years. I had no idea! ...
A poem by Langston Hughes, presented in memory of Michael Brown
The murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson MO and the eventual failure of the grand jury to indict Officer Darren Wilson for that murder have been deeply unsettling to me. ... Why, why, why?
— page revised 2025-04-20 jhc