A Mac by Any Other Name

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You know what they say about something that quacks like a duck… If a computer builds apps in Xcode like a Mac, efficiently calls built-in device models like a Mac, runs terminal commands like a Mac, browses the web in Safari like a Mac, and plays Apple Music, and syncs Notes through iCloud, and my fifteen year old Ulysses library, and messages to my friends like a Mac, then it’s probably a Mac. But when it finally runs out of power, and I go back to the box, and find an iPad charger, maybe this isn’t your ordinary Mac.

An iPad loses charge after a day of doing less. “But Rob,” you say, and you’re right. I’m being silly. If I use the 35W charger from my MacBook Air, this Mac will charge faster. So the iPad charger doesn’t mean anything… right? Yet another cost saving measure. Perhaps¹, but the Mac will still last me most of the week on a single charge. “But so could the MacBook Air” and you’re right again.

Here’s the point.

The MacBook Air has a 53.8 watt-hour battery, while this Mac only has a 36.5 watt-hour battery. The iPad (Air 13”) has a comparable 36.59 watt-hour battery. This Mac has an iPad battery, and an iPad power supply, but the battery life you’d expect from a Mac.

I’ve been exuberant about the MacBook Neo online, buying my own the moment the stores opened. Since rumored, I’ve been curious to know a particular dimension of the device: its depth. The MacBook Neo measures 11.71 inches by 8.12 inches (29.75cm x 20.64cm) according to its marketing page. The width, almost 12 inches, is a familiar measurement.

Consider comparable “small” machines:²³⁴⁵⁶

Machine	Width	Depth	Weight
MacBook Neo	11.71 in	8.12 in	2.7 lbs
11” MacBook Air	11.8 in	7.56 in	2.38 lbs
12” MacBook	11.04 in	7.74 in	2.03 lbs
Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3	10.95 in	8.12 in	2.49 lbs
Microsoft Surface Laptop (13”)	11.25 in	8.43 in	2.7 lbs
13” MacBook Air (M5)	11.97 in	8.46 in	2.7 lbs

The “nearly 12 inch” width appears to be a magical threshold, likely due to the width of a full-size keyboard. The differences in depth appear negligible, until you use one on an airplane. Those who owned the 11” MacBook Air knew it was a champ for air travel. It was narrow enough you could place a drink next to it on the tray. And the screen didn’t sit very high. You wouldn’t worry about the person in front suddenly reclining their seat. In contrast, I can’t fully open a 13” MacBook Air on most airline trays.

The MacBook Neo sits between the 11” MacBook Air and the modern 13” MacBook Air in height. While I haven’t had a chance to test on a plane, by measured height at least, the Neo is short enough to survive a trip across the continent. As the table shows, the Neo isn’t “very small” when compared with the likes of the 12” MacBook and Surface Laptop Go 3. Why isn’t it smaller? My hunch is the aspect ratio of the display.

The 11” MacBook Air had a novel 16:9 display, which many believe was its Achilles’ heel.⁷ The Neo sports a more conventional 16:10 display, forgoing the notch, with a pleasant black bezel along the edge. 16:10 is a more common ratio for displays, and is considered more useful for normal computer tasks. And while I would love a half-height top row like the 11” MacBook Air, and the commiserate savings in device depth, I appreciate that could compromise the Touch ID button, and I’m rather fond of Touch ID on Macs.

Even with the full height top row, the Neo gives off serious 11” MacBook Air energy, perhaps because they share a dimension, and an aspect ratio more cinematic than their contemporaries. And while the Neo doesn’t have the wedge shape, Hemingway might remark “[Neo] was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht”.

Maybe it’s nonsensical to consider a Mac solely on its ability to fit on an airline tray. Or its ability to recharge from a tiny phone battery I can carry in my pants pocket. Only that’s exactly the computer I’ve always wanted. Any computer, but all the better it’s a Mac with gorgeous typography, clear and vibrant screen, excellent trackpad, keyboard shortcuts I’m used to, and all of the tools, apps, and compilers I need to build things.

I would have sacrificed more speed or have paid more money to get this computer, but here again the Neo impresses. Maybe you wrote it off as the cheap computer that doesn’t give you everything you need. I found a computer that asks for less from me, less desk space, and less space in my bag, and less power, and less money. Despite asking for less, it gives me more.

And that is a computer worth celebrating.

I work in Software, your guess is as good as my uniformed guess. ↩
11” MacBook Air specs: https://support.apple.com/en-us/112441 ↩
12” MacBook specs: https://support.apple.com/en-us/111986 ↩
Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3 specs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Laptop_Go_3 ↩
Microsoft Surface Laptop 13” specs:https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-laptop#tech-specs-uid66f1 ↩
13” MacBook Air (M5) specs: https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/ ↩
Not me, I love it. But it’s entirely possible that I have an unhealthy relationship with the 11” MacBook Air. ↩

Typefaces for Writing

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It took three attempts before inspiration finally struck for this essay. First, there was a conversation among a few friends describing terminal windows and typefaces, particularly how their form inspired creativity.

Then John Gruber wrote this, when linking to an essay from Jason Kottke:

Being able to apply italics or boldfacing to words is somewhat more expressive than being limited to un-styled plain text. Talented writers don’t need italics, but they can make good use of it if it’s available.

Considered together, they took me down a path of introspection. About my choice of typefaces, and the many forms my words assume as they funnel through my writing process.

Writing is a lot like photography. Most take pictures, but never become photographers. That’s not to say photography is hard or requires professional training. Consider the difference between a relative bombarding you with vacation photos and a professional photographer featuring their work at an art gallery. Your relative might show you hundreds of photos, with no organization or reason. You might only see a dozen photos at the gallery.

A photographer uses the process of selection to choose only their best photos, and discard the rest. It can be difficult to get rid of photos, particularly if you capture photos for memories. However, the art of selection is the essence of photography, and critical to your evolution as a photographer.

This same principle grounds my writing process. I became a writer the day I focused on improving what I write. And to improve, I committed to edit and redraft prose before I publish. Accordingly, each step of the process has been carefully considered.

Noto Sans & EB Garamond

Any serious effort for an essay begins on my reMarkable Pro tablet, using the type cover. Formatting options are delightfully limited, which keeps me focused on words. A fellow type enthusiast might glance sideways at the two typefaces used by the reMarkable. There are numerous devices and iOS apps dedicated to drafting. Most of the iOS options let me customize my choice of typeface, so why the reMarkable?

I’ve found a lot of debate and thinking online about the art of drafting. Many focus on “silencing your inner critic” and getting your words out as quickly as possible. I was looking for a way to get beyond an initial thought and work the problem. If the first draft is a stream of loose thoughts, the first edit helps me determine if I have anything. And that is the breakthrough feature of the reMarkable.

The challenge was avoiding a feeling I call writer’s debt. This feeling is similar to technical debt, for any fellow programmers reading. Early on, I struggled with editing large bodies of text because it was so tedious to edit using a keyboard.

Before the reMarkable, I experimented with printed copies of my drafts. I would mark them up with a pen, and it made the process feel wonderful¹. If you’re familiar with the reMarkable tablets, you can see where this is going. Their tablet², paired with a type cover, is the digital replica of a typewriter and red felt pen. I type my drafts into narrow columns of text, then use the attached stylus to add red corrections over it.

There are less dead trees involved, and the slender tablet is more convenient to carry than a folder of loose paper. Every page I create on the reMarkable hardware is automatically synced to a cloud service, and there is an app to view them on my Mac³. The reMarkable is an improvement to my drafting process in many ways.

But I was still accruing debt that required tedious keyboard work. The process was difficult to restart after breaks, and it was error-prone. Instead of a single editing pass, I required multiple passes to find any errors introduced during the update.

SF Mono

Any writing I want to publish goes through Ulysses: my preferred editor for Markdown. It is configured to use one of the best monospaced fonts available⁴. Before I used the reMarkable for drafts, everything started in Ulysses. However, starting in Ulysses led me towards updating existing drafts in place. As I’ve already mentioned a few times, it was tedious.

I found a new way to edit, not in hardware, but with a process called trash drafting. Each draft gets re-written from a marked-up version of the prior draft.

The theory of trash drafting is that by reflowing text through the keyboard, you prevent errors that can occur in sentences when you select and replace parts of it. In practice, I’ve found this reduces the need for additional edits. Trash drafting is why I felt comfortable using the reMarkable for first drafts. If I’m going to re-type a subsequent draft on the Mac, why not take advantage of a device that lets me develop the original idea?

While re-typing, it’s also easier to consider typographic details and style. Ulysses and SF Mono are ideal tools for considering emphasis, hierarchy, and section breaks.

Essays on this site are typically written across three drafts, where the second is typed into Ulysses. Fiction often requires several more drafts. Fortunately, Ulysses allows me to export Markdown to various formats, including PDF. I can always return to the reMarkable for markup, by exporting a PDF from Ulysses and syncing to the tablet. Once it’s marked-up, I re-type the marked up version back into Ulysses.

Trash drafting sounds time-consuming, but I’ve found it a more efficient approach to editing. I can take breaks during editing and always know where I left off. I’m a faster typist than I realized, and the extra typing keeps me in the flow.

Trash drafting is the glue that brought my writing process together.

Equity & Bild Compressed Light

The third form of review uses the typefaces chosen for this page. I copy exported Markdown from Ulysses and paste it into Nova, my preferred editor for web development. All of my published writing is kept in a GitHub repository, alongside the Jekyll configuration files for the site.

In Nova, I preview a replica of my published site, then check my writing for any artifacts in its final typesetting. Even during this review, I will make final tweaks to language to minimize widows and ensure a smooth typographic flow.

For essay titles, I selected a compressed style of Bild, a typeface from Jonathan Ross. I first saw Bild in his font-of-the-month club, where its bolder variants reminded me of the gothic sans common to German street signs. The lighter weight was well-suited for my essay titles.

Equity is a lovely text face designed by Matthew Butterick, which I favor for its newspaper looks. The masthead of a prior version of this site was set in generously kerned small-caps, which is a treatment that originally drew me to Equity. There are two body presentations set in Equity. Essays use a traditional web layout, where paragraphs are separated by an extra line space. For fiction, I use a slightly larger size, forgo the additional space between paragraphs, and indent the first sentence⁵. This style is a nod to Agatha Christie. Her style used paragraph breaks for dialogue, using a new paragraph when the speaker changes.

In addition to a nice typographic texture, this allowed her to avoid speech verbs and use short paragraphs to convey the actions of her characters. Taking inspiration from her style has helped me avoid needless exposition, by focusing on punchier dialogue and character action that provides movement within a scene.

Three Forms

In all, my writing is transformed into three forms during its evolution from raw idea to published piece. The typefaces selected for each phase serve a purpose, but the contrast between them is the largest utility. I’ve found my words can lose feeling after repeated reviews. It can be difficult to keep the ideas fresh while I edit. Each time my writing transitions between forms, it feels and reads different. I use each form as an opportunity to reintroduce myself to the composition.

Experimentation is an important part of growth, and I hope I’ve convinced you to consider your process more. The reMarkable Pro, Ulysses, and typefaces mentioned above are all opinionated choices. They work for me because they best support what I’m trying to accomplish at this moment. I expect to continue experimenting.

After all, writing—like photography—is a pursuit of continuous improvement.

I love pens and the scratchy sensation of gliding a nice pen across great paper. ↩
I own the reMarkable 2 and the reMarkable Pro. Both have a type cover, which is important if you use them to draft. Which one is better? Couldn’t tell you. I lean towards the Pro because it gives me larger margins for notes and is the slightest bit faster. But I only notice the speed difference when I’m switching between the two models… you’ll get used to the (lack of) speed in either after dedicated time using it. ↩
Their app is weird. Built using a cross-platform framework that can make it behave in bizarre ways on the Mac. Fortunately it’s adequate enough for viewing notes, and I’ve never had a problem with their sync service. ↩
Regarding the earlier conversation about monospace fonts, I use (including the variant in terminal apps) for programming. If you’ve prefer not to have a glut of typefaces on your computer, SF Mono works perfectly fine for code. My preference for JetBrains Mono comes down to two points; First, the delightful use of ligatures for common programming pairs (i.e., ->, ==, !=, etc) that improves code readability; Second, it is a more condensed typeface than SF Mono, which means I can fit two pages of code side-by-side on my laptop. ↩
Except the first paragraph of any section. This allows me to change perspective without creating a new heading or using a chapter break. This section break could mean a new narrator, change of location, or an amount of time has passed since the action of the prior section. ↩

The “I love you” Coffee

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Mornings are hard for me. And everything else going on right now isn’t making them easier. I’ve found myself distracted, frustrated, and feeling lost.

I’m worried about what happens next. What kind of world will my boys inherit as they become adults?

My boys…

Sleeping later than I should has become common. I’m also slower getting ready because my focus is elsewhere. It feels like an unbreakable cycle, where most days start on the back foot.

This particular morning started with a knock on the bathroom door. A familiar scene was playing out: I still wasn’t ready for work, and it was nearly time for my youngest son to leave for school.

“I can take him.”

The Architect’s words were soft. There was no accusation in her voice, but it still felt like a failure.

During the week, my mornings revolve around taking my youngest son to school. It’s our time to catch up. We listen to music, talk about whatever’s going on inside of his head, and usually find a laugh or two.

We both need that time. It’s special.

And the days I have left for these moments are shrinking. I don’t want them to evaporate because I can’t motivate myself in the morning.

Eventually I finish in the bathroom and make my way back to the bedroom to finish getting dressed. My head is full of dread and regret. I look towards the dresser for my wallet, watch, and phone.

That’s when I saw it.

Before she knocked on the door, she had gone out for coffee. She already knew I was running late, and she already knew why. She knew it wouldn’t be the last day that would feel like this. She’s hurting too.

She didn’t say anything. That’s our way. We’ll eventually talk about it when words find us. In the meantime, her gesture said everything.

“I’m here for you, and I love you.”

Thank you for finding this site again.

It’s taken me several years, but I’ve finally finished a few changes. There’s a new section for fiction with space for new stories. The Traveler series now has a proper home, including some artwork I licensed from Shutterstock. I think it adds a touch of refinement (the design takes inspiration from the serialized comics my youngest is always reading).

I’ve got a few writing projects in the works and it has long been time to start publishing again.

Finishing “The Addict”

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The past few months of writing have been the most intense since I focused on fiction. The journey has taken me from the summits of success into the valleys of despair. Which is a fancy way of saying “I’ve been busy”… and also quiet on here.

A few months ago I spoke of “serious edits” and how The Traveler series really wanted to be a novel. At the time, I felt I was starting to climb out of the slump.

Silly me, I had further to go.

Before I get into that, this story has a happy ending. The Addict will be published tomorrow. And as you find out below, there’s a lot of story. I hope you find it worth the wait.

When drafting The Addict, I started with two scenes I cut from the end of The Banker. I decided those scenes deserved their own story, and after I removed them, The Banker could stand alone as the end of the first act. The story I planned to follow was supposed to be the conclusion.

In other words, I had a beginning to the story and an end, but no middle. Oops.

Had I realized in the beginning that The Addict would become the middle act of the story, I might have written things differently. Instead, it became my hard-earned lesson in planning and character development.

That might sound like an interesting behind-the-scenes story, but it’s not the one I want to tell today. The Addict is over 8500 words, organized into nine scenes that have been re-written at least four times, over six different drafts. I struggled with this story.

Even after six drafts, I’m not satisfied I have the best version of the story, but I’m publishing it anyway. In the middle of the fifth draft, I nearly lost my taste for completing the series. I was done.

Today I want to tell you how I came back from walking away.

Do you ever take a photo and afterwards think: “This will look great after some edits?” Something’s off and you think you can fix it post. The colors don’t pop, or maybe it’s underexposed. This happens to me a lot.

The result is always the same. I fool with it, yanking on sliders in my photo editor and trying every trick in the book to magically transform it into a great shot. I’m never happy with it. I try and I try, only to realize it just wasn’t a good photo after all.

No amount of editing can hide that fact.

This the point I reached during the fifth draft of The Addict. I kept trying until eventually I had to be honest with myself.

“The story isn’t very good.”

It took five drafts to admit it. The notion snuck up on me, after repeated attempts to fix problematic areas in the narrative. It wasn’t a good feeling.

The bottom fell out during a long weekend of vacation. I had marked that date as the time when I would “finish” the story, and get it ready to publish. I was down to a single scene where I wasn’t happy. The dialogue felt wooden, and the words wouldn’t come. But if I leaned into it—dammit—I could be done.

I couldn’t. And I became so frustrated I couldn’t stand to read any of it. I hated it. The entire story.

Two weeks before that vacation, another manager on my team setup a remote conference with a guest speaker. She was there to talk about storytelling. It was a great talk, and afterwards I felt energized to finish. This was exactly what I needed.

Among her talking points was an overview of an older episode of Scriptnotes—a fantastic podcast on writing by John August and Craig Mazin. The episode went deep into Mazin’s concept of the Central Dramatic Argument.

That evening after the talk, I grabbed my notebook and scratched out the phrase “You help yourself by helping others”. That is Gertrude’s theme, and also Hammersmith’s theme. It was my dramatic argument for The Traveler series. From there I concentrated on conflict and resolution to develop my two central characters.

It didn’t take long to realize my second act was hollow.

This is the momentum I carried into the long weekend of vacation. But by the time I sat down to focus, I was too frustrated to write anything. I was stuck, and convinced myself the story was going nowhere.

Disheartened, I was ready to quit.

Fortunately, I didn’t quit. I decided to take a break the next week and consult some fellow writers for advice. A good friend quickly diagnosed my issue: my writing had become too precious.

In engineering projects it’s often said that “perfect is the enemy of done”. So it goes with writing fiction. My pursuit of the perfect narrative brought me too close and I lost perspective. Worse even, I had paralyzed my progress so I wouldn’t publish something terrible. If I did, I feared that would invalidate me as a real writer.

It sounds dramatic. You have to put yourself out there to write fiction. That kind of exposure creates a sense of vulnerability.

I had to look past that feeling and take a chance. In the end, I told myself that I write for me. To learn, and to get better. But most important, I write because I have stories to tell.

Finishing The Addict has taught me several lessons. The perspective I’ve gained will influence my storytelling from here on out. I have a better understanding for how to write character driven stories.

Thanks for reading this update—and your patience—as I’ve quietly worked through The Addict. It’s a large story, which brings the characters to the brink. I hope you enjoy it.

See you tomorrow.

Finding the Right Words

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This letter is not what I originally set out to write. This is my third try. No idea where this will go or turn out, but I need to write.

First, the obvious. Last Wednesday was a horror show, broadcast live to the world. The people’s house—our house—was at the center of a terrible tragedy. Despicable. Outrageous.

I’m heartbroken for my country. Gone is our innocence.

And yet, I spent the waning hours of that horrible Wednesday watching, along with my family, the power-center of our government perform its solemn duties.

“Dad, why do they keep repeating the same words over and over?”

Amidst a dark chapter in the history of our democracy, we learned the legal process for how our Congress certifies our elections. The pageant of the parliamentarians was riveting.

A moment of defiance against the violent forces of insurrection. An affirmation that our form of government can and will endure attacks—both foreign and domestic.

I will never forget that evening, or the phrase “… both regular in form, and authentic.”

The words are starting to come back. I’ve started working on a problematic plot in my Traveler series. I worried it would become major surgery, but it’s proven a fun bit of troubleshooting.

Times like these are when writing reminds me of programming. The story just needed a refactor.

My solution will likely require updates to earlier stories. I’ve not come out and said this you, but the final version of this series may be different from what you’ve read so far. Not terribly different, but hopefully improved.

I’m still on track to release The Addict soon. This updated arc reinforces the story and flow.

Once I’ve finished the series, I look forward to going into more specifics about the plot issues, and why I decided to change them. Since it’s central to core mysteries, I’m avoiding details that would spoil the story before it’s finished.

I’ve contemplated word changes to this site as well. The weekly letter has been an enjoyable addition to my week, but the Sunday part of the title is misleading. While I typically start the letters on Sunday, I’ve only finished and published a few on the same day.

Over the coming months, I plan to remove Sunday from the title and simply refer to them as “Letters”. Their titles will be replaced with their date of publication, while other essays maintain the traditional, descriptive title.

This change might accompany a design refresh. I dunno, something about isolation and idle hands.

Until next time.

Importance of Creativity

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The first story I ever thought to write down was about a young woman, Mara, who attended a special high school. Her school was created after a terrorist attack targets a large conference of primary and secondary school teachers.

Teachers become a scarce resource. In a panic, society turned to every means possible to fill the void. Given the year we’ve just experienced, you might think this is a contemporary story, not one that has been tickling my brain for 20 years¹.

One day I hope to return to this story and find something worth publication. In the meantime, this year reminded me of a particular character from that world: Mr. Nelson. He was inspired from my childhood by a real person with same family name.

Everyone I’ve met who was worth meeting has a story about a teacher who had a meaningful impact on their life. I have several. Mr. Watts² inspired me to study Computer Science, Dr. Allison³ made algorithms cooler than cool, Mrs. Mayall⁴ introduced me to Euclid and the beautiful art of mathematical proofs, and Mrs. Flannigan⁵ taught me there was no shame in being the smartest kid in the room.

And that list doesn’t include three of my high school English teachers, whose impact I still feel today. Mrs. Braaton⁶ made the classics of Shakespeare and Dickens come alive. Mrs. Hines showed me how to study and write critically about art⁷.

But most of all Mr. Nelson⁸ infected me with love for the written word. My experience in his classroom informed Mara’s experience. The fictional Mr. Nelson and his class are set-pieces for an exploration into the importance of creative thinking.

In Mara’s story, I contrast creativity against rote knowledge—facts, recitation, and observation. My postulate is that modern education places an emphasis on the latter, at the expense of the former.

Mara’s school uses an experimental technique to encode information directly into a student’s brain. This frees a student’s time and energy to focus on what to do with that knowledge.

Mr. Nelson’s class is the penultimate lesson in creativity, which prepares his students for their final test⁹.

Creativity has been on my mind a lot this year. We have all indulged in streaming media to help pass the time. Music, movies, podcasts. The fruits of other’s creativity have kept us from feeling isolated.

To help them fight boredom, the Architect and I have encouraged our kids to dive into creative projects. Now is the time… or so the thinking goes.

And that’s why I share these tidbits of a 20-year-old story with you. The theme of that story—the importance of creativity—is more relevant than ever. We need everyone’s creativity to get through this trying period.

If you have a project or idea that tugs at you, now is the time.

There have been 17 Sundays since I wrote my first Sunday Letter. This post is the 12th, which comes out to an average of three a month. Two-thirds is a passable on-base percentage I suppose, but leaves plenty of room for improvement.

To everyone who has read my writing this year, thank you. I’ve appreciated your feedback and encouragement. Wherever you are, I hope you enjoy a happy and healthy new year.

Trying to write this story down is what prompted me to try and write an app for writing fiction. Which prompted me to build an app for prototyping apps, which in turn spawned the second half of my career. A fun story for another day. ↩
“Who do you think you are, Robert Rhyne?” Every time I walked into his class late. I never knew his first name, just that he was “H.W. Watts”. Whenever I would ask what the “H” stood for, he would smile and say “Hunk”. ↩
On our mid-term, he gave us the following question: “How do you sort 7 numbers in 5 operations? Extra credit if you can demonstrate how to do it in 4.” That extra credit haunts me to this day. ↩
She once told our class she gave extra credit to any student with the same name as her daughter. When I asked her if she had a son named Robert, she answered: “No, but I have a dog named Flower.” She called me Flower for the rest of high school. ↩
“The Flan” as she was affectionately known to all of my friends in AP Government. ↩
Anyone who believes that only modern writers use sex to sell their stories should have to study Romeo & Juliet with Mrs. Braaton. ↩
This knowledge came in handy later in life as I attempted to match wits with a young student of Architecture, who is as brilliant as she is beautiful. ↩
I read and studied two of my favorite books of all time in his class: Frankenstein and A Brave New World. He encouraged us to write fiction, and discover our own voice. I didn’t realize it until much later, but he was the spark. ↩
The colloquial name for the student’s final knowledge injection procedure. It is known to be brutal. Mara’s older brother committed suicide after undergoing the procedure. ↩

The Payoff

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“This is a really good reveal, but I don’t think you’ve earned it yet.” That was the beginning of a very good phone call.

Right as I set aside The Traveler series to rest, I sent a copy of the completed draft to a close friend for review. I was worried about my finish, and wanted a second opinion before diving into a detailed edit.

The series is changing before our eyes.

I’m not talking about a change to the story or characters—just the format. Originally, I chose to publish each story following The Traveler in a serial format. If you remember, that story was as a one-off writing experiment for the site launch. Then I was encouraged by your feedback and the idea grew.

As I moved deeper into the narrative, I could feel the pull of change. Each successive story has ballooned the number of scenes and amount of story I want to tell. The upcoming story, The Addict, follows three plot lines. None of them resolve in that story.

The Addict moves the narrative forward, but doesn’t stand on its own like the first three. You require the context of the earlier stories to make sense of it.

When I spotted the divergence in an early draft, I faced two choices: embrace the pull of change, or re-think the story so it respected the periodical format and stood on its own.

I’ve decided to embrace change.

The result for you, my earliest readers, is a chance to watch the whole thing evolve from a series of periodicals into a more traditional chapter-based fiction.

What does that mean?

In the short term, nothing. I’ll publish the conclusion in three chunks as originally planned. After the entire story is out, I’ll compile each scene from the six stories into a single volume, and edit them into chapters. Then… who knows.

I’m leaning towards self-publishing an ePub.

It fascinates me how this experimental story has evolved from a single short into a series, and now chapter-based fiction. When this site launched in April, I talked about working on “my first novel”.

This isn’t what I had in mind earlier in the year, but I can’t say I’m disappointed. Instead of a place where I could curate my best writing, this website has become a running dialogue with myself (and you) about how I’m writing.

I hope it’s a interesting read.

Serious edits for The Addict begin at the end of this week. I can’t wait to see how it forms up, and for you to read it. This week, as I contemplated my own story’s payoff, I got to enjoy another story’s payoff.

Without revealing any spoilers from an excellent season finale, I want to talk about The Mandalorian.

I love Star Wars. I’ve absorbed everything I can: movies, cartoons, and novels. The Disney acquisition had me suspicious about the future of the franchise. But they’ve found success wherever they have expanded the universe.

Dave Filoni has been at the heart of that expansion. Two of his animated series—The Clone Wars and Rebels—are wonderful. He dared to create his own unique characters in the universe, most notably a padawan learner (Ahsoka Tano) and clone captain (Captain Rex) for Anakin Skywalker.

Earlier in the year Filoni treated us to his devastating and emotional conclusion of The Clone Wars. His final season for Rebels was equally charged with emotion. His characters were at the center of both endings.

Partnered with John Favreau, Filoni added to that extraordinary cast of expansion characters in The Mandalorian. And true to form, characters were again the heart of the show’s payoff.

Over two seasons we’ve witnessed the principal—Din Djarin—grow from a ruthless bounty hunter who follows a strict code, into a selfless warrior charged with a quest. The writers use repetition over a collection of side-quests along the journey to reinforce Djarin’s rules.

The show takes its time.

Without spoiling details, Djarin starts to bend, then ultimately break his code. The how and why drive the main story. The result is a wonderful character drama that transcends Star Wars storytelling, yet maintains the charm of a story set in universe.

The payoff is emotional. If you write a character defined by rules, they’re most interesting when they break them. You have to be careful with the details, and ensure they’re true to their character. Favreau and Filoni use basic emotions—love, fear, and anger—to establish Djarin’s break from the code they painstakingly built.

It’s classic narrative misdirection. Build a character slowly. Allow your audience time to understand and think like them. Then use common emotions we all feel and understand to change the character. Now your audience shares the characters emotion, conflict, and triumph.

The Mandalorian is a simple story executed extremely well. There are other characters, each with their own arcs. But the series pays off because you follow the Hero’s arc, and experience their emotional journey alongside them.

I’ve learned a lot about storytelling from the series. Even if you’re not a fan of Star Wars, it’s an easy one to enjoy.

Speaking of emotion, my intended post for last week was a eulogy. As I wrote, it became too personal to publish.

I said goodbye to my grandmother last week. It was a rough experience, made harder by the distance imposed by the current pandemic. Thank goodness for modern technology, which made live-streaming accessible to my grieving family back east. It wasn’t the same, but it was a small comfort to see and hear my family as they grieved.

One more Sunday left in 2020. See you then.

Let it Rest

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Flank steak is challenging to prepare. It’s a lean cut of beef, which made it perfect for the Architect’s birthday dinner. Like many of us during the pandemic, she’s paying attention to what she eats and how many calories.

The boys and I wanted her meal to be special, which meant stress-free, which meant it should be low calorie. I took cues from my sister-in-law, who provided recipes that she’s enjoyed (and prepared) herself.

Her advice on the flank steak was straightforward:

“Grill on high heat for 3-5 minutes per side. And be sure to let it rest, before you slice it.”

This was my first time cooking flank steak, but it turned out well enough… according to the birthday girl.

Flank steak requires 10-15 minutes rest after being cooked. If you slice it too soon, the meat will dry out and you’ll ruin an otherwise nice piece of meat. To rest, place it in a dish and cover with foil right after you take it off the grill. Then leave it alone.

In On Writing Stephen King talks about his writing process, and the importance of leaving a story alone after you first draft it. King moves directly to another story, placing the one he just finished in a drawer for several weeks.

He recommends a writer give themselves time to forget a story, so they can return to it with a fresh perspective. Just like flank steak, a new story needs time to rest.

On Writing helped me develop my own process for writing and editing. A lot of books on writing techniques focus on getting started, and maintaining rhythm. In contrast, King’s book focused on maturing a story through iteration.

The cadence I used to write the The Traveler series kept his advice in mind. I could draft a story, then return to edit the prior one. It was a good plan, in theory.

I hit a snag once I finished the draft for the fourth story. My plan for the fifth story veered away from the main narrative. That meant the story that followed the fourth chronologically was the sixth story. I would need continuity between them. However, the fifth story would also inform the sixth story.

The result was a dependency between all three. I would have to draft them together, before I could refine any of the stories further.

Now that I’ve finished drafts of all three—over 12,000 words—I need to give the story a rest. I’ll start to edit the fourth in a few weeks, with hopes to publish it by the start of the new year.

In the meantime, I plan to work more on Nebula Squad and finish the behind-the-scenes for The Banker.

I’ve also started to doodle.

A lot of what I read online is about how to “use the time”, or project ideas for those who find themselves bored. Remote learning, and a house full of people ready to strangle each other is hardly boring, but I appreciate the ideas for creative outlets.

I started with this tutorial series, from Pedro Madeiros on pixel art. His recommended program Aseprite works well on the Mac, but it’s also given new life to the Surface tablet I purchased earlier in the year.

The Surface lets me use a stylus to draw directly into Aseprite. The app itself is straightforward. I enjoy using it because its only for pixel art. Pixelmator, Sketch, and Photoshop all do a lot more, but fall short where Aseprite shines.

(Left to Right) Cylinder, pyramid, cactus, and a traffic cone.

Right now I’m focused on learning the basics: shapes, shading, and dithering. Eventually I want to put some of this into a game. I have an idea for a story (of course), built on classic arcade titles like Missile Command, Defender, and Asteroids.

It’s fun, and it keeps my mind sharp. I can pick it up whenever I have a few spare minutes.

Though most of all, it lets my brain rest.

Swallowed in the Sea

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It was a hard week. A lot came crashing down on me at once. Not anything specific that happened this week, but everything about this week. Thanksgiving week.

This was not the first Thanksgiving I spent away from family. We moved to California in 2016, so this was actually the fifth. Before the recent rise in cases, we had plans to drive cross country. Spend several weeks back east with family and old friends.

Plans. Travel.

Words that seem foreign after this awful, unpredictable year. Then moments after we canceled our trip, I was reminded why I should be thankful.

Both of my boys have “their playlist” where they collect favorite tunes. This makes car trips easier¹. They also fill our home, as the boys discover how many devices in the house can play their music.

I’m proud that both of them have an eclectic taste that spans genres and generations. Music matters to them. It motivates them, and inspires their creativity.

It was my youngest son and his ferocious appetite for new music that gifted this story.

Like many his age, he lives on his iPad. He plays games and watches his fair share of YouTube, but iPad is also his canvas. And his jukebox.

I watched with envy as he searched music and related artists on Apple Music. Impressed with how quickly he figured out he could add anything to his playlist with a long-press.

Sidebar, so I can talk a little about how cool I am. My boy was transfixed by the full-screen player in Apple Music. “It looks so cool, Dad. I like how it takes over the whole screen.”

At the beginning of the year, the Music team needed some help getting their iPad update ready in time for WWDC. Our software releases were massive this year. All hands on deck kind of effort. So when Music needed help, our program office was desperate enough to let a manager take a few weeks sabbatical to help.

People ask what it’s like to work at Apple. Nine months after I split myself in half², I watched my son discover music using software I helped to write.³

As great as it made me feel, that isn’t why I’m telling you the story. The moment I want to tell you about happened as we were talking about Coldplay.

Yes, Coldplay. Some people like them, some don’t. I love them… and so does my youngest son. I know their catalog by heart. I couldn’t help but sing along as he cued track after track. He wanted to sing too, so he tapped the Lyrics button.

We sang. We danced. It was the kind of moment every parent dreams they’ll share with their children. Music matters to us. It motivates us, and inspires our creativity.

Then one of my favorites came on:

“And I could write a book. The one they’ll say that shook. The world and then it took. It took it back from me.”

Swallowed in the Sea isn’t the kind of song he’d pick by the sound of it. It was the lyrics that grabbed his attention.

He’s a storyteller⁴.

I watched and smiled as the world opened up before his eyes, and made just a little more sense to him.

This week was harder on me than it has been over the past five years. There were also moments of joy. Memories, like this story, which remind me things are going to be okay.

Fortunate for you, my dear readers, I was creatively productive during the week. On Saturday, I finished drafting the final story in The Traveler series. It’s a bit of a beast, north of 6,000 words. We’ll see how much survives in edit.

But I finished a story.⁵

Wherever you are, I hope you’re staying safe. Just a few more weeks before we toast 2020 into the history books.

“Hey Siri, play <child_name>’s Jams.” ↩
My team had demos planned for WWDC as well. ↩
Parachuting into another team is hard on the other team. The Music team was really awesome to work alongside, and they welcomed me even as I stumbled to learn to their style and codebase. ↩
A damn creative one, if I’m permitted to brag. ↩
🎉🥳 ↩

The Mac is Home

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Architect always complains that I prattle and don’t get to the point fast enough. So here it is: earlier this week I bought an M1-powered MacBook Air with my own money. I’ve had the rare luxury of debating this decision for months.

All told, it wasn’t a hard one.

I’m responsible for a team that ships software for the Mac. As a Software Engineering Manager at Apple, I’m also responsible for reporting software issues and ensuring they get fixed.

This makes it particularly difficult to leave work behind. If I discover a bug while writing this letter, I need to stop and file it.

The Mac is work.

My father once told me that he could never work at a bakery. He had a roommate who was a baker. Every day after work that roommate would bring a box of fresh donuts home with him.

I thought it’d be awesome to work at a bakery. But my father explained why he didn’t. His roommate hated donuts. He saw them every day. Baked them, sold them, smelled like them, and got them on his clothes.

My Dad’s message was that too much of a good thing isn’t great. You lose your taste for something when it’s no longer rare. Over the years, that lesson evolved.

Anything fun can feel like work, if it’s your job.

Some people don’t understand why I want to spend more time at a computer after spending my entire day in front of one. It is strange, I’ll admit. Many people enjoy watching television, or solving Sudoku puzzles in the evenings to unwind.

I enjoy writing and programming.

Since doing those on a Mac carries the chance I get drawn into work, I get an urge to try something new every so often. A desire for a computer that has nothing to do with work.

It’s no secret I enjoy using an iPad full-time. I’ve used one exclusively for months on end, including last year when I programmed¹ multiple playgrounds for a WWDC20 challenge.

The iPad Pro is a versatile computer, which promotes focus and clarity. The iPad easily goes wherever you do, from the office to your living room and couch. However, when I was using the iPad to write or program, I preferred to use it at a desk where the flexibility and small screen become a liability.

And the iPad Pro carries all of the work concerns of the Mac. If I find a bug, I need to file it. Work email, texts, and Slack are all there, too.

The biggest draw of the iPad is that I could rely on the same software to think, mainly Ulysses and Things.

My curiosity got the better of me after reading reviews of the Surface Duo. I’m intrigued by folding computers, and everything I read about the Duo said it was well made.

Well made computers are why I’ve relied Macs and iPhones for so long. And while I believe Apple makes the best hardware, I’m not enough of a zealot to presume they’re the only company that can make good hardware. I own multiple Kindles² and a Nintendo Switch, after all.

That said, the quality of the Surface Duo defies belief. It is so good, I started looking at other Microsoft Surface products. When Microsoft announced the affordably-priced, but unfortunately named, Surface Laptop Go I took a chance.

Again, the quality of the Microsoft hardware exceeded my expectations. Its dimensions were comparable to the 12” MacBook, paired with a good keyboard and better-than-expected trackpad. As a bonus, Windows comes with a Linux sub-system that’s easy to install. Also Windows Terminal, which is a dream to configure and use.

Using the Terminal application, I built and installed the Swift toolchain. After dusting off some of my Unix skills, I had a familiar programming environment in VIM and a fast capable browser in Microsoft Edge.

Sure, I missed key applications like Things and Ulysses which are only available on the Mac, but I was able to find decent alternatives. I wrote a few articles on the Surface Laptop Go. Even started building my own writing tools in Swift.

It felt like going on a vacation each time I powered it.

The Microsoft Surface experiment made me curious to try other computers. The next one started as I was reading an article about Android development³. It turns out you can develop for Android on ChromeOS.

My first (and only) experience with ChromeOS was the original Pixelbook that I got as a freebie for attending Google I/O in 2014. At the time, ChromeOS was limited only to browser tabs. No local file access, no offline apps, and no Linux.

I had heard from others that ChromeOS could dual-boot into Linux, but after reading more I discovered a modern Chromebook could open Linux terminals alongside browser tabs. Intrigued, I looked more into them.

Like most people, I assumed Chromebooks were all cheap machines. Then I read this guide from the Verge. In that article Dieter Bohn links to his full review of the (also unfortunately named) Google Pixelbook Go.

In his review he states:

I mentioned in our first look at the Go that I needed to make sure I didn’t get too excited about the keyboard without further testing. Now that I have, I can just say that I love it. It is my favorite thing to type on by a long shot.

Woah. (emphasis added)

I have two vices: bags and keyboards. After reading that review, I had to try it out.

If the Surface Laptop Go surprised me, I was astonished by the Pixelbook Go. The keyboard lived up to the hype. Battery life is insane. With average evening use around 2-3 hours, I only needed to charge the Pixelbook Go once a week.

Like the Surface Laptop Go, I used a Linux terminal to run the Swift compiler and familiar VIM editor. I even dusted off my tmux chops to get a proper multi-window environment.

While Chrome can be a pig on a Mac, it sings on the Chromebook as you would expect. Paired with the linux environment, I had a very fast, fluid laptop with everything I needed for my evening adventures. I even used the Android version of iA Writer for writing.

As with the Surface Laptop, I splurged for the $850 mid-tier model. Cheaper than the MacBook Air, but not by much.

Experimenting with both has felt like a vacation, during a year where it was impossible to take a real one. Both machines are excellent hardware with good battery life, very good keyboards, and great screens. Apple isn’t the only company that can make good hardware.

But I missed the software.

Some of what I missed were great apps critical to my thought process like Ulysses and Things. While on my writing vacation, I took the Surface Laptop Go. When it came time to write I used my iPad instead, so I could do it in Ulysses.

I also missed smaller details, like typography. Microsoft’s ClearType anti-aliasing makes a mess of most typefaces on anything short of 4K resolution. Google doesn’t license professional typefaces, preferring those with a liberal use license. I missed SF Mono.

Most of all, I missed key-mappings. Cut/Copy/Paste are thumb-x, thumb-c, and thumb-v respectively. If I want to advance the cursor to the beginning or end of the line, that’s thumb-<left> or thumb-<right>.

Re-mapping keys on Windows is do-it-at-your-own-risk, and involves editing the registry. Gross. Google offers a preference in settings, and I was able to remap the search key to something close to the command-modifier on macOS.

Keyboard muscle memory makes for a frustrating sometimes experience, though.

I have a co-worker who likes to experiment as well. We have a standing meeting every few weeks and spend time talking about our flirtations with “the other side”.

He’s the one who likened them to a vacation. I really liked that notion, so I stole it. The same friend had another phrase, which I came to appreciate after a few months using other computers.

The Mac is home.

Microsoft and Google impressed me with their computers. Both were better than expected, and that gives me hope. Yes, really. Hope.

Competition is good for everyone. Both computers I tested are comparable to the MacBook Air.

… or I should say they were until last week.

I’m very excited for the M1, and the computer I will call home in the evenings. I’m proud of my colleagues who worked so hard to bring these new Macs to life.

Sorry Dad, you were wrong. Working at the bakery is awesome, and I still love donuts.

Swift Playgrounds with a Magic Keyboard is quite an experience. ↩
A brief sidebar on the Surface Duo. It is an excellent device for reading. Better than a Kindle level of excellent. While I would never recommend a $1200 device just for reading, if you bought it for other reasons, you have the best e-reader money can buy. ↩
There was an urge to write an EPUB previewer that would take advantage of the Surface Duo’s dual screen configuration. I eventually discovered Google Books as a plausible alternative, after getting past a few bugs. Like the fact that Google Books wouldn’t open EPUBs exported from Ulysses if I forgot to set an author in the metadata. ↩

Looking for Heroes

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The week was a productive one for writing. I now understand how The Traveler stories will end, even though I still have a few touches left to make on the final installment.

As I closed out the story, I asked myself: How has the story changed since I started writing it?

In most ways, the series has turned out as expected. But as I read the drafts of the last two stories, I became concerned that different character might emerge, unexpectedly, as the hero.

Consider the Star Wars trilogy. Everyone thinks of Luke, Princess Leia, Hans Solo, and Chewbacca are the heroes. However, as the story wound towards the penultimate battle between good and evil, it’s the story’s villain—Darth Vader—who makes the sacrifice that saves the day.

Who is the real hero of that story?

I faced a similar dilemma as I wrote my final pages. From my earliest notes, I knew who I wanted to be the hero. But would that character be in the right place during the climatic scenes? And what would that character do to elevate themselves in the eyes of the reader?

Throughout writing The Traveler series, I’ve gone where the characters and their actions led me. Like any author, I favor certain characters. Often it’s the characters I associate with get more prominence in the story. It’s easier to write them.

This unconscious bias is part of who I am. And as a result, it’s part of what I write. I knew who I wanted to be the hero, but it wasn’t always how I wrote the story.

“Write what you know” is common advice I’ve heard from friends who write. I try to be mindful of this whenever I consider a new story. I’m also cautious with it.

The world has enough protagonists who look like me, talk like me, and have a similar background. As a writer, I want to challenge myself. Write about those who are unlike me. Use my writing to explore the world around me, and seek to experience it from different perspectives. Unconscious bias can be a roadblock in this pursuit.

For the final installment, I want a satisfying conclusion to the story. The first two of the three as-yet-to-be-released stories have plenty of reveals, character development, and world building.

For the final story, I’ve set out to write an action movie. Fast paced, with small twists, and enough suspense to leave you hanging on each word.

I only hope the right hero emerges.

Writing has been cathartic. It’s given me an outlet to express my frustration and focus my concern about what happens around me.

Our bias is everywhere, and we can spot it if we’re honest with ourselves. On the eve of this tumultuous election, it’s too easy to label those who disagree with us as “others”.

My country, and the world at large, has become more polarized. It’s easy to blame a single person or even a group of people, but the real issue is within each of us. We all have the opportunity to be a positive, unifying force in our community and country.

We all have the opportunity to be heroes of this story—not just the two guys running for President.

Foremost, if you’re in the U.S. and haven’t already, I hope you vote. Then as you settle in this evening to watch the results, think about how you can be a unifier.

Taking Vacation

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As I alluded in last week’s letter, I took the week off. Not because I had a trip planned or family was visiting from out-of-town. Nope, this was nothing more than much needed time away from work.

During the week, my family was generous enough to let me take some time away from them to focus on writing. It might sound like work, but I treat writing as structured relaxation.

Writing fiction gives me a place to channel frustration and allow the left side of my brain to switch off.

This isn’t the first writing vacation I’ve taken. Last year, about the same time, I took a three-day trip south to Salinas. It was during that trip where I wrote a page in my writing journal that would become The Traveler. Seemed only fitting to devote this year’s writing vacation to completing the series.

And I came close to finishing. Two of the three remaining planned stories were written this past week.

I’m really happy with how they’ve come together. The plot in these last three represent several of the core ideas of the series, and appeared in the very first outlines. I would share my first journal entry with the concept, but it would ruin the story.

It also feels good to complete a story that I’ve started. When I began writing fiction a few years ago, my first (and foremost) goal was to finish.

I’m not done yet—and don’t want to jinx myself—but this most recent writing vacation gave me the momentum I needed to get there.

So things are back on track after my break last month. I’m focused this week on the final story, and—if I can—finish the behind-the-scenes post for The Banker.

That’s a lot of writing (for me), but I’m on a roll.

Breaks are Good

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Folks who know me, are aware how much I enjoy the West Wing. Josiah Barlett has one of my favorite character introductions, which occurs towards the end of the pilot episode.

During that intro he has a line, which starts “Breaks are good—I know how hard each of you work…”

The line sticks with me, and no matter how many times I’ll watch the episode, it never fails to trigger emotion.

I’ve had sort of a break from writing on this site and this letter. Not that I stopped writing altogether—far from it. I just finished review season at work, and I’m still making steady progress on The Traveler series.

There is a rhythm to writing. As long as I’ve tried to write more seriously, I’ve been mindful of its impact. When you’re in rhythm, the words seem to flow with ease and it can be too easy to forget how you struggled in the beginning.

That is, until you fall out of rhythm. Instead of slowing to a trickle, it feels like the bottom falls out and you hit a wall.

I’ve battled falling in and out of rhythm for as long as I’ve written. Most of what I’ve read online stresses the importance of developing “a writing habit”. The advice reduces to something along the lines of “do it over and over”. Apparently writing is easy once you develop a habit.

I’ve tried. Give myself deadlines. Talk about writing goals with others for accountability. I even tried the common tricks. 50,000 words in November or write everyday for a month. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get clear of the inevitable.

Eventually, I would fall out of rhythm.

Let’s have a sidebar about distractions. Writing is something I enjoy, but it isn’t the only thing I enjoy. And like any hobbyist, I struggle to find time for all of the things I find interesting.

“Focus, Rob”. It’s okay, I know you were thinking it even if you didn’t just say it out loud. To be fair, it is certainly part of the problem.

Not because I lack focus, but because of when I lack focus. Helping others focus is a regular part of my day job. When I get to my final hours of the day—the two or three which I can devote to my hobbies—I struggle to find the discipline to focus.

Worse even, the part of my brain that tells me to focus turns an enjoyable task like writing into something I have to do. Which makes writing as enjoyable as the last mile of a marathon.

I’m never happy with what I write in those moments.

Building a habit by rote repetition doesn’t yield the result I’m after, which is to write better. That requires motivation and a brain which isn’t addled by exhaustion.

So when the pressure from work ramped, I took a break. It wasn’t intentional, and it went for longer than I anticipated.

My secret to maintaining motivation? Breaks are good.

Breaks aren’t a problem. For me, they’re a fact of my ongoing attempt to write more seriously. And to keep going, I had to allow myself to be okay with taking breaks.

To go on sidebars. Be tired. Be motivated. To take a cheat day. All of these are okay…

… as long as I start-up again. Pick myself up and keep writing.

After acknowledging his staff’s need to take a break, President Bartlett rallies them together with a simple phrase.

Break’s over.

Speaking of breaks, I’m taking one from work all this week. No promises, but I’m planning to make a big push on The Traveler series, including a behind-the-scenes post for The Banker.

Shut Up and Listen

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Some weeks work against you, and this past week worked me over. It’s an excuse and I’m offering it as one. Fact is, I didn’t make it four weeks before I missed one of these letters. No excuses.

After I missed writing over the weekend, I planned to take the week off. I said “I’ll do it next week”, and gave myself permission to take a cheat week.

… and then I decided against it. I have something to say to my fellow middle-aged, white nerds.

A friend shared a hilarious TikTok video, which they found on Twitter. Go watch it, if you haven’t already. I laughed out loud. Actually laughed. Out loud.

Then I shared it with friends and family. And because it’s Twitter, someone else shared the inevitable reply. There’s always a reply.

And it was, of course, from a middle-aged, white nerd.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been—once again—reminded that I talk too much. I talk, when I should be listening. And when I do listen, I talk before I’ve heard what was said.

I hate this about myself. I want to stop. I try to stop. But I don’t.

This video has been around for years. I’ve watched it over and over. I’ve read think pieces that attempt to explain, so I have an idea of what I should understand from it. But if I’m truthful, I don’t understand it. And that bothers me, I want to understand.

All too often I’ll respond to someone by attempting to figure out or fix their problem. I want to help people, even feel compelled to do it. But not everyone talking about their problems is asking for help. Nor are they necessarily looking for me to solve their issue.

I see the problem before the person.

In principle, I understand how to be a better listener. And yet, I still suck at it.

When I watch this reply to the funny TikTok video, I see myself. It reduces a funny, lighthearted video to another person with a problem to solve.

Fellow middle-aged, white dudes—for fuck’s sake—take a breath, don’t rush to explain.

Shut-up and listen.

Room to Think

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Always a great feeling when I get to publish a new story. I hope everyone enjoyed The Banker. I’m already working on the behind-the-scenes post where I discuss characters, and how I use technology. Look for that later this week.

Like the prior two stories, I found new characters during my first draft. I’m starting to get used to their sudden appearance. A strange feeling, but it encourages me to continue writing. How else am I gonna know how the story ends?

When I told this to a friend, they remarked “You’re watching a movie that you’re making.” It made me think.

Working from home, combined with remote learning has left my family feeling cramped in our quaint California home. If you’ve ever met me in person, you know that I’m loud. And as a manager, I spend the majority of my day in meetings. Talking. Loudly.

A noisy train station would be a less distracting learning environment for my boys.

The Room Where it Happens. Campbell, CA

To make it easier for everyone, the Architect¹ built-out a new space for me to work. She started with an existing detached shed in our backyard. There’s two things you should know about her: (a) she is quite good at what she does, and (b) this is the second time she’s built an office for me. Her final result is a space made for thinking.

I love it.

After months of working on cramped laptop and iPad screens, I finally had room for my 34” cinema-wide display. It’s mounted to a spacious sit/stand worktop, which lets me spread out. Driving the display is a desktop Mac I received just before quarantine².

The difference is stark.

So much, I felt compelled to tweet:

I love the iPad and work full time from it on many days. But every time I use a Mac connected to a huge-ass display, I feel as though I’ve been thinking in pants two sizes too small.

The majority of my day job still involves the iPad. But since moving to the shed, I’ve done most of my writing on the Mac. This runs counter to the growing opinion that the iPad is the ideal writing machine because it removes distraction.

This conceit assumes the iPad’s single-tasking model leads to more focus. And focus is good for writing. You need to immerse yourself in thought in order to write. Or so goes the reasoning.

So why have I preferred the Mac?

As you can imagine, I’ve given this question much consideration. My working theory is this: Deep thinking requires more than focus, it demands space.

This is a screenshot of my Mac while I was editing The Banker. The center black window is my Ulysses editor for the story—the manuscript window, if you will. To the right is the preview window from Ulysses with a custom theme that matches this site’s design.

Having the preview render differently than my editor is an important part of my writing workflow. Especially when editing. A spelling mistake or word choice that gets lost in a text editor can become apparent when previewed.

To the left are my outline windows. The first is another Ulysses window with a numbered list of plot items. The bottom-most window is Things where I collect all of my thoughts (more on that in a bit).

I replicate this layout for each open writing project. Above you see spaces for this post, the aforementioned behind-the-scenes post, and the next story I’m writing. A three-finger swipe on my Magic Trackpad takes me from one project to the next.

From these previews, I can also see which projects needs work. The yellow bands in the editor window are notes for each section or scene in that project. When there is a lot of yellow bunched together, it tells me where the manuscript is incomplete.

Every story starts with a quick two or three sentence synopsis that I capture in Things. Below was the initial synopsis for The Banker.

This is my initial capture of the idea. For stories, I expand this synopsis on paper and eventually in a Ulysses sheet that sits in that window on the left. Here I convert the synopsis into events that set the plot. Thinking about plot moments at a high level lets me hone the characters’ movement within the story.

I want to ensure the actions of my characters drive the plot—not the reverse. Once settled, this list gets converted into notes which I embed into my manuscript using %% tags in Ulysses³.

As you can see, the Mac fills my peripheral vision with a complete picture of the project. From outline to final proof, I can visualize the story at a glance. And I can layer information on top of this as needed.

Safari windows for research. Photos. Even the text editor I needed to update my site’s CSS, so I could properly handle the images in this post. I did all of it in a single space.

This entire workflow is dedicated to a single task: writing. But this task requires multiple windows from multiple apps.

All of this (and more) is why I prefer the Mac for writing. But this is not an indictment of the iPad, nor is it a slight against it. Given that my 34” display is not portable, I have to consider an amended workflow when I travel away from my desk.

If I consider advantages, the Mac loses its edge when compared to an iPad in a portable setting. Even on the largest MacBooks, there’s too much overlap between windows to use my desired three-up Ulysses layout. And once I pare down to a two-window setup, I’m well within the sweet spot of the iPad.

Hard pressed, I can make do with an iPad and a paper notebook because every app mentioned exists on both iPad and Mac. They also work well on both platforms.

But when I really need room to think, there’s no better place than my desktop⁴ Mac connected to a huge-ass display.

People often ask why I call her the Architect. She is, in fact, an architect by training and profession. But also by affliction. Her mind is constantly working. ↩
My team recently released our product on the Mac. ↩
I use a modified version of Matt Gemmell’s theme for my editor window. ↩
Someone will ask: “Why not a laptop connected to the huge-ass display?” In theory they work the same. Except when you consider I’m dumping the current state of my brain into these spaces. The window shuffle and resizing that happens when disconnecting from an external display is devastating. This simply doesn’t occur on a desktop that never leaves its primary display. ↩

I Admire You

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Since today is Labor Day in the US, I decided to take last Friday off from work. The four day weekend was much needed. It’s given me space to think, spend time with my family, and write. I worked on the polish edit of my third story in The Traveler series: The Banker, which should be out soon.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the transition between this story and the next one in the series. I’ve fleshed out the major plot events and Friday morning I began the first draft of a fourth story¹.

In both of these middle stories (née, second Act), I work to develop and shape the principal characters by introducing a pair of supporting characters. These two were on my mind as I watched² the British series Sherlock with my oldest son this weekend.

Friday evening we started A Scandal in Belgravia, which is the first episode of the second season. As the episode started, I remarked to my son “This is my favorite episode of the entire series.” It contains the best character introduction of all time for one of the great supporting characters from the original stories.

Sherlock Holmes was a genius, matched in intellect by only two of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters: Professor Moriarty and Irene Adler. These are the two characters whose intelligence and cunning Holmes respected as equal³ to his own.

Conan Doyle created Moriarty as a means to kill Sherlock Holmes, and later adaptations have fashioned him as an arch-nemesis. Adler is much more interesting, especially when you consider the position of the Conan Doyle Estate that claims Holmes is “only described as having emotions in stories published between 1923 to 1927”.

According to them, the wily detective couldn’t have a love interest. It would violate his character. Instead Conan Doyle wrote Adler as someone that Holmes would admire.

Subtleties, man.

Allow me a brief sidebar on pens, to illustrate the difference.

I’ve wasted a lot of time, and money, searching for the perfect pen. Expensive and cheap. Broad and fine widths. Fountain pens, loose ink, felt tips, and rollerballs. I can tell you about the different types of refills. Which flow better, which dry fast enough. I’m great at parties.

Let’s just say that I love pens. And saying that, you might be interested to know my favorite. My choice will disappoint you.

My favorite pen is the Pilot G2 Retractable, 0.7mm⁴. I buy them by the dozen and stuff them into every pen pocket of every bag I own⁵.

This is the pen I use the most because it is the one that writes the best for me. I know what you’re thinking: they’re made of cheap plastic, and disposable. Gross. Yeah, no one stops to admire this pen when I pull it out of my pocket.

Every “nice” pen I’ve purchased has been a gorgeous piece of art. I enjoy opening the box, feeling the weight and balance in my hands, and toying with the satisfying mechanisms. Then I would inevitably try to write with it.

I have a pet theory that fancy pens only exist so you feel awesome when you’re signing your name.

During any amount of long-form writing I’ve found the weight cumbersome. I’m sure I would get used to it over time. Reach a point where I don’t notice it as much. But then I would forget the pen on a trip or leave it on my desk at work. I’d have to fall back to my stock of trusty G2s and the whole damn process would reset.

Nope, the G2 is my pen. I admire nice pens as beautiful works of art. But I love writing with the Pilot G2.

Might seem silly to exhaust so many words on the difference between love and admiration. But it matters when talking about Irene Adler and how her character develops Sherlock Holmes.

A love interest is an obvious character to write. Love is a base emotion, complex and rich with tiny details that can add authenticity to your narrative. It’s an emotion you can expect your readers to have experienced. And it would be too easy to write Irene Adler as a sexual exploit—which is why nearly every adaptation does it. After all, what better way for your viewer to associate with a complicated character like Sherlock Holmes?

The only problem is that it wouldn’t ring true to Holmes’ actual character, as written by Conan Doyle. He wanted you to struggle with understanding Holmes. If Sherlock feels aloof and hard to predict, he is more believable as a tortured genius. Central to his character is the lack of emotion⁶.

Irene Adler in the Sherlock series (as in the novels) is an object of desire for any man. Better still, Sherlock finds a match for his wit and intelligence. Sauce for the goose, as Mr. Spock would say.

Adler is the ultimate temptation. Conan Doyle doesn’t cheat either. Holmes sees her. Appreciates her as a beautiful piece of art, and desires her, just as the reader does. Holmes even refers to her as “the woman”. Not any woman—the woman.

Again, it would be easier for Sherlock to ignore her. It’s more powerful that he sees her like others, but doesn’t fall for her.

This is how Sherlock excels, when other adaptations fall short. Holmes desires Adler, but is not tempted by her. She articulates to viewers that nothing dissuades the detective from his addiction.

While neither of my supporting characters are as dramatic as Moriarty or Adler, I take inspiration from them and their adaptations. I can’t wait to share my characters with you and the backstory behind their creation.

Look for The Banker later this week.

Working title for the fourth story is The Addict. We’ll see if that sticks. ↩
I’m re-watching them, probably for the fourth or fifth time. This is my son’s first time. ↩
For the Sherlock nerds reading this, in the “The Five Orange Pips” Holmes says he has “been beaten four times—three times by men and once by a woman.” There is literary debate if Holmes meant Adler since A Scandal in Bohemia takes place after this story. ↩
Yes, 0.7mm. I know a lot who prefer an extra fine tip and spend gobs of money to import them from Japan. No thank you. I lightly glide my pen across the paper and hate nothing more than a broken stroke because the angle was too steep. I consider 0.7mm to be the minimum tolerable for a rollerball. ↩
Don’t ask how many bags that is, it’s embarrassing. ↩
Still a silly thing to claim copyright over. ↩

The Sunday Letter

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My friend Daniel started writing a weekly newsletter back in March. The thought of a newsletter has never grabbed me, since I barely publish enough on this site as it is. However, I really enjoy Daniel’s process for writing his newsletter.

During the week Daniel thinks of a prompt (or theme) for the week. Then over the weekend, he sets a timer and writes for an hour. He’s often remarked how the result doesn’t always turn out how he thought when he started. It’s about where the writing takes him.

I like the discipline, but I’m still not crazy about the idea of a separate newsletter. Thus, The Sunday Letter is born.

Why Sunday you might ask? After all, I didn’t publish this until Monday. The reason is because Sunday is when I wrote it, and when I plan to write it in the future. And the point of this letter is to write it.

There’s no real format. I’ll write whatever comes to mind, and there may be a collection of links that I want to discuss. Who knows, this might be dumb.

I’ve been thinking recently about old technology that is still useful today. I wear mechanical wristwatches that are inaccurate by today’s standards, yet perfectly capable of telling me when it’s time for a meeting or to break for lunch.

A few weeks ago, I received a delightful gift from a friend. Earlier we had been discussing our favorite Apple hardware from years past, and the fifth generation iPod came up. It’s a personal favorite of mine. Sleek and compact. The best implementation of the iPod’s signature wheel control. It could play games, and movies & TV shows.

My friend had a fifth generation U2 model in mint condition and hoped I’d give it a new home. I happily obliged his generosity, along with a universal dock that included a 30-pin cable¹.

When I got home, I plugged the dock into my Mac and slotted the iPod into it. To my surprise, the Music app began to sync all of my non-Apple Music tracks which were already downloaded onto the Mac. While it was syncing, I opened my headphone drawer and pulled out one of my favorite pairs: the Bang & Olufsen H6 headphones.

The H6 headphones are wired, which became inconvenient about the same time wireless headphones developed satisfying enough audio quality. I even wrote a review about the Bose headphones which replaced the H6s as my daily drivers.

The experience of the iPod with the H6 headphones was a wonderful trip down memory lane.

When I navigated into the Music sub-menu, there was nothing but my music. The click wheel was fast and simple to browse my large library of music. And every selection was acknowledged by a satisfying hardware actuation.

Once a track started, I was greeted by a familiar low hiss. Treble was crisp. And the entire dynamic range filled my ears. Music sounded more alive than it had for years.

This was exactly the respite I needed after months of quarantine. My head buzzed and my heart swelled as five minutes turned into twenty. I became lost in music.

Since that evening, I went in search of the 2nd generation of the B&O H6 headphones which B&O no longer sells. I found them cheap from an Amazon affiliate merchant and they live up to the high praise reviewers gave them four years ago. I also found an iPod classic (160 GB) in mint condition² on eBay for a pittance.

Listening to music on a decade old iPod through a wire may seem anachronistic in 2020, but it begs the question: Do I really need a general purpose computer to listen to music?

The iPod is purpose-built to play music. Its interface is designed for flipping through songs and albums. The display is no larger than it needs to be, and the battery doesn’t need to be recharged for a week. All this in a package that makes my iPhone 11 Pro feel like a brick by comparison.

An iPod just plays music³—and I think it’s better at playing music than any other device I own. I’ve enjoyed using an iPod again the same way I enjoy setting the time on my mechanical watches each morning.

They’re both old, but still useful to me today.

This week’s links:

Marco Arment’s review of the 2nd generation H6 headphones. I still use my wireless headphones for WebEx meetings and FaceTime. For music, there are no finer headphones than these. They sound great connected to my iPod and my iPhone. Bonus: there’s nothing to charge.
Airlink Bluetooth Adapter. I bought this dingus a few years ago. It works reasonably well to convert my H6s into bluetooth headphones. It affects the quality modestly, but I only notice it in direct comparisons. Also, I never clip this thing to my shirt like the photos show, I just slip it into my pocket.
The reMarkable 2. Speaking of dedicated devices, I pre-ordered the reMarkable 2 last week. I’ve always been fascinated by the potential of e-ink. Drawing tablets based on e-ink seem to becoming more mainstream and the reMarkable is the best of the lot. Mine doesn’t ship until November, but I’m excited to give it a try.

I joked that I wasn’t sure if I still had any thirty-pin connectors. The universal dock was also in mint condition. ↩
The merchant had replaced the chrome back panel and the screen. The iPod is practically brand new. ↩
While it can play movies, games, and sync contacts & calendars, the iPhone is much better suited for these tasks. ↩

Writing “The Taxi Driver”

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When I published The Traveler, it was a one-off story. It was safe. To publish the next story, I would need to commit to the world I had created, and a broader narrative.

The Taxi Driver was a hard story to finish.

I was confronted with a host of writing challenges in The Taxi Driver, foremost the character of Gertrude. Recently, my writing has favored female protagonists. I’m not sure why.

Perhaps it’s the challenge.

As the protagonist, Gertrude needed to be a strong, well-defined character. As a male writer, I cannot rely on personal experience or my own instincts to understand how a woman thinks.

I prize characters who feel genuine, and I tend to model their behavior after actual people from my past. It takes more than that, however. To get into a character’s soul, you have to understand how they think. Only then will they become a real, breathing person readers can recognize.

As a character, Gertrude could have been written as a man or woman. Her strength defies her circumstance, one of the familiar traits of the hero archetype. Gertrude has little to live for, and nothing left to lose.

She is backed into a corner, metaphorically speaking—a construction of fight or flight. That is the source of her strength.

But it’s her fierce independence that reminded me of several influential women in my life, so I chose to write her as a female. She adopts many of their mannerisms and personality. She is the right mix of stubbornness and defiance—yet she’s still unsure of herself.

In the end, I hit my mark. Gertrude is looking for a reason to live—something, someone, maybe a cause. Then suddenly, purpose falls out of the sky right onto the hood of her taxi.

My original draft of The Taxi Driver started with dull exposition:

The day she met him started like most others. Gertrude Weathers walked along the alleyway, side-stepping the usual detritus which littered her path to work.

When she reached her car, she pulled back the shabby cover that protected it from rain.

Boring.

As I developed the story, I needed more characters to help move along the narrative. The purpose of my original draft was to figure out Gertrude and describe her situation. But there wasn’t enough for a story. Her environment needed character.

I found Franklin in the second draft, while asking myself: what is the usual detritus that littered Gertrude’s path? Who put it there, and how did that person experience life?

Franklin is the balance to Gertrude’s poverty. She’s right on the edge, but still works hard to improve her circumstance in a rigged society. Franklin doesn’t have that luxury, for reasons implied—but not explained—in The Taxi Driver.

Franklin is confined to a chair, but I don’t say this anywhere in the text. As you read more of Franklin in later stories, you might notice how everyone glances down towards him. He struggles with a sense of direction, and has a habit of sneaking up on people.

I went back and forth on how and when to describe Franklin’s disability, but never found a place where it worked in Taxi Driver. After a few failed drafts, it occurred to me: Gertrude sees only Franklin, not his chair¹.

You may notice I don’t provide a lot of physical description of my characters. To be honest, I enjoy the efficiency. I prefer to leave those details to the reader’s imagination. Let you fill in the gaps from your own experience.

I still describe my characters, but their appearance is less interesting than how they behave or talk.

There is one insignificant physical detail for Gertrude that slipped in: The neon green bolt of hair. It’s not important to the story, but it does connect Gertrude to a woman from my past. Someone whose personality provided inspiration.

During my junior year of high school I briefly dated a senior. I’ll call her M to keep things anonymous. She was fierce. Independent, stubborn, and possessing a flair for the dramatic².

M had an old fashioned name, the kind most women receive as a middle name in honor of their mother’s favorite great-aunt. A name like Gertrude.

She bleached a streak of her brown hair platinum blonde, and her favorite pair of shoes were lime-green Chuck Taylors. For a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC in 1995, this was quite exotic. Especially for a sixteen year-old boy.

In real life M was a woman at a time when I was still a boy. She was mature for her years, with a severe outlook on life. Part of a military family, she moved across the country as a teenager, and didn’t like for people to get close.

She searched for purpose. For a reason that would make sense of it all.

We lost touch after she graduated and moved away. I like to think she’s figured things out and is off conquering the world. My memory of who she was lives on in Gertrude. And maybe that’s why she reads genuine to me.

I can only hope you enjoyed her story as well.

There’s a moment where Gertrude asks Franklin to “… help me move the body”. It’s a hat tip to Gertrude’s world view , but also a sleight of hand that may lead readers to draw certain conclusions about Franklin. Conclusions that could be useful in later stories. ↩
Near zero chance she is reading this. But a few of my high school pals who are reading need only two words to remember her: black roses. ↩

Writing for the Screen

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’m gonna come out and say it: acting is hard. In interviews actors talk about “the work”, and I’ve always found this characterization odd—is it really?

After my fourth take of the same three lines, two hours after we started filming, I felt it.

I feel like a jerk for ever thinking it wasn’t work. Like much of art, acting is easy to criticize, and incredibly difficult to master. Not everyone can do it, either.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. The entire experience was exhilarating. But as someone who cares about doing things well, I realize I’m not very good at acting.

I thought talking to a camera would be similar to a stage presentation in front of a live audience. Both are performances, right?

The difference is apparent by what the camera doesn’t show you—the dozens of people behind the camera.

Light and sound crews, camera operators, story producers taking notes, the person advancing your slide deck, and an “A.D.”—Assistant Director—barking¹ at everyone to keep them on task.

My crew was just shy of 25 people². They all had more experience than I did, and they rarely made mistakes. And if they did, they apologized to me!

Which is insane, because of how many mistakes I made. Flubbing words, shifting my weight out of frame, bouncing out of their focus line, or sounding like a zombie.

There is a director, too. Their job is to help you get your best performance, and maintain continuity across a host of other performances.

The whole machine is setup for iteration. Even if you “nail it” on your first take, you do another. When you get a “good take”, you experiment with the next one. Try things that might fail, then try it another way.

As a developer and designer, I’m familiar with iteration. Only those iterations are private, not in front of 25 people executing their job perfectly take after take.

I felt relief every time the director said “check the gate”. That meant it was time to move on.

The script is very different from stage presentations. For the stage, I typically write key points I want to hit upon in my speaker notes. Something I would glance at, never something I would read.

If you read on stage, you break eye contact with your audience. You can’t see their reactions, nor can you make them laugh.

On stage it is just you. You advance your slides³. You determine transitions. There is little coordination with others, so you can ad lib and you’re the only one who knows⁴.

On camera, those 25 people need to do their jobs. And to do their jobs, they need to know what you are going to do. They need a script.

Fortunately for me, there was a fancy teleprompter that allowed me to look directly at the camera and read my script.

Problem solved, right?

About one times in three I flub the word “statistics” when I say it out loud. I avoid it in conversation. It isn’t the only word I struggle with either.

Truth be told, I’m extremely self-conscious about my speech.

That sounds weird coming from someone who likes to talk as much as I do, but there you go. Only real talk on this blog.

Back to the script. When I was writing I didn’t think about reading it. I thought of it like a presentation: I wouldn’t really say all of this, I’d come up with something that sounded more natural in the moment.

I focused on narrative. Story arcs, reveals, emphasis, and transitions. I built it like a story that one would experience by reading, not hearing. And I did not consider words I struggle to speak.

Writing fiction has taught me the importance of dialogue. People speak in incomplete sentences. They offer half thoughts, and are often prone to ramble.

If you write a character that speaks effortlessly in complex, multi-clause sentences without a breath—well, that character better be a robot.

Filming reinforced this lesson in dialogue⁵.

It was hard not to become meta and critique my writing while trying to perform in front of the camera. I made it through the day by treating commas as periods. Phrases where I stumbled, like “an example implementation”, were simplified into “an example”.

The experience was wonderful, and I learned a lot about acting and writing for the screen.

I’m not sure if I will ever film like this again. Maybe if the project is right. But I will never again wince when I hear an actor talk about “the work” during an interview.

I’ll just nod and think to myself: “That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”

My AD was a real card. When I met them, they told me “I’m here to make sure we don’t have fun.” An upmost professional, and very good at their job. A liar, too. We had a ton of fun. ↩
Everything was perfectly safe, don’t worry. Everyone was required to wear masks and maintained a minimum safe distance at all times. ↩
It’s not always true that you advance your slides. My first presentation for a Mac conference was a blitz talk for the 2009 C4 conference. The organizer wrote software that would auto-advance each slide every 15 seconds.

For that presentation I flipped through index cards with notes written in black sharpie. ↩
During my presentation at the 2015 Release Notes conference, Charles Perry and his wife were behind a computer recording the talk. They could see my speaker notes as I presented and they later remarked “You didn’t look down at your notes.”

My response was surprised “Was I saying what was written in them?” The point of this story, other than it makes me sound cool, is that I always ad lib my stage presentations.

My public speaking class in university taught me that the best public speaking is extemporaneous. ↩
Pro tip: when your Director says “Woah, that sentence is a mouthful”, your script has problems. ↩

History of Nebula Squad

Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The idea first came to me on August 9, 2019 while sitting at a traffic light. I tapped the Ulysses butterfly and wrote:

Military Space Novel
Main character is told to sit out upcoming mission

I let the story marinate for the rest of the drive. Worlds, characters, events. Friends, foes, and palace intrigue.

My favorite part of any science fiction story is the history. What is the connective tissue from now into the imagined future?

As I wrote the history for Nebula Squad, I thought a lot about the power to lead. Where does it comes from? Ancient kingdoms were ruled by leaders believed to be chosen by God. How does a reasoned society yield power to a leader?

Democratic republics were formed on the equal promise of prosperity¹. What happens if prosperity evaporates? What would fill the vacuum?

For my story, I created a destructive event that would push humanity from reason. Force them to question the most basic assumption of any free society: security.

The world of Nebula Squad is set far in the future. Humanity colonized deep space using generation ships that traveled for hundreds of years. When they arrived at a hospitable system, they built interstellar gates to travel back.

At the edge of known space they discovered a mysterious disease. It spread quickly through the interconnected systems, and soon no one would survive past the age of sixty.

Nebula Squad takes place generations after the blight first spread. Society is governed by a small ruling family, who form the Grand Tribunal. They are the offspring of a miracle—a woman born with an immunity to the disease. A genetic immunity that can be passed on to her children.

The Grand Tribunal, and its regional tribunals, divine power from this immunity. They are “God’s chosen”.

Most dystopian futures cheapen the value of life due to expected over-population. Because of the blight, I can write the opposite with my dystopian future.

The founding principle of the Grand Tribunal is that “murder cannot be tolerated”. Life is sacred. Anyone convicted of homocide commits their family to a lifetime of military service for the next seven generations.

Under the stress caused by the blight, intelligent people of reason consider this a rational response to the economic crisis. It’s not hard to imagine, considering the examples of humanity’s past.

Many today hold a certain contempt for people of faith because their beliefs can be distorted by the morally corrupt. History has shown us that reason and science can be equally misappropriated².

This is one of the themes I hope to explore in Nebula Squad.

When “military space novel” first appeared on the page back in August, I didn’t expect to write such a contemporary story.

As a friend once told me, “Life has a funny way of leaking into your writing”.

Indeed, John Locke established that private property was essential for liberty. “The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.” ↩
The guillotine was once considered a humane means of public beheading by the same government so committed to reason they created a calendar based on the decimal system. ↩

Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Like many others during shelter-in-place, I’ve relied on my AirPods Pro to communicate with my team. Eight hours of calls is a lot to ask of your ears, regardless of your headphones.

To provide an alternative for my ear canal, I picked up the Bose 700s after reading enthusiastic reviews of their new microphone array. They’ve performed great in my first day of calls, and sound better to my ear than the QC35s.

I expect to split time between these and the AirPods Pro for video meetings.

Writing “The Traveler”

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With each new story published, I plan to follow with a behind-the-scenes look at how it came about. This allows me to put each story in context, and dive into some technical details, which you might find interesting.

The Traveler started life in my writing journal as a writing exercise.

This past November I was in Salinas for writing vacation. Over a long weekend I parked myself in a hotel to plan and draft the first part of my novel: Nebula Squad¹.

Each day I slept-in, wrote for 4 hours, took a break for food, then wrote for another 4-8 hours. It was four glorious days in The Zone™.

During one of those food breaks—after ordering the Prime Rib special, with a root beer—I tapped out a quick story on my iPhone²:

A traveler from out of town sits down at a table.
He sits facing away from the door. Towards the TVs showing a regional sports favorite.
“I’ll take the prime rib special with a house salad. Root beer to drink.”

Nothing more than a simple, boring description of what I was doing³. From there I imagined a conversation between the stranger and another patron of the diner:

An older woman from an adjacent table speaks up.
“You’re not from around here.”
“Do I stick out?”
“You blend in fine, I reckon. But you ordered the Prime Rib special. Lou in the back tries to sneak in horse meat on the weekends.”

At the time, I didn’t know the stranger’s name or that the older woman would become Eunice. They were pieces on a chess board, not characters.

As I cut into my delicious prime rib⁴, I considered life as an out-of-town stranger. Imagined my lunch as a story.

Then I put it away and moved on with the weekend. It was a writer’s exercise and never meant to be anything more.

Months later, I needed material to publish for the site launch. None of my short stories were polished enough, so I thumbed through my writing journal.

I chose The Traveler as the first piece of fiction I would publish. Warm memories of that prime rib, and the sense of adventure in the midst of my writing trip drew me back into the story.

However, it needed work before it was fit to be my first impression. The story needed to grow past a poor documentary of my November lunch. That required defined characters, with obstacles in their path.

In addition to pages of story fragments in a writing journal, my Ulysses library is littered with pieces of three novels and several short story projects.

The backstory for one of those short stories centers around the abduction of Thad Michols. I found a place for my stranger and importunate diner patron, and a world where horse meat masquerades as beef. Most of all, I found conflict.

After a week-long edit, the published version of The Traveler became a prologue for a larger story.

The response to my first story has been a warm welcome back to the web. The site launched earlier this week without analytics. I wasn’t confident in that decision, until the tweets and text messages starting rolling in.

The enthusiasm has exceeded my expectation—and caught me a little off guard. Many of you have asked: “When do we get to read more of the story?”

At the beginning of this week there wasn’t an immediete plan to finish this untitled short story. But after your response to The Traveler, I’m making one.

The story is already plotted, and character biographies have been written. I even have a few pages of manuscript.

It occurred to me that I could publish the story as a serial. I’m not sure the schedule or frequency just yet. But I’m running with this idea.

Once I have more manuscript drafted, I’ll let you know.

Thank you for reading!

At some point I need to tell you more than the title. ↩
In Ulysses, of course. Have I mentioned how much I love Ulysses? ↩
It was a Saturday in November, so the “regional sports favorite” was college football. My favorite sport, in my favorite time of year. ↩
Most definitely not horse meat. ↩

It’s Good to be Back

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Everything clicked during a conversation about a bathroom remodel. It was a typical evening with friends. Glasses of wine, a few cocktails, and conversations about our kids. Only there was nothing typical about it over FaceTime.

My moment of zen happened after someone asked Amanda about her remodeled shower:

“I really like the tile… except this one line of grout near the top of shower. It drives me crazy.”

Turns out most of the grout lines are the same width, except the one right at eye level. The grout line staring back at her every morning in the shower.

Will others notice it? Not likely. But that isn’t the point.

I built my last site so I would write more. The middle of 2016 is when I hit my stride. The words started to flow, even with a line of grout staring me in the face: There were too many steps to publish.

Statically generated sites are straightforward technical beasts. They are the simplest way to customize your site down to an individual HTML tag. However, publishing requires FTP and an SSH session.

The process wore me down. I never stopped writing, but I slowly stopped publishing.

Everything is written in Ulysses. And what I really wanted was to export from Ulysses directly to my site. Bonus points if I could schedule a post in the future.

In mid-2016, one could publish directly from Ulysses if that site was powered by Wordpress. I know what you’re going to say, but hear me out. This is my therapy session.

Ever heard the phrase: “The final 20% is where a project dies”? That’s where we’ll start with my adventure in Wordpress themes. It wasn’t PHP or performance concerns, rather the tiny, very significant-to-me typographic flourishes, which I struggled to replicate in Wordpress.

I found workarounds. Mostly.

For eight months I meticulously built a theme, and imported older posts by hand. I was down to a final bug: render the footnote return character on iOS without a godforsaken emoji. It proved to be the hill my Wordpress dreams died upon.

Eight months of work, and there were still irregular grout lines.

Cured of my delusions for using a framework out of my control, I decided to write my own publishing system. Sigh. I wrote a server in Swift. And built an iOS app to push posts to the server, and generate a static HTML. It was a wonderful system I affectionately named Agatha.

It took me an entire year of nights and weekends to build. Now it was 2019 and two years since I had published anything. To add further insult, the introduction of SwiftUI was a sharp reminder that I would continue to waste precious writing time keeping the iOS app going.

Oh, and I still couldn’t publish directly from Ulysses. Shit.

Agatha taught me a lot about Swift, but its best gift was focus: I wanted a great way to share my fiction. The structure for this site started as the four different post types I created for the Agatha system.

Accordingly, each post falls into one of four buckets:

Short Stories: complete stories of fiction, written by me.
Selections: from my writing journal, fragments of fiction.
Annotated Links: short comments on things that grab my attention.
Blog Posts: non-fiction blurbs about writing and other things that interest me (like music or watches).

In addition to fiction I’ll publish here, I hope you’ll enjoy a behind-the-scenes peak at my in-progress novel, Nebula Squad. It’s my third attempt at writing one, and it’s already off to a good start. In February, I shared the first third of the story with other writers (i.e., friends), and their feedback was positive.

This was my watershed moment. I’m writing with purpose, and it’s time to publish again.

I’ll keep my old page going at rd2.io until I’ve migrated its content over to this domain, and setup proper redirection. Oh, and we should probably talk about my new pen name. All in good time.

The site isn’t perfect. But it’s thoroughly modern, served over HTTPS, and equipped with a JSON and an RSS feed. The whole thing is powered by a custom build of Ghost, and an unapologetic Web-assed Web Page design, built only with CSS and not a lick of client-side JavaScript.

There are still irregular grout lines, but will anyone else notice? That isn’t the point.

This is a start.

DJR: Font of the Month Club

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

David Jonathan Ross:

Fonts of the month include distinctive display faces, experimental designs, and exclusive previews of my upcoming retail typeface families. By diversifying your font collection at a minimal cost, the club can push you to try new and interesting type in your work.

If you love typography like I do, then you’d be crazy not to join this club. It’s a steal at $72 for the year (that’s $6/month). Even better, you can purchase past months for $12. That’s dirt cheap for high quality typefaces.

The titles for my fiction posts are set in Roslindale Condensed Bold (June, 2017).

Ants Bury their Dead

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The lessons we learn from children. The boys got an ant farm for their birthday last year. The kind many of my friends had when I was a child. Clear plastic rectangle filled with sand, and holes on top for air to get in. I generally don’t care for nature—particularly insects—so I did my best to ignore the ant farm.

Over the winter break, the boys made solariums, and became fascinated with plants, nature, and things which grow. In the Fall, I took my youngest son’s Cub Scout den on a nature walk around our neighborhood. The boys had a blast. I was not thrilled, but I’ve learned to adapt.

Did you know you can have ants mailed to you? I didn’t until yesterday.

They shipped in a clear plastic tube, that seems too small, packed with small carrots for them to eat during their journey. I can’t imagine being shipped through US Mail in a space that small. It struck me as inhumane as we opened the package. But they’re ants. Insects.

Insects that bite, it turns out. Yeah, there’s a warning on the package. Ants bite. My oldest stood a good distance away as the Architect opened the tube of ants, and dumped them onto the sand. As she did, I noticed a few of our ants didn’t survive their journey.

My six year old noticed as well.

It bothered him. The sorrow started with a tremble in his chin. Then his eyes become long, and he stood still, suddenly quiet. The tears soon came, followed by wails.

There is a point in every parent’s life when they’re confronted with a harsh reality: you can’t comfort them. He was inconsolable at the sight of death. All we could offer were hugs, and tissues. Thoughts, and prayers.

Just as I was becoming emotional, the Architect graciously offered to lay down with him until he fell asleep. As I retreated back to the living room, I walked past the ant farm, and what I saw was extraordinary.

The ants were burying their dead.

I could hear the sobs of my son, muffled by his bedroom door. His mother would tell him, “the ants are with their friends.” And I watched the ants, as they methodically picked up their dead friends, and built a cemetery.

When we lose our children, we lose their innocence—we lose their light. We cannot always comfort them, but we must protect them. And until we learn this lesson from children, we’ll continue to bury our dead.

Just like the ants.

Background Thinking

Tue, 30 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Last weekend I flew out to Vegas to meet my brother. During the trip I started reading Leviathan Wakes, the first book in The Expanse series by authors¹ James S.A. Corey. I’ve made no secret of my love for the show, and I’m reading the books hoping for more detail about the broader universe.

One character, Josephus Miller, stands out as my favorite both in the show, and the books. For those who haven’t read the books or seen the show: Miller is a washed-up detective, divorced, and well past his prime. Certain parts of his character are cliche—e.g., he’s an alcoholic—but what fascinates me is how he thinks.

He’s a detective, so his brain is constantly mulling over a mystery. Corey describes his mind like a computer spawning background threads. He observes crime scenes, then puts that train of thought on the back burner while attempting to solve a crime.

The back burner.

I’ve noticed many people use this metaphor to mean “forgotten”. But the pot on a back burner continues to cook, you just aren’t paying attention to it. I’ve always used this phrase to mean “something I haven’t finished thinking about.” The thought is there, without bothering concentration on primary tasks, but some part of me keeps churning.

Hardly forgotten.

At times, I feel incredibly slow to pick up on things. I watch others catch on to ideas much faster. Other times I wonder if anyone else in the room will ever catch up. Past managers have labeled me an “intuitive thinker”, but that never felt right.

Anyone who knows me well, would confirm that I’m incredibly un-intuitive. Nor am I quick witted—a trait common to intuitive thinkers. Given enough time, however, I can out think anyone. I believe this due to my ability to effectively put thoughts on the back burner, and continue to think about them, until something clicks. I’m always thinking.

I rely on my sub-conscious brain to churn through what I observe, and process everything into a cohesive picture. The shower, the dinner table, and the car are most often the places where an idea will surface that pulls everything together for me. At times I’ll gaze into the distance. Other times, I need a monotonous task which requires only a little attention.

An early manager—who really understands engineers—used to tell me I was a “burst worker”. That is, I would sit on a problem, and think it completely through. Then I’d open a text editor and dash out a solution in an afternoon. The process was neither slower, or faster, than my fellow engineers. But unless you observed an entire cycle, I would either appear a procrastinator, or a 10x engineer.

I’ve always loved that manager², because she taught me to stop feeling lazy when I was in the middle of a deep think. She helped me realize I couldn’t defy the laws of physics either, and solve a problem in hours.

Years later, I’ve refined my understanding. My system works best when I keep things in front of me, with enough time to cogitate. I’m not reactive. I’m methodical, and aggravatingly³ slow to reach a conclusion.

Back to Miller. His super-power isn’t the ability to put thoughts on the back burner. His real power is the ability to see patterns, and piece them into a cohesive picture from disconnected trains of thought. Like a great chess player, he sees the entire board. Understands that even the tiniest interaction is often a mask for something larger.

Unfortunately for Miller, he needs a big mystery. He’s lost without one. I often wonder if Miller’s untold fall-from-grace involve him manufacturing such a mystery.

The background thinker needs a huge problem. Without one large enough, they cannot spawn the desired volume of individual thought processes to digest. Like Miller, I over think the mundane in search of the grandiose. Greater satisfaction follows the increased cognitive load. The more back burners, the better.

Miller is an addict. I don’t believe you become an addict—you are, or you aren’t. Exposure to the right vice surfaces this condition. I believe Miller was addicted to mysteries before he became addicted to drugs.

Am I addicted to thinking? Probably not a discussion appropriate for a blog post. But I found it easy to associate with how Miller thinks…

Not a typo. It’s a pen name for two different authors: Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Abraham originally wrote the chapters in the head of the Miller’s character. ↩
She knows who she is… if she’s reading. ↩
I married the exact opposite. Oh, she is methodical, but—goddamn—she’s a much faster thinker. ↩

On Loss

Thu, 11 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

On my way home from work, I was getting supplies to decorate the house in early December; The night before the Architect’s birthday. It took me about 30 minutes to find everything. Walking back to the car, I stumbled upon a violent scene.

The front passenger window was smashed. Glass was scattered inside the car, and outside on the pavement.

Some bastard broke into my car, and stole my bag.

Car windows, computers, iPads, and headphones all share something in common: they can be replaced. That’s undoubtedly what the thieves were after, but that’s not all they took. For years I’ve searched, bought, and tested every pen and bag I could find. What I carried that night were the best. My favorites.

Yes, I can buy new pens, and packs of the same make and model. But this particular pen—my favorite pen—and this particular pack had been lovingly used for years. They were one-of-a-kind. They were mine.

My pack, a Goruck GR1 had traveled the world, and seen new places with me. The pen, a Retro 51 Tornado, had signed the legal documents forming MartianCraft. It had written untold numbers of articles, press releases, and love letters to my wife.

Both were companions. I could not replace the scars, dents, scratches, and other imperfections that fondly reminded me of our journey together. Now, I only have memories.

It wasn’t the end of the world. I am sad to have lost them, but with their loss I gained an opportunity to start anew. Clean slates, which can provide new memories, and new adventures.

I replaced each with something slightly different. I traded my Retro 51 Deluxe Stealth Tornado with a different style of the Tornado—the Vintage Blacksmith Roosevelt. Instead of the standard black 21L GR1from Goruck, I purchased the 34L GR2 in Coyote. Each choice had a link to the prior, which was lost, but was different.

After a painless conversation with my insurance company, my replacements were purchased and on their way. But the assholes also took my novel journal, a black small Moleskine¹ I purchased back in November. It contained random thoughts, and musings about the characters I was writing, including my notes from my first writing weekend. I would never get those thoughts back.

As soon as I first grasped the Roosevelt, I was compelled to write something. I cracked open the brand new small Moleskine journal, and wrote this on the first page:

Is it better to dwell on what was lost, or focus on what is ahead?
My last journal was stolen. This journal represents a rebirth.
Not from ashes or fresh from the womb.
I’m reborn with the knowledge of what came before.
An iteration of an original. Sown in the knowledge of what came before.
Bravely looking forward to what will change.

Every other page of this journal will be filled with random plot ideas, and character explorations. I wanted the first page to recognize this particular journal as the second version—a reminder of what was lost.

Like my pen and pack, I was starting fresh, but not from scratch. Every thought I wrote would be influenced by a prior thought, which I might or might not have written down in the old journal.

The Architect would confirm I can be quite melodramatic. However, my usual penchant for drama isn’t to blame this time. Two of my dear friends felt actual loss in 2016, and I’m fretting over things which can be replaced.

But what you might consider an over-reaction was actually catharsis. Well… sort of. Relief not from my own emotions, but Mara’s². Her story is a common tale of discovering one’s identity, and I was stuck trying to place myself in the middle of her search for purpose. It’s one of the central themes in my novel.

This might sound strange to some, but it doesn’t feel like I wrote those words in the journal. Rather my main character, Mara, spoke them to me. At the time I wrote them, I was deep into character writing. I was thinking (and dreaming) in the voices of my characters.

The burglary was a perfect vehicle to focus on Mara’s loss of innocence. When I sat down to write about my own loss, I found words for her moment instead. Below is a re-write that found its way into the first draft, in her voice:

Is it better to dwell on what was lost, or focus on the path ahead?
My parents were stolen from me. I am a rebirth.
Not from ashes or from any Creator’s womb.
I’m reborn with the knowledge of what came before.
The iteration of an original, sown in the wisdom which proceeded me.
I look forward, bravely, and accept what has to change.

This is a pivotal moment in the novel. One where Mara realizes she’s come of age, faced with choices and responsibilities.

Months later, I barely remember writing the original passage, but it feels genuine. It sounds like her. My loss was transferred, and in the process transformed into her loss.

And that’s pretty cool.

http://rd2.io/2016/11/writing-novel-finally/#fnref:4 ↩
It’s early and I’m still writing my first draft, so Mara’s name could change. ↩

The Artist and the Technician

Sun, 30 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Sometime in late March, I got my groove back. It was in a room, surrounded by nerds a lot smarter than me. It was a reach. I wasn’t completely sure what I was doing there, but—holy shit!—they listened. And then it happened. I felt it.

I was back, motherfuckers.

Was it burn out? Hard to say. I slept a lot in 2016. Felt like shit. Downtrodden, and worn. Doesn’t matter.

I don’t have any advice for people who are burning out. I can add little to the discussion that hasn’t been explained by smarter people. You hit bottom, then you keep falling. In the end, all you get is a story. Mine isn’t very interesting.

Running MartianCraft was never an easy gig. In 2015 it became a lot harder. I wasn’t the only one at the helm. I had help. Then we hit the point in the movie where the protagonist figures out how to save everyone, but there’s a cost; You can right the ship, and save your friends, but it’ll push you too far. You can’t come back.

Was I done? Hardly. I took the lemons, and made lemonade. Again, I had help. An awesome family, with more patience and understanding than I deserve. I have a badass job, that challenged me right from the beginning.

But, I wasn’t ready for it. I was wounded, and incomplete. And I had to learn to be a technician again.

In hindsight, this was the easy part. Like riding a bike. Stupidly, I thought I could be 100% working for someone else. I learned quickly why your best employees only give you 60%. It’s hard to go full bore when you don’t have all the information.

A lot of start and stop, only this time I didn’t always know why. How did I ever do this? Turns out, quite easily. Just needed some practice. So I dug in… and tried to remember how to run the debugger.

After binge-watching Netflix for the first few months, I noticed a hole, which wanted to be filled. What do normal people do in the evening¹?

I started writing more, started exercising regularly. Reading too—lots of novels, and keeping up on current events. And then in the Fall, I finally sat down to write my novel. There were a lot of fits and starts, but nothing stuck. I would stumble, and couldn’t maintain any momentum.

I had lost my edge.

At first, I didn’t take it seriously. I ignored it. I have a fulfilling job. I have a loving family, and I spend much more time with them now. On the outside, life was good, and I wore a smile. But on the inside, I was still dragging ass. Still worn, and still down.

A job gives me purpose, but art gives me meaning.

I’m a builder, and I like to fix things. A problem solver. A technician. But I was never only a technician. I needed to put myself out there, throw caution to the wind, and risk rejection.

Which brings us back to that conference room, filled with smarty pants. I’m not sure how much convincing I managed. The jury is still out. But I convinced myself of one thing: I have plenty more to give.

April was a month filled with art. I tried things and experimented, with a confidence I haven’t felt in a long time. I explored some new, and rediscovered some old. It’s been a lot of fun.

Next month, I’ll have something new to share. I can’t way to show it to you. It has a good backstory.

See you in May.

Beyond the obvious: spending more time with my family. I’m a night owl, so I’m concerned about the time of evening after everyone else is in bed. ↩

What Sounds Good

Mon, 03 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The end of March marked a year at Apple, and a year living in California. Things are coming into focus, and I’m beginning to settle. As that happens, I revisit old goals, and uncover things I wanted to do before the big change.

I’ve written about music in the past year, especially film music. I’ve reviewed albums, and made a few playlists. When I tweaked the style of this site towards conversations with friends, it was to write more casual pieces. For example, quick blurbs about interesting reads, or the latest music I’m listening to.

Below are three albums currently in heavy rotation.

The Expanse (Original Television Soundtrack)

Now that I have a day job with no evening hobby, I have time to watch television again. I love The Expanse. It’s the best sci-fi I’ve seen in years, and the soundtrack is really good too.

Most opening themes wear on me after the third or fourth listen, because you always hear it when watching the show. This theme is different. It instantly throws me into the zone. I often start the album just to hear the opening sequence.

Clinton Shorter’s score is standard fare for deep space. You’ll hear the Taiko drums from Bear McCreary’s Battlestar Galatica, and tones from Gregson-William’s excellent score for The Martian. Themes often linger, similar to the way melodies from Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar will linger over quiet space sequences.

It’s familiar, but doesn’t break new ground for the genre. Instead of innovation, it’s simply a solid execution that adds to the show, and provides a deft amount of atmosphere to the vacuum of space.

It’s my favorite new listen in 2017. I’ve been known to play this album twice a day during the work week. You can listen to it on Apple Music or Amazon Music (free with a Prime membership).

OJ: Made in America (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Ezra Edelman’s Oscar-winning documentary is a must watch for any child of the 80s. It’s raw, and leaves a lot for the viewer to think about after the credits roll.

Gary Lionelli’s score strikes a sad, somber tone throughout. Notes of slow, urban jazz are punctuated by felt piano, glockenspiel, and vibraphone. It feels fresh and modern, similar in character to Jeff Beal’s score for House of Cards, and Dominic Lewis’ score for the second season of The Man in the High Castle.

Unlike Shorter in The Expanse, Lionelli writes an aggressive score that establishes the tone of a scene, instead of merely supporting it. I saw the music as the narrator, guiding you between interviews, and news reels.

One of my favorite tracks is Buffalo Baryshnikov. This cue plays underneath slow motion footage of Simpson rushing for the Buffalo Bills the year he broke the single season rushing record. A graceful piece to establish the elegant pace of Simpson’s rushing style¹.

It’s a good album for times when you need to ponder, or reflect—especially if you’re sad.

Listen to it on Apple Music or free with Amazon Music Unlimited.

Vanquish

The final album is another in-your-face, epic motivational number, for which Two Steps from Hell is known. All of the familiar characters are here, with sonorous vocals over top boisterous brass, and strings.

Standouts include two vocal-heavy tracks: the titular Vanquish, and Dangerous. The former feels like it could be the title song for a Bond movie. My boys frequently ask me to repeat it whenever they hear it in the car. If you’re looking more for the signature Two Steps sound, I’d recommend these tracks: Siege (9), Turin (13), and Inferni (17).

Finally, High C’s (14), is a standout for what it isn’t. Most of albums from Two Steps from Hell are heavily produced, with effects common for modern cinema trailers. High C’s eschews this for traditional orchestration. It makes me nostalgic for my band and orchestra days from high school, and college.

You can listen to Vanquish on Apple Music or free with Amazon Music Unlimited.

It’s a setup for the next scene where Edelman first introduces Nicole Brown at the end of the Part I. ↩

Capturing Film on iPhone

Thu, 23 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

My original inspiration for this weekend project was to capture RAW photos from my iPhone. A lot of new camera apps capture RAW, but none of them captured it in the manner I preferred.

On my Fuji cameras, I have the option to capture a JPEG alongside a RAW frame. This mode, RAW+JPEG, gives me a lot of freedom. I can quickly share a JPEG on social media until I have time to process, and properly edit the RAW version of the image. Most often I only use the JPEG, but I like having the RAW as backup—should I desire to push a photo in post.

Alas, this weekend experiment will uncover how to take RAW+JPEG stills from iPhone. My Fuji cameras can also apply digital filters to the JPEG. I’d like to do the same, and apply my own digital film filters.

Before we jump into code, let’s talk about the workflow:

Tell our AVCapturePhotoOutput to capture RAW and RGBA¹ frames.
Write the RAW frame to disk.
Process the RGBA frame using our filter(s) and save it to disk.
Copy both the RAW and the processed RGBA to the Photo Library, and combine them into a single entry.

There’s a few unexpected wrinkles, which we’ll discuss along the way. You’ll also need the code you built for the last weekend project, since we’ll build upon that infrastructure.

Don’t forget my disclaimer²: I’m just an ordinary citizen, hacking on my phone to take pictures. I claim no copyright, nor do I warrant the code in any way. This is probably not the best way to build an app.

Configuration and Capture

The AVCapturePhotoOutput wants to be configured each time you attempt to capture a frame.

AVCapturePhotoOutput provides a means to capture a JPEG and a RAW frame in a single capture request. However, this mode disables image stabilization for both captures³. Shooting in this mode produces photos that have more motion blur, and much more noise.

To avoid this, we’re gonna request two captures back-to-back, so our JPEG frame can take advantage of image stabilization, and the other processing goodies provided by iPhone’s DSP. It’s more work, and more complicated code, but it will produce better photos.

We start with a simple UI action to trigger the capture:

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@IBAction func takePhoto(_ sender: AnyObject) {
    let rawFormat = kCVPixelFormatType_14Bayer_RGGB
    let processedFormat = NSNumber(value: kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA)

    // ... take the RAW photo and JPEG Photo
}

Inside of this method, we’re going to actually take two photos: (1) our RAW photo, and (2) our JPEG. Since both photos are requested simultaneously, they’ll appear to be the same frame⁴.

Next we add this to our method, which requests the BGRA frame to be captured:

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let settings = AVCapturePhotoSettings(format: [kCVPixelBufferPixelFormatTypeKey as String : processedFormat])
settings.isAutoStillImageStabilizationEnabled = true
output.capturePhoto(with: settings, delegate: self)

For each frame, we create a settings object of type AVCapturePhotoSettings. This data structure stores the configuration of each capture.

To request the RAW frame, we follow a similar process:

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let rawSettings = AVCapturePhotoSettings(rawPixelFormatType: rawFormat)
output.capturePhoto(with: rawSettings, delegate: self)

Our final task for the takePhoto(_:) method is to cache the settings information for both capture requests, so we can later combine the JPEG and RAW frame for storage in the photo library.

Create a CaptureRequest data structure to store the information for each request:

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struct CaptureRequest {
    let jpegUniqueId: Int64
    let rawUniqueId: Int64

    var jpegURL: URL?
    var rawURL: URL?
}

The uniqueId fields correspond to the ID generated each time an instance of AVCapturePhotoSettings is created (remember, we create a new settings bundle each time we take a photo). You need to cache a CaptureRequest at the end of the takePhoto(_:) method:

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let cr = CaptureRequest(jpegId: settings.uniqueID, rawId: rawSettings.uniqueID)
captureRequests.append(cr)

Write RAW Frame to Disk

Now that we’ve created the requests, we have to implement a pair of delegate methods to handle the RAW and BGRA frames.

Let’s start with the RAW capture delegate method:

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func capture(_ captureOutput: AVCapturePhotoOutput, didFinishProcessingRawPhotoSampleBuffer
             rawSampleBuffer: CMSampleBuffer?,
    previewPhotoSampleBuffer: CMSampleBuffer?,
            resolvedSettings: AVCaptureResolvedPhotoSettings,
             bracketSettings: AVCaptureBracketedStillImageSettings?, error: Error?) {

    guard let sourceBuffer = rawSampleBuffer else { return }
    guard let data = AVCapturePhotoOutput.dngPhotoDataRepresentation(forRawSampleBuffer:
        sourceBuffer, previewPhotoSampleBuffer: previewPhotoSampleBuffer) else { return }

    let index = captureRequests.index {
        $0.rawUniqueId == resolvedSettings.uniqueID
    }
    guard let indexOfRequest = index else { return }

    captureRequests[indexOfRequest].writeRAW(data: data)
}

This method is self-explanatory. First, we convert the captured data into a DNG representation. Then we get the CaptureRequest object we cached in our takePhoto(_:) method, and use it to write a temporary RAW file to disk.

The writeRAW(data:) method on CaptureRequest looks like this:

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mutating func writeRAW(data: Data) {
    do {
        let path = tempURL(withPathExtension: "dng")
        try data.write(to: path, options: .atomicWrite)
        rawURL = path
    }

    catch {
        // Write to RAW file FAILED
    }
}

This method caches the RAW data into a temporary file, and keeps a path variable. We’ll need this path—later—when we move the RAW file to the Photo Library, after the capture is finalized.

The tempURL(withPathExtension:) method yields a temporary path with a UUID for a unique file name:

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private func tempURL(withPathExtension ext: String) -> URL {
    let uuid = NSUUID().uuidString
    let url = URL(fileURLWithPath:NSTemporaryDirectory()).appendingPathComponent(uuid)
    return url.appendingPathExtension(ext)
}

Process BGRA and Write it to Disk

We’ll follow the same process for our JPEG, but we also need to filter it. The code is very similar to the code used to process the BGRA frames for the viewfinder in our last project.

Below is the delegate method for our BGRA frame, where we’ve already extracted the CVPixelBuffer to process:

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func capture(_ captureOutput: AVCapturePhotoOutput, didFinishProcessingPhotoSampleBuffer
           photoSampleBuffer: CMSampleBuffer?,
    previewPhotoSampleBuffer: CMSampleBuffer?,
            resolvedSettings: AVCaptureResolvedPhotoSettings,
             bracketSettings: AVCaptureBracketedStillImageSettings?, error: Error?) {

    guard let sourceBuffer = photoSampleBuffer else { return }
    guard let pb = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(sourceBuffer) else {
        print("sourceBuffer does not contain a CVPixelBuffer.")
        return
    }

    // TODO: filter image

    // TODO: convert to JPEG and write to disk

}

The code to process the BGRA image should look familiar. First, we create a CIImage, and correct the orientation. Then, we use our FilterManager instance to apply the selected filter.

Add the code below to our delegate method:

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let or = simulatedOrientation.asCGImagePropertyOrientation()
let ci = CIImage(cvPixelBuffer:pb).applyingOrientation(or)
let filteredImage = self.filterManager.convertedImage(forSelectedFilter: ci)

let context = CIContext(options: nil)
guard let cg = context.createCGImage(filteredImage, from: filteredImage.extent) else {
    print("couldn't create a CGImage from the filter source")
    return
}

Now that we have our filtered CGImage, we compress it into a JPEG using UImageJPEGRepresentation. We then use the CaptureRequest to persist the JPEG data.

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guard let data = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(UIImage(cgImage: cg), 0.8) else {
    print("couldn't create JPEG data from the filtered source")
    return
}

let index = captureRequests.index {
    $0.jpegUniqueId == resolvedSettings.uniqueID
}
guard let indexOfRequest = index else { return }
captureRequests[indexOfRequest].writeJPEG(data: data)

The writeJPEG(data:) method is nearly identical to the writeRaw(data:), except we set the jpegURL property on our CaptureRequest.

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mutating func writeJPEG(data: Data) {
    do {
        let path = tmpURL(withPathExtension: "jpg")
        try data.write(to: path, options: .atomicWrite)
        jpegURL = path
    }

    catch {
        // Write to JPEG file FAILED
    }
}

Store in the Photo Library

Now that we’ve cached locally both our RAW and JPEG images, this final step will store them as a single entry in the device photo library. We want our images to appear as the filtered JPEG in the Photos app, but provide a RAW alternative for apps that can request a RAW version.

This gives the desired behavior: quickly share the filtered image on social media, but retain the RAW original for further image processing.

This is accomplished with a single method from our CaptureRequest object:

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func moveToSharedLibrary() {
    guard let jpeg = jpegURL, let raw = rawURL else { return }

    PHPhotoLibrary.shared().performChanges({
        let creationRequest = PHAssetCreationRequest.forAsset()
        let creationOptions = PHAssetResourceCreationOptions()
        creationOptions.shouldMoveFile = true

        creationRequest.addResource(with: PHAssetResourceType.photo,
                fileURL: jpeg, options: creationOptions)
        creationRequest.addResource(with: PHAssetResourceType.alternatePhoto,
                fileURL: raw, options: creationOptions)
    },

    completionHandler: { (success: Bool, error: Error?) in
        if success {
            print("YAY! ...PROCESSED photo saved to Camera Roll")
            return
        }
        print("BOOM! ...something went wrong \(error)")
    })
}

PHPhotoLibrary.shared() is the singleton used to store images in the photo library. We create a PHAssetCreationRequest and add two resources to it. By using the type .alternatePhoto for the RAW image, we hide it from any photo apps that don’t specifically request a RAW version of a photo.

Note: If you use a PHAssetResourceCreationOptions bundle, with the shouldMoveFile property set, the creation request will automatically clean up our temporary files. It keeps things tidy.

There is a wrinkle: we don’t know which request will finish first, the JPEG, or the RAW request. Each time any request finishes, we have to check and see if its sibling request has also completed. If it has, we can save both to the photo library.

Add this check to your CaptureRequest struct:

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func isReady() -> Bool {
    return jpegURL != nil && rawURL != nil
}

This lets us know if we have both images cached—i.e., we’re ready—so we can save everything to the photo library.

We call everything in the capture(_:didFinishCaptureForResolvedSettings: resolvedSettings:error:) delegate method:

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func capture(_ captureOutput: AVCapturePhotoOutput, didFinishCaptureForResolvedSettings
            resolvedSettings: AVCaptureResolvedPhotoSettings,
                       error: Error?) {

    let index = captureRequests.index {
        $0.rawUniqueId == resolvedSettings.uniqueID || $0.jpegUniqueId == resolvedSettings.uniqueID
    }
    guard let indexOfRequest = index else { return }

    if captureRequests[indexOfRequest].isReady() {
        let request = captureRequests[indexOfRequest]
        request.moveToSharedLibrary()
        captureRequests.remove(at: indexOfRequest)
    }
}

The code is straightforward, we get the CaptureRequest for the frame that finished, and move it to the library if it’s ready.

Next Steps

This looks like a bunch of code just to store RAW files, and it is. Originally, I used AVPhotoCaptureOutput’s ability to create a RAW+JPEG combined request, but I wasn’t happy with the results. Turns out iPhone’s DSP does a lot.

This completes all of the camera infrastructure needed to begin development of our own digital film. In the first article, we covered the basic filter infrastructure, and described a way to preview our filters before capture. In this article, we covered how to save our filtered JPEGs to the photo library, along with a RAW original.

Our next weekend project will dive into image processing, and describe how to create your own digital film. Stay tuned.

There is an option to capture JPEG buffers, however our filter workflow expects an uncompressed RGBA frame. It doesn’t make sense to have the phone compress a JPEG, only to immediately decompress it. ↩
Disclaimer: I claim no copyright for the following code. I’m releasing it into the public domain, and there is no warranty expressed or implied. Please refer to Apple Documentation for best practices. ↩
Image stabilization is always disabled for RAW captures. Because of this, the RAW+JPEG mode also disables it. Makes sense, when you think about it, albeit still frustrating. ↩
At best, they’ll be 1/30th of a second apart. Imperceptible, unless there is a fast moving subject, and you’re comparing side-by-side. ↩

That Writing Feeling

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I can’t recall when I first referred to myself as a writer. Writing has always felt like a state-of-mind, but writer—someone who has better grammar, and a more sophisticated understanding of the language—sounds like a profession.

Published at 19 (in a mathematics research journal), I didn’t think much of how often I wrote. At best it was for fun, but most often it was a means to an end. Email, status updates, and boring white papers.

Then one day it hit me—I enjoyed writing. How did that happen? English was always one of those filler classes, which I endured between those I really enjoyed.

After college, I paid more attention to how things were written. Instead of looking for mistakes when I read, I’d observe the writer’s style. Notice how they setup a scene or phrased a question. Eventually, my focus would turn from structure to voice.

It was then my own writing style began to emerge.

No Automation

Emails from friends, and loved ones are flagged after I read them. I prefer to reflect on what was said. When I return to it, I draft and read over my response multiple times before I hit send. My first drafts have atrocious grammar, are riddled with typos, and—because I’m mildly dyslexic—often written out of order.

Posts to this site are subjected to even more rigor. I write two drafts at a minimum before I begin basic editing. Once the content edit is complete, I format the site in my publishing system, and edit the post again for layout.

It’s a slow, manual process. Deliberate, and lovely.

Every word on the page, screen, or email is written by hand. I avoid scripts, templates, and expansion tools. It may go against the nature of my day-to-day work—software development—but I want writing to remain a slow, deliberate process.

I can hear you ask, “Doesn’t that limit the amount of writing you can do?” Yes, it does. Intentionally. There is an upper limit to the number of correspondence¹, stories, and articles I can write. Automation would only fuel my desire to write more, and distract me from the enjoyment of writing well.

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$ jekyll build -d ../public_html

The above is the most satisfying command I can type into a terminal. It’s the command I use to rebuild this site, after I complete a new post. In Mail the equivalent is ctrl-cmd-A (it’s a satisfying swipe-right² on iOS), which archives the email I had flagged for response.

Automating this final step would remove some of the pleasure in the completion of a well-considered response.

Writing is exercise for my brain. It requires my complete conscious thought, which banishes unresolved thoughts to my sub-conscious. That is where I want them—unresolved shit annoys me.

I go for a walk when I want to swim in my thoughts. When I’m ready to empty thoughts from my head, I sit down to write.

I once heard³ that “…writing well is the sign of an organized mind.” Organized is not an adjective I’d use to describe myself, but I sure feel it while writing.

Perhaps writer is simply an aspiration.

I don’t include work correspondence, which is often requests for meetings, and sending documents. The emails I reference are personal correspondence with close friends—the very type of emails I want to write my very best. ↩
You have to set this preference on your device. I have swipe-left set to delete a message, and swipe-right to archive. ↩
Probably a stupid podcast. ↩

The Thing about Trucks

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

About a year ago, a friend and I were talking about geeks—specifically how do you know if someone is really a geek. He came up with an interesting question to ask someone. Consider a scenario where someone unplugged your computer from the internet.

How long before you become bored and step away from the computer?

His point—the degree to which you’re a geek is directly proportional to the amount of time you remained occupied—may sound nostalgic, but he makes an interesting distinction. Not about the extent to which you’re a geek¹, but how you use a computer and what you want from that experience.

There were two arguments about computing that I found interesting from 2016. The first comes from a camp of iPad-only users. There’s a fair amount of zealotry, and dogma amongst this group.

Ben Brooks offers a balanced summary of their argument:

Yes, you may not be able to use an iPad full time, but that’s not the point of what I, and many others, are saying. What we are saying is the same thing which got many to the Mac in 2004-5: life is better here, come take a stroll.

I couldn’t use my Mac as my only machine in 2004, but in 2005 I could. A big enough user base in any one category means that people take the platform seriously.

Brooks’ argument is astute. For many, I imagine (lack of) app support is what mentally blocks iPad (and other iOS devices) from broader adoption as a primary computer. However, iPad does not lack for the kind of apps that plagued my use of a Mac in the early 2000s. iPad is supported by Microsoft Exchange, and a full complement of Microsoft Office apps are available.

The issue isn’t that corporations and software companies won’t take iPad seriously. The problem is customers. At the end of 2015, after purchasing the 12.9” iPad Pro, I went iPad-only² for a week to try it out. A month later, it was no longer an experiment.

It took a dedicated keyboard, but I finally saw the iPad as a viable computer for day-to-day work. What changed wasn’t the iPad or iOS, it was my perception of the device and its viability as a general purpose computer.

The second argument stems from angst over a perceived lack of excitement in the 2016 Mac line-up. I’m certainly too biased to comment on the current state of the Mac line-up, but I am curious about why the Mac still matters to so many.

Consider this from John Gruber:

[…] it took so long — not years but decades — for MacOS to get to where it is that I don’t think any other OS could ever catch up. That’s what’s driving the arguably paranoid fear that Apple is abandoning the Mac… if the Mac goes away, the world will be left without a Mac-quality desktop OS.

While Brooks and others are arguing that iPad will eventually replace the Mac, Gruber is arguing there will always be a need for macOS—specifically a desktop operating system. Despite what my aforementioned dalliance with iPad might suggest, I’m firmly in Gruber’s camp.

Here’s the thought experiment, which I used to inform my opinion: If you could take only one device³ with you, which one would you take? Ben Brooks or Federico Viticci would almost certainly choose an iPad.

However, I’d take a Mac. Exactly the 11” MacBook Air, which I’m using to write this article.

My thinking goes like this: I can borrow someone else’s phone if I need to make a call, but I want my Mac if I need to do any sort of deep thinking. This feeling of personalization runs deep in a desktop operating system. It’s much more than wallpaper, or color schemes. My Mac is loaded with software and utilities that I have written custom for my specific use. I’m not talking about general software development, but scripting, and automation which ease my everyday tasks.

This level of customization is nigh impossible on iOS devices, by design. Might sound like I’m being facetious or setting up a strawman argument. In fact, I believe this capability for deep customization is the crux of the division between the iPad-only and Mac loyalist camps.

Matt Gemmell writes in Lifting the Mouse:

A new computer is barely usable until I’ve tricked it out with my macros, and launchers, and scripts, and customizations.

Deep customization comes at a cost to the general experience of using a computer. If you remove this capability, you can create a computer that is more secure, more predictable, and more adaptable. That is why the iPad (and iOS in general) feels like such a revelation. It makes—meaningless to many—tradeoffs in customization for meaningful improvements to the user experience for those who don’t need it.

If you want deep customization that only a desktop operating system can provide—but still desire a high-quality experience—your best option is macOS.

Motivated by Wesley Moore’s search, I wiped my soon-to-be-retired 11” MacBook Air, and gave Elementary OS a spin. Or at least, I tried.

Do you know anything about EFI bootloaders? If you don’t, you’ll have a hard time getting eOS to run on anything but a USB key plugged into your Mac. It’s a pain-in-the-ass to install, even with several tutorials available online.

Even though I was unsuccessful with eOS, I was struck with an epiphany during the process.

The Mac Experiment

Before I started, I knew an eOS computer wouldn’t have access to the App store, iCloud, or iMessage. In order to determine if a Linux computer could be useful, I had to consider alternatives based on what was available for the platform, or simply live without them. Turns out the latter was the simpler option for an experiment.

Instead of a full replacement for my Macs, the Linux computer would be dedicated to writing code, and writing for this website. Available were a cocktail of terminal commands, small single-purpose programs, and text editors such as vim and emacs.

When I finally gave up on eOS, two things happened. First, I remembered why I loved the 11” MBA hardware so much. The compact size, extended battery life, and true widescreen aspect ratio all came back to me. I also took the time to properly calibrate the display, and now it portrays color more precisely⁴.

Second, I realized a Mac with the same restricted app use, and minimal network services would make for a powerful machine—even with outdated hardware. So, I rebuilt the machine from scratch using the recovery partition. Seems this Mac isn’t ready to retire, after all.

No iMessage. Haven’t logged into the App store, and the only iCloud service I have enabled is Find My Mac. I haven’t configured Mail, Photos, or Facetime. I did install iTunes, because I prefer to control music from my computer when I’m deep in thought.

I had to install Xcode from here⁵. And since both have left the App store recently, I have direct licenses for BBEdit and Sketch. The rest of the apps I installed are open-source utilities.

I’ve also installed Courier Prime Code, my favorite monospace font. Just about everything I will see on this computer will be set in Courier Prime or San Francisco. Then there’s all of the scripts, and tweaks I’ve installed, including my custom prompt for fish shell, software I’ve built to publish my site, and numerous minor customizations that make life easier.

The resulting machine is fast, and nimble, with ample hard drive space for future projects. I get 10-11 hours of battery life—enough to drive it multiple days between charges. And a quick 20 minute top-off from the Architect’s 85W MacBook Pro charger⁶ gets me to 70%.

Stripped down, and perfect.

I can’t describe how much I enjoy using this Mac. And that’s the real point here. I use an iPhone, and iPad daily to write emails, look up references, read the news, listen to music, get directions, and edit documents. In many ways, the iOS devices are my work devices—i.e., the devices I use to accomplish things I have to do.

The Mac is where I go to accomplish what I want to do. If you enjoy playing games or reading⁷, you’ll probably think of the iPad as your fun machine. It’s okay. That is why there is more than one camp.

If you prefer a cleaner experience, and don’t need to customize your machine heavily or build your own utilities, then an iPad is an excellent primary computer. It is arguably the best realization of a general purpose computer, to date.

But if you’re like me, and want a machine that you can customize, and expand at your whim, there is no computer quite like a Mac.

Geeks come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and gender. The trick is that we know one when we see one, so make sure you own it. ↩
It was primarily a work experiment, which is the lion-share of time I spent in front of a computer. ↩
Presumably a Mac, iPhone, or iPad, but you are free to substitute whichever computer, phone, or tablet you wish. ↩
The MacBook Airs have a reputation for awful color reproduction out of the box. Specifically, the grays of the macOS chrome are extremely washed out, and the color temperature of the display has a strong blue bias. If you run through the calibration on expert mode, in plenty of neutral light, you can correct for most of the bias. However, I still wouldn’t recommend this screen for photography or other work which requires precise handling of color. ↩
Not really, but I can’t share the links I actually used. ↩
Actually, chargers. She has a few strategically placed around the house. The smaller 45W brick usually stays in my bag. ↩
I use a B/W Kindle for reading. It’s light, easy to hold, and is never without a charge, despite only needed a power brick once a month. You’re probably noticing a trend: I prefer devices I don’t need to charge every single night. ↩

Music of ROGUE ONE

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

There are spoilers in this review. If you haven’t seen Rogue One yet, stop what you’re doing and go see it.

I’ve eagerly anticipated Rogue One—even more than The Force Awakens—since I first read about it two years ago. Along with Star Wars, I loved the swashbuckling war movies from the 1960s as a young adult.

When rumors began that Rogue One was a “war movie set in the Star Wars Universe”, my expectations only increased. Just as Star Wars is an homage to the Flash Gordon serials, I hoped Rogue One could be an homage to movies such as The Guns of Navarone, The Great Escape, and Bridge over the River Kwai.

Then a month ago, news spread that Michael Giacchino would compose the Rogue One score. It is no secret I love his music. His prior work on the Medal of Honor series of games seemed to support my fantasy for a throwback war movie. I even put together a playlist which combined a few 60s soundtracks with some of Giacchino’s work on Medal of Honor.

I’m happy to say that Rogue One delivers, and so does its soundtrack. It seems my Top Ten has a new resident.

Start listening on Apple Music.

Big Shoes

The movie is a departure from the classic episodic Star Wars movies we all know and love¹. I knew Rogue One was rumored to be different, so I was particularly curious how it’d open. Since it’s a standalone story, the directors decided it didn’t need an opening crawl. More on that in a moment.

Alterations to the format weren’t the only changes—Giacchino is only the third composer to write music for Star Wars. He’s the first to write for a feature movie, who’s name isn’t John Williams.

It was Williams who sparked my original interest in film scores, with his 1977 score for Star Wars². I remember clearly the first time I heard the flute and french horn melody from Princess Leia’s Theme, and the foreboding low brass choir from Imperial Attack.

When it comes to film scores, the Star Wars soundtrack was my first love.

Giacchino had large shoes to fill. I wanted the character from his Medal of Honor scores, and the bombastic brass from Jupiter Ascending adapted to the Star Wars universe. But I also wanted the quiet sadness he brought to his LOST scores—something which isn’t common in the Star Wars music canon.

Put another way, I wanted a great Star Wars score, and also a great Giacchino score. We got both.

About that Opening

Last week the Architect found my AirPlay speaker from my office in Virginia, hidden in a random box at the back of our garage. Since my replacement set of QC35s were still in transit, I decided to give my old friend first crack at the score.

You know the delay when an AirPlay speaker first connects? Combine that with an unknown speaker volume, which turned out to be unnecessarily loud for the room, and well… the first track scared the shit out of everyone in the house.

Despite the terror inflicted on my young children, I really enjoy the cold open. The sharp glissando pulls you directly into the movie, and pairs well with the cut from black to the moon and star-field.

The second half of the opening occurs at the end of the Track 2, A Long Ride Ahead, which starts with the death of Jyn’s mother, followed by the search for her by Krennic’s guards. Then at the 3:30 mark, we are treated to a brief title fanfare. It lasts for about thirty seconds.

It’s not William’s iconic opening fanfare, but definitely sounds from the same family. It’s little more than an aperitif—teasing what Giacchino could’ve done with a longer sequence that included a crawl. I really like it.

There are little touches that allow this score to stand on its own, yet feel like a natural addition to the Star Wars musical universe.

You can argue the delayed title card is evidence that Rogue One is like every other non Star Wars action movie, but I won’t hear it. It sounds familiar, so it can get away with altering the format.

Star Wars is an ethos, not a rigid set of rules.

Adapting a Masterpiece

Listening to the score, it’s clear where Giacchino adapted certain themes. Jyn Erso’s theme has elements of Williams’ Rebellion theme³. The modest theme for the Guardians of the Whills borrows from William’s Force theme, and Anakin & Padme’s love theme⁴ heard in Attack of the Clones⁵.

Unexplored and new characters required their own themes. Giacchino’s talent shines here as well. He used a musical vocabulary—orchestration, and chord structures—similar to Williams’ Star Wars sound to fuse with his own.

In my opinion, the best example of this on the entire album is Tarkin’s theme. Technically, I think it’s the Imperial theme⁶, but the most memorable use in the film can be heard in Track 5, When Has Become Now. This line—spoken by Tarkin—is an instant classic, and reminiscent of Vader’s iconic missives from earlier movies⁷.

The music also draws parallels to Vader. When you listen to Track 20, The Imperial Suite, you can hear the familiarity to The Imperial March from Empire Strikes Back. Giacchino’s theme almost sounds like it could’ve been written by Williams. Almost⁸. It’s brilliant.

It feels similar where it marries tone and phrases from William’s original Imperial theme—Imperial Attack from Star Wars—with staccato triplets that can feel quite Vader-esque. It differs in moments where the phrasing becomes more exaggerated. Giacchino’s theme is more regal, like Tarkin. Williams gave Vader’s melody a haunting, almost imposing feel, while Tarkin’s melody is pompous.

The Imperial March is one of William’s most recognizable themes⁹, and Giacchino rarely uses this motif—only when Vader is on screen. He could’ve made heavy use of the melody. However, since Imperial officers—not quasi-religious monks—play the larger role in Rogue One, I enjoy that he fashioned a theme just for them.

Standouts

These tracks are my personal favorites. Most of them feature Giacchino’s own themes, without much of Williams’. Some of them blend flourishes or instrumentations from Williams’ scores to create a familiar sound for the new music.

Track 8, Star-Dust: If I first heard this track before seeing the movie, I would know—instantly—it was Giacchino. His signature soft piano adds emotional weight to one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

This is the music for Galen Erso’s hologram, as he performs the film’s signature retcon. This scene is why you cast Mads Mikkelson for a character with only a modicum of screen time. As the track softens, I can hear Erso’s line: “We call it the ‘Death Star’. There is no better name for it.” So good.

Track 9, Confrontation on Eadu: This is the best sequence in the entire score. It has everything that punctuates action scenes throughout the movie: the frenetic pace, soaring themes, and percussive brass. The track opens up at the 2:25 mark before exploding at the 3:30 mark as X-wings flood into the canyon on their attack run.

When you think the track is nearly spent, around the 5:50 mark, Giacchino jumps in again with the heart strings. I can hear Jyn’s calls to her father, “Papa”. Soft, twisting strings unravel as Galen’s voices his final line “I have so much to tell you”. The piece then crescendos into Jyn’s theme. The closing fanfare is defiant, as though the music itself is refusing to let go.

This sort of emotional rollercoaster is what Giacchino does best, and why his scores are always heavy in my rotation.

Track 17, Your Father Would be Proud: This track got me in the theater. It’s arguable if the script gave you enough story to truly feel for Jyn and Cassian in their final moments. Movies aren’t just dialogue and character development. A lot of story can be told with music and visuals, both of which are in full force during this track.

The closing moments of Rogue One are poetic and unfiltered. The plans for the Death Star were purchased with blood from the ordinary, and courageous, who are unceremoniously cut down by the might of an elite.

By Jefferson’s definition¹⁰, Jyn Erso is a patriot. An insurgent, raised by an extremist. Daughter of a man who betrayed his government. You might think that is too deep for a Star Wars movie, but the music brought me there.

The sub-title for the movie could’ve easily been “The Jyn Erso Story”. Like Luke Skywalker, she is fated to do terrible, and heroic things to redeem her father. But there are no medal ceremonies in her future. There isn’t even a brass fanfare to signal the triumph of good over evil.

This track is her eulogy. Her music humbly acknowledges her noble sacrifice, in the name of a cause. Simple, somber, and haunting. Not how you’d expect a Star Wars story to end.

You can listen to Rogue One on Apple Music.

A safe assumption, when I consider that you’re reading a 1500 word review of a Star Wars movie soundtrack. ↩
I refuse to call it “A New Hope”, or worse: Episode IV. ↩
My favorite example of the Rebellion theme is the final track, The Throne Room/End Titles, from Star Wars. ↩
Track 2, Across the Stars from Attack of the Clones. ↩
I think this is a nod to Luke and Leia. The Guardians are undoubtedly awaiting the return of the Jedi. ↩
This theme is first heard in Track 1, He’s Here for Us, as Krennic’s ship approaches the Erso’s farm. ↩
How could you forget “I want that ship, not excuses”, or “The emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal”? ↩
The instrumentation in the second stanza is decidedly Giacchino. ↩
Synonymous in college football with stout defense. ↩
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” –Thomas Jefferson ↩

Star of Wonder

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Winter is here. It’s nine in the evening, and I’m comfortably writing, clothed in my flannel pajamas and warm socks. No fire tonight—I live in California after all. The low tonight won’t dip below forty degrees. Cool enough for to remind me of winter, but not too cold.

The end of the year is approaching, and with it, the desire to look back on the year that’s passed. Of course, this year has been anything but kind.

Every morning brings another unwelcome appointment from the Trump administration. Disaster feels upon us. For me personally, the year has been trying in different ways. Our move West hasn’t gone exactly as planned, leaving us lonely, and worn. I would give anything to remember the optimism that swept me into this year.

Optimism, that’s what this time of year is about—right? Holidays. Time with family. The promise of a new year. Hope for better.

That optimism is easy to forget. Malls blasting the same holiday music over and over, and the abundance of cinnamon scent. Does everything have to peppermint flavored?

Then yesterday, after we finished decorating the tree, I was reminded. It was during a refrain in We Three Kings.

As a child, we sang it every year. Like many Christmas hymns, I know the words by heart. I think it was Father Edmund’s favorite. I can perfectly remember him strolling down the aisle—no hymnal in hand—belting the lyrics as the mass started.

There was the optimism. It was the joy in his face. Unbridled, enthusiastic like a child’s.

Whenever I hear certain Christmas hymns, I remember Father Edmund and it makes me smile. I love Christmas music. People would always sing louder because they knew the words.

My parents divorced when I was young, and as a teenager I lived with my Dad. When it was my mom’s turn for Christmas, we would attend a church on Christmas Eve that had a special music service. My brother and sister usually didn’t go. My mother and I both love music, so it was our thing.

My step-mother and father are Catholic, but my mother’s church used to meet in a high school auditorium. They didn’t usually have a service on Christmas. Instead we went to this particular church for their music.

It was a small Methodist church, in downtown Raleigh. We didn’t know anyone. We just wanted to sing hymns and listen to the organ and choir.

My childhood wasn’t particularly fun. Holidays were always split between families. It made it hard to have your usual holiday traditions, when each year was different. So, it was the little things for me. Like Father Edmund singing We Three Kings, and the Christmas eve service I attended with my mom.

Music was my tradition.

Silent Night. Come all ye Faithful. O Holy Night. When I would sing these songs, things felt hopeful. Music gave me optimism that the new year would bring better tidings, just like the words told me.

It was that same music which brought me hope again this year. I took notice of my boys decorating the tree. I watched as they recounted tales for each ornament. And my heart ached as they placed certain homemade trimmings, which were created by smaller, younger versions of themselves. I was reminded that I was fortunate, and blessed.

In that brief moment, I forgot about the loved ones lost this year, the stupid election, and even those assholes who broke into my car and stole my bag earlier this week. The uncertainty, upheaval, and frustration of the year melted away. I felt joy.

That is the magic of winter. Despite all that has happened, I can still be hopeful for the next year. I need only remember to look in the right places.

O star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect Light.

However you celebrate this winter, be it religious or not, I hope you can share it with friends and family. And remind yourself, to find joy.

Writing a Novel, Finally

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It was nearly fifteen years ago when I first spoke about my idea. The Architect and I were driving back from looking at locations for our wedding, and I wanted her opinion. I haven’t discussed it with anyone else, until now.

After wishing I did NaNoWriMo for years, I’ve started writing my novel.

It’s a story I’ve tossed around in my head since I left college, but getting it out has been anything but easy. There have been a lot of false starts and diversions along the way.

The biggest of these diversions was silly: How would I write it? Most people simply write when the urge strikes. Not me. I have a tool fetish. And I hated everything I tried. It quickly became a distraction.

I tried new notebooks (I tried them all, these are the best), new pens (fountain pens, roller balls, thin tips, thick tips, etc), and software. Yeah, the software sucked, too.

This was 2003. If you wanted to write formatted long form, you could choose anything as long as it was Microsoft Word¹. I really wanted to write in plain text, and in 2004, Markdown was created. This meant I could use a text editor like VIM or BBEdit, but I really wanted affordances for managing 50,000+ words.

Most people would just start writing.

The Obsession

Most people, not me. Instead of writing, I became obsessed with building the software I wanted. In 2007, with a head full of ideas², I attended the C4 developer conference determined to write the best Mac app for writers, ever. Between 2004 and 2007 I committed myself to learning everything about Mac development³. To gain experience, I would moonlight as a Mac developer-for-hire and grew a healthy side business.

I dove head-first into writing software. Unfortunately, I didn’t get anywhere. I had some beautiful mockups, and a lot of random code, but I didn’t have an app to test. Nor was I writing a novel. By 2008, most people would’ve given up and focused on the novel.

Instead, I decided my problem was scale. I should start with a smaller app. And the iPhone SDK had just been released. Perfect, I’ll write an app to capture the assorted notes I had for my novel.

Another set of beautiful mockups later, I didn’t have an iPhone app either. Then a good friend told me about a WWDC 2009 talk, where the presenter spoke of prototyping applications using images from their mockups. Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?

Instead of writing a novel or building an app to write the novel, I wrote a framework for building interactive prototypes from image mockups.

Of course, building (and attempting to sell) that framework put another idea into my head: what I really needed to finish my app was more time. If I would get rid of my day job, I could devote more time to my apps. So, in 2009 I started a company, and quit my day job in 2010.

Most would’ve started writing, instead.

Prologue

Since I first verbalized my idea for the novel, I’ve become a husband, a father, a homeowner, a business owner, and—most recently—an Apple employee. I wrote the first words of the novel on a 2002 G4 Powerbook. Over the past month, I’ve collected scraps of notes, and doodles from six (mostly empty) notebooks of assorted size, including three which I bought specifically for writing the damn novel.

After a decade of distractions, searching for the right tools, and attempting to create a few, I finally just started writing. Last week, I took off two days from work, stayed in a hotel near the coast, and sat down to diagram my novel.

The cruel irony was the tools I used. After all my fuss over pens and notebooks, I forgot to bring any on the trip. After a $20 stop at a local Target, I had a Moleskine “small” lined notebook, and a Pilot G-2 0.38mm pen⁴. To visualize my plot, I also bought some sticky notes, a sheet of poster board, and a black marker.

Mapping the Plot. Salinas, CA

As for software, Ulysses is where I type everything these days. I wrote this post in it⁵, using Markdown and a custom CSS theme. Simply put, Ulysses is the app I wanted to write, but better, and more expansive than my ambitions. I capture notes and research in it on my iPhone, and draft long form prose in it on my Mac and iPad Pro.

Most important, last night I wrote 1,232 words towards the novel. Excelsior.

Pages was released in 2005. ClarisWorks only ran in Classic Mode. Don’t talk to me about Word Perfect. I had considered writing in HTML. Scrivener wouldn’t arrive until 2007. ↩
Crazy ideas like using an embedded Subversion repository as a file system to store versions, and using CSS stylesheets to style the exported manuscript. ↩
I had a gig writing Enterprise software in Java and C++. It was hard to get a day job writing Mac software back then. ↩
They were the best options available. And I swore I hated lined notebooks. That is, until I tried one. Sigh. ↩
I will edit and prepare the post for publish in BBEdit on the Mac, and Coda for iOS where I prefer to do all of my web work. ↩

Shooting Film on iPhone

Wed, 19 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Photography changed when I rented the Leica M Monochrom. It was a lot of firsts for me: manual focus, unreliable meter, rangefinder instead of TTL, and no color.

It was hard.

Not annoying, but hard. I learned a lot from such a different experience. Even though I’ve never fancied film, I realized I could learn a lot from the experience of shooting film. The Monochrom taught me this.

Most of my friends learned photography on black and white film. Shooting in black and white forces you to think about light, exposure, and tone without the distraction of color.

Since I know more about computer algorithms than film processing, I decided to create my own digital film and RAW+JPEG camera app for iPhone which uses them. It was the perfect weekend project, and I thought others could benefit from what I learned.

In the next few articles I talk about how to build digital film (i.e., a series CoreImage filters), and a camera app to test them out. Today, we’re gonna discuss the infrastructure and basic app we need for our later experiments.

If you’ve never played around with AVFoundation or CoreImage, this could serve as a gentle introduction.

Before we go any further:

This is naive code that works on my everyday carry¹, and may not perform well on other devices. If you continue reading, I expect you will adhere to my disclaimer².

The app is a single view controller, with a single button to take a photo, and a viewfinder to compose the shot. That’s it.

In the view controller, we need to:

Create an AVCaptureSession with a target triple: AVDevice, AVCaptureInput, AVCaptureOutput
Build the CIFilter stack, which will serve as our film processor
Construct a viewfinder that displays the session output filtered by our processor

Setting up AVCaptureSession

If you’ve never used AVFoundation, setting it up to capture camera data is straightforward. Everything is stored in an AVCaptureSession. It contains inputs (based on your chosen device), and outputs that you wire into the session.

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let session = AVCaptureSession()
let output = AVCapturePhotoOutput()
let device = AVCaptureDevice.defaultDevice(withMediaType: AVMediaTypeVideo)

func setupAVSession() {
    session.beginConfiguration()
    session.sessionPreset = AVCaptureSessionPresetPhoto

    let input = try! AVCaptureDeviceInput(device: device)
    if session.canAddInput(input) {
    	session.addInput(input)
    }
    if session.canAddOutput(output) {
    	session.addOutput(output)
    }

    session.commitConfiguration()
}

First, defaultDevice(withMediaType:) returns the rear camera for the AVMediaTypeVideo. Second, I use the AVCaptureSessionPresetPhoto session preset and pair it with an AVCapturePhotoOutput to configure the session to capture 12 megapixel stills. AVCapturePhotoOutput is a brand new class in iOS 10 which makes still photo capture a piece of cake.

Building the Film Processor

In later articles, we’ll write a more complicated chain of filters. For our first build, let’s keep things simple and use the built-in CIPhotoEffectNoir filter. This yields a black and white image, with exaggerated contrast. Before I got into more realistic film simulations, I took several nice photographs using just this filter.

First, I define a FilterType enum to delineate each filter:

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enum FilterType {
    case noir, none

    func apply(toImage image: CIImage) -> CIImage {
    	switch self {
    	case .noir:
    	    return applyNoirFilter(toImage: image)
    	case .none:
    	    return image
    	}
    }

    private func applyNoirFilter(toImage image: CIImage) -> CIImage {
        let params = [kCIInputImageKey: image]

        guard let bwFilter = CIFilter(name: "CIPhotoEffectNoir", withInputParameters: params)
            else { return image }

        guard let result = bwFilter.outputImage
            else { return image }

        return result
    }
}

With FilterType defined, writing a simple manager to maintain the currently selected filter is trivial:

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struct FilterProcessor {
    var selectedFilter: FilterType = .noir

    func convertedImage(forSelectedFilter input: CIImage) -> CIImage {
        return selectedFilter.apply(toImage: input)
    }
}

Creating the Viewfinder

So far, both frameworks have provided exactly what we needed. Unfortunately, AVFoundation doesn’t have a pre-built affordance for a filtered viewfinder on iOS.

The standard approach uses an AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer and its constructor init(session:). That returns a CALayer which can be added to your view and yields a high frame-rate representation of your capture input. However, in iOS, you can’t set the filters property on this layer.

Instead, we have to manually filter the view. The manual approach requires the use of a UIImageView and we have to add a second output to our session: AVCaptureVideoDataOutput.

In your setupAVSession() method, add the following:

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let bufferQueue = DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInteractive)
let videoOutput = AVCaptureVideoDataOutput()

videoOutput.setSampleBufferDelegate(self, queue: bufferQueue)
if session.canAddOutput(videoOutput) {
    session.addOutput(videoOutput)
}

AVCaptureVideoDataOutput gives us access to each frame, vended from the capture source to captureOutput(_:didOutputSampleBuffer:from:). Then, we simply need to apply our FilterType to each frame, and set the resulting image in our UIImageView.

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@IBOutlet weak var cameraView: UIImageView!
let filterManager = FilterProcessor()

func captureOutput(_ captureOutput: AVCaptureOutput!, didOutputSampleBuffer
                      sampleBuffer: CMSampleBuffer!,
                   from connection: AVCaptureConnection!) {

    guard let pixelBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(sampleBuffer) else { return }

    let cameraImage = CIImage(cvPixelBuffer: pixelBuffer)
    let filteredImage = filterManager.convertedImage(forSelectedFilter: cameraImage)
    let finalImage = UIImage(ciImage: filteredImage)

    DispatchQueue.main.async {
        self.cameraView.image = finalImage
    }
}

We have to repackage the image buffer as a CIImage so we can filter it. Then export the result as a UIImage. This can all be done on the same background queue where we received the original frame. To update the UI (i.e., our UIImageView), we need to be in the main thread.

Finally, the viewDidLoad() method of your view controller should look like this:

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override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    setupAVSession()
    session.startRunning()
}

If you run the code as-is—and your device orientation is not .landscapeLeft—then the viewfinder will be distorted, and/or upside-down. To simplify the calculations I disable auto-rotation, and lock device orientation to .portrait.

Assuming device orientation is always portrait, you can add the following line to the delegate method after we define the cameraImage variable:

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var cameraImage = CIImage(cvPixelBuffer: pixelBuffer)

// Image Origin for Portrait is (Right, Top), which is the number 6
// See docs for kCGImagePropertyOrientation
cameraImage = cameraImage.applyingOrientation(6)

Next Steps

The core infrastructure for our filter test harness is fleshed out. AVFoundation is vending camera data, we have a CIFilter stack to filter that data, and we have a viewfinder to see a live preview of the filtered camera data.

In the next article we’ll get into the details of the capturing a photo in RAW+JPEG format, and then save it into the device photo library. That will give us a functioning camera app for us to begin testing our digital film.

Currently, that’s an iPhone 6s. ↩
DISCLAIMER. I claim no copyright for the following code. I’m releasing it into the public domain, and there is no warranty expressed or implied. Please refer to Apple Documentation for best practices. ↩

Playlist: The World Needs You

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Batten down the hatches, and hide your liquor. Please keep your hands and feet inside of the vehicle at all times. Shit is about to get epic.

How epic, you ask? A double album of epic.

As requested, I’ve built a playlist¹ that is liquid productivity. Guaranteed to help you hit your deadline, or your money back.

Truth be told, I couldn’t help myself. I collected the albums that I wanted to include and picked my favorite track—sometimes a second—from each. It was too much². I cut and I cut, but still was left with two and half hours of music. So, I split it into two sides: (1) Side A, and (2) Side B.

Side A is caffeine for your brain. My formula was simple, I chose the opening tracks from some of my favorite soundtracks³. Openings to movies, television shows, or games exist to grab your attention and throw you into the action. Perfect for getting in the zone.

Side B is built to keep you in the zone. A force that sustains your elevated blood pressure and sense of urgency. Every one of these tracks are action sequences, most of them are from memorable or signature scenes. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the hero’s witty one-liners. For example, Tom Cruise in Oblivion⁴ saying “Fuck you, Sally” or Captain Spock in Wrath of Khan⁵, “Sauce for the goose, Lieutenant. The odds will be even.”

Don’t worry, the end of Side B will bring you back down. Working from home, I found it tough to transition from work in the short walk out of my basement. The second-to-last track Back to the Earth is silly, almost non-sensical poetry, but the vocals break out of a playlist otherwise devoid of lyrics. The final track What Are You Going to Do When You’re Not Saving the World? is one of my favorite refreshment tracks. It’s a shame it wasn’t made for a better movie.

Here’s a few liner notes:

If you listen to the playlists and find yourself wanting more, take a look at any of the albums from this list. Nearly half of my favorite scores are represented in these playlists. It’s a soundtrack buffet.
There is only one track published before 2000, Battle in the Mutara Nebula, which was recorded in 1982. The prevalent sound of movie scores changed after Hans Zimmer’s Gladiator score which was recorded in 2000. It is the quintessential Epic™ movie score. You’ll find it represented on Side A, track 20. It’s a classic.
Speaking of Hans Zimmer, he’s well represented here. In addition to several scores credited to him, he’s also a producer/owner for Two Steps from Hell, and is listed as Executive Producer on both scores credited to Lorne Balfe in these playlists.
Lorne Balfe is a recent discovery for me. Two recent favorites of his, Terminator: Genisys, and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Bengazi can be found on the lists. Balfe brings a melodic quality to the raucous Zimmer sound, which is occasionally missing from Zimmer’s scores. Standout tracks not on the playlists include: Forgotten⁶ and What if I Can’t?⁷
Finally, Side B opens with a heavy does of Bear McCreary. And it’s appropriate. In addition to being a total badass⁸, he’s one of my favorite composers. His scores for Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles and Caprica are among my most played albums in iTunes. That said, if the first two songs from Side B don’t appear (or aren’t from Bear McCreary), you can buy them for $1.29usd: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (Opening Title), and Storming New Caprica. You won’t regret the purchase.

Subscribe to the playlists here: Side A, and Side B. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Now go, and write code⁹ like the world depends on it.

Update

Neil Inglis—friend, reader and fellow soundtrack enthusiast—has kindly posted both playlists to Spotify, for those of you who prefer it to Apple Music. Subscribe to them here: Side A, and Side B.

Thanks Neil.

I did give the name a bit of a tweak, so you can read it in the iTunes sidebar. I’m altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further. ↩
And I do mean too much. Curating this playlist robbed me of a week’s night sleep. It’s really hard to listen to this music right before bed, which happens to be when I do most of my writing. The sacrifices I make for you, my tens of readers. ↩
With the exceptions of tracks #5, 9, 18-20. ↩
Track 15, Fearful Odds from the Oblivion original score. 2013. ↩
Track 7, Battle in the Mutara Nebula from the Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan original score. ↩
Track 10 from 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, 2016. ↩
Track 21 from Terminator: Genisys score, 2015. ↩
Most composers sketch on a piano or the computer. Not McCreary, he composes on a goddamn accordion. Here’s the original track he’s playing in the video. ↩
Or whatever it is you do for a living. ↩

Frozen Memories

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve long searched for a single track that’s exemplary of my love for film scores. Over the weekend, we screened JJ Abrams’ Star Trek for the boys to celebrate 50 years of Star Trek. Ten minutes into the movie and the perfect track presented itself.

The opening scene in the movie serves as James T. Kirk’s origin story for Abrams’ alternate timeline. Jim is born while his father dies fighting to save everyone on the ship, including his mother.

The track entitled Labor of Love is the soundtrack for George Kirk’s heroic, final moments. With the battle raging silently on screen, the only sound you hear comes from the orchestra and the dialogue.

“Tiberius, are you kidding me? No, that’s the worst[…] we can call him Jim.”

I first heard the score on May 8th, 2009—not quite one year after our oldest was born. It was date night. The Architect and I sat in the dark theater, and held hands as we cried all the tears. Hell, we still choked up this past weekend as Kirk’s mother remarks “George, you should be here”.

The music is classic Giacchino. Melodic and soft—almost quiet at first—before it sweeps you away with emotion. The power comes from the middle of the orchestra. Cellos, French Horns, and Euphoniums. Their sound is rich, like velvet in your ears.

When I’m sad—or when I miss my family—I’ll cue this track and turn the volume loud. By the 1:27 mark the sound invades my mind, but it is fleeting. At 2:21, the melody is already saying goodbye and twenty seconds later, nothing remains but a shadow. It lasts for only a moment—a brief reminder—and I move on.

Film scores are memories frozen in time. Not just the memory of a film, but the memory of how you felt when you saw it. The opening to Star Trek packed a particular punch because the emotion of child birth was still fresh in my mind.

These are the little treasures that can be unlocked by a soundtrack. If I hear Labor of Love it will transport me back to the theater in 2009—still hand-in-hand with my wife.

I can remember the fear and emotion of being a new parent.

Bonus Track

The entire score from Star Trek is amazing; one of my favorites. I have the Deluxe Edition double album which is no longer available¹. But that isn’t the only great music associated with the movie—both trailers featured exquisite soundtracks of their own.

The music from the first trailer is composed and performed by Two Steps from Hell and can be found on their 2010 album, Invincible². The music for the second trailer was a lot harder to figure out. As best I could find, the track was recorded specifically for the trailer, and performed by Two Steps from Hell. Sadly, it isn’t available anywhere that I’ve found.

However, it’s an extended version of a track from Brian Tyler’s excellent Children of Dune score. And that track is available³, albeit shorter, and with a lot less percussion.

Except from an Amazon marketplace seller for an outrageous $299. ↩
Track 1, Freedom Fighters. Warning: this album will increase your productivity by 10,000%. It’s some epic shit. ↩
Track 9, War Begins. ↩

Review: Bose Quiet Comfort 35

Tue, 06 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The Bose Quiet Comfort 35 (QC35, hereafter) headphones can transform a shared space into an intimate one. When I listened to In the Night¹, I could smell gin from the jazz club. The second movement—Adagio Sostenuto²—from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 transported me back to the Kennedy Center.

I’m crazy about headphones. I invest a lot—financially, and mentally—into the sound I thrust into my ears³. From writer, and performer, to studio mixer, the combined efforts of several artists are required to produce a single recording. I want equipment that respects their intentions.

The Bose were evaluated across technical and practical capabilities. I flexed their ability to: (1) resolve detail, (2) convey space and proximity—i.e., their soundstage, and (3) travel—particularly their comfort during extensive use.

The Bose perform extremely well, with subtle flaws that are outstripped by their convenience and comfort.

Detail

Latin percussion can make cheap headphones sound like a muddy pile of shit. Consider the opening track, Los Muertos Vivos Estan, from Thomas Newman’s Spectre score. You need definition to resolve the contact strikes on the bongo drums. This cannot come at the expense of presence at the lower end—required to feel the deep resonance of the djembes.

The QC35 sings, while Beats Solo 2 overwhelm me with bass, and my venerable B&O H6 underwhelm, without a separate amplifier. The QC35’s built-in EQ⁴ is doing some hefty processing, and I notice an edge if the volume is maxed.

Then again, the distorted guitars of the Black Keys—e.g., She’s Long Gone⁵ or Gold on the Ceiling⁶—sound terrific and detailed even at max volume. The dissonant, and electronic play right into the power band of the QC35’s equalizer. The opening to The Social Network score⁷, from Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, epitomize this favoritism.

You can hear a slight midrange drop-off, if you’re paying attention. Two minutes into the opening⁸ of Lorne Balfe’s score for Terminator Genisys, the brass choir sounds muted and shallow underneath the heavy drum rhythms.

Still, the sound of the QC35s defy the missing wire.

Soundstage

Resolution is one thing, but headphones are often claustrophobic. The king of soundstage is the aforementioned Bang and Olufsen H6. The QC35s do not quite match them. While dinged in detail, I think the Bose have a greater sense of space with orchestral music⁹ because of a slightly aggressive bass response.

Michael Giacchino’s bombastic score for Jupiter Ascending¹⁰ is a personal favorite and was recorded at Abbey Roads studio. I Hate My Life wants to fill a room. The QC35s convey a massive, but balanced sound as the track crescendos into an enormous brass choir.

Loud isn’t everything to a good soundstage. The QC35s perform quiet just as admirably. Consider The Constant from Giacchino’s score for LOST: Season 4. Felt piano, ukulele, and soft strings combine for an ethereal, romantic sound. It sounds like a distant dream—poised to sweep you off your feet—thanks to terrific noise cancelation on the Bose.

Sometimes, I want to sing it to the rafters. The QC35s crushes Hello from Adele’s album, 25. The noise cancelation is so good, you won’t hear yourself belting the lyrics¹¹.

Comfort and Convenience

The QC35s are comfortable—damn comfortable. There’s only two pairs of headphones I can wear without fatigue: the B&O H6 and the Bose QC35. I barely notice they’re on my head—even over my chunky eyeglasses.

There is no cord. When typing, you don’t play the stupid “where can I put the cord” game. Like my Beats Solo 2, the Bose sound as good unplugged, as they do plugged-in. Unfortunately, the Beats sound like shit either way and squeeze your head in a vise grip.

Finally, the QC35s ship with a travel-friendly hardshell case. Not the whimpy, felt soft case bullshit that B&O ships with $300 headphones. You could spend $50 to purchase a proper travel case for the B&O or buy the Bose for the same money.

Bottom Line

If you want H6 sound¹² without the cord, the QC35s get you closer than any other headphone sold today. And I’m talking really close.

For your convenience, here’s an Apple Music playlist of all the music linked in this review, plus a few others that didn’t make the final edit of this review¹³.

I bought mine from an Apple Store, in Limited Edition Midnight Blue and Gold. Buy them from Amazon using my get-rich affiliate code.

Track 2 from Jazz is Now by Jon Batiste, 2013. ↩
I have many recordings of this piece—one of my current favorites is Lang Lang’s performance with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra. ↩
I’ve been a musician my entire life. Both of my parents are music lovers. My father infected me with an ear for the finer qualities of sound. I come by it honest. ↩
I’ve found no way to turn it off, but I suspect I wouldn’t prefer the results if I did. ↩
Track 5 from Brother by the Black Keys, 2010. ↩
Track 3 from El Camino by the Black Keys, 2011. ↩
I’m counting both Hand Covers Bruise and In Motion as the “opening” of the soundtrack. Both sound incredible. ↩
Fate and Hope from Terminator Genisys composed by Lorne Balfe, 2015. ↩
And I listen to a lot of orchestral music, which are recorded in large auditoriums, and concert halls. ↩
The score honestly deserves a better movie. If you only know Giacchino from Up or LOST, you owe it to yourself to listen to Jupiter Ascending. ↩
Your office mates will; Buyer beware. ↩
Purists are gonna kvetch about the H6’s needing amplification. Yes, properly amplified, the H6 will outperform the QC35s by a larger margin. However, I don’t know how I could amplify bluetooth headphones, so I compared the un-amplified H6 sound. ↩
1,000 words and 13 footnotes wasn’t everything I had to say about these headphones. Believe it, or not. ↩

Looking Back on Month 8

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Well, I did it: a month of consistent writing. A colleague, Jaimee Newberry, once proposed I consider smaller goals that can be accomplished daily. She encouraged me to do them consistently for a month. A sort of personal NaNoWriMo, but for general purpose writing.

I have written most of my career—professionally—for one reason or the next, but I’ve never written for the sole purpose of improvement.

August wasn’t a month I chose on a calendar, it simply worked out that way. I had considered about how I liked to write, and what kept me so often from publishing. More than one friend¹ encouraged me to write smaller pieces. I resisted—felt my ambitions could not be squeezed into a few hundred words.

Then it occurred to me that I could break up a larger piece into several, smaller chunks. Simple, right? It’s hardly a revelation that shakes the Earth from its axis—but for me, it was everything. Write less, and I could publish more.

Four weeks ago, I took a piece that was intended as a whole, broke it apart, then published the pieces over a week. As I edited them individually, each took a life of its own. The results surprised me, and I kept going.

Notes on the Format

The shorter form gave me momentum. Less to edit, less to format for publication. I started with a few guidelines, but they weren’t sacred. I’ve already broken them many times.

Target length is between 400 and 700 words. Definitely not more than 1000 words².
An optional, full width banner image³. This typically signals a post on photography.
Minimal sections. I use an H2 only for the title of the post. If I need them, an inline H3 can be used. Often for delineation.
A round-up post, published at the end of each week. This is written in a casual voice, without a specific narrative—meant as a behind-the-scenes. This—more than any other constraint of the format—allows me to be concise. If an idea or thought doesn’t fit within the narrative of a post, I save it for the end of the week.
Footnotes, for sidebars and humor. They’re liner notes for my writing. I like to write a lot of parenthetical in my daily correspondence. Through the use of footnotes, I can appear concise, but retain my narrative style.

I have exercised a few of the different types that I hope to post in the coming months. This month focused on what was easiest to write about. If an article didn’t flow quickly, I pushed it off.

Next week is a new month. Thank you for reading.

The Architect dings me for not listening to her when she points out my shortcomings. Among them, I write too much, and spend too much time, fussing over small details only I notice. Also, she tried for years to convince me that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a brilliant show (it is) and I only agreed to watch it after another friend recommended it. Another of my shortcomings. ↩
I broke that rule this past week, with The Camera in your Pocket. Again, these are guidelines. I said what I wanted to say, and nothing more. ↩
The first can be seen in Photographing California. ↩

Photographing the Familiar

Thu, 01 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

When I travel to a new place, there isn’t time to learn the locale and take really interesting photos. Instead, I often capture the kind of postcard images you’d find at a supermarket. When you see a really dynamic composition, it’s likely the photographer is intimately familiar with the subject. You rarely see their first attempt.

iPhone’s camera goes everywhere with you. As a result, you take photos of the same places, of the same people. It might not be an exotic location, but it’s good practice. Iteration on a familiar subject is the perfect way to get out of a rut, and find fresh perspectives.

When we lived in Virginia, there was a playground across the lake behind our house. Every Saturday, I would take the boys on adventures around the lake and we’d finish at the playground. I have a lot of photos and many fond memories from those walks.

There was a tube slide, which was a particular favorite of the boys. The fascination started when they were little. The slide wasn’t too steep to crawl through as a toddler, and wide enough to fit alongside one another as they grew.

I will never forget that tube—games of tag, superheroes¹, and hide-and-seek.

Since it was their favorite hangout, it became an interesting subject to photograph. I took so many photos of that slide, it forced me to find new and interesting compositions. Otherwise I wouldn’t have something new to post to Instagram.

It was a great subject for me to push my skills and learn new techniques.

Looking Glass

The boys would constantly run in and out of the slide. Doing tricks, trying to impress one another, and generally being little boys. Shooting into the slide from the front (or back) side provided an interesting window into their play.

Watchful Brother. Burke, VA instagram

I’m also a sucker for circle in squares. In the photo above, I shot it straight on, letting the geometry of the tube frame the boys. I caught my oldest watching his younger brother. It gives a window into his protective nature and the sweet way he dotes on his brother.

Looking through the slide, it adds a sense of distance that gives the composition its energy. The tube makes it feel like you’re spying on them with a telescope or pair of binoculars.

Funny Portraits

Kids like to make funny faces—a habit I encourage in my children². What is more fun than a silly smile? It’s even better with iPhone, since they can see their silly face immedietely after taking the photo.

Duck Face. Burke, VA instagram

The porthole windows of the tube slide are perfect to frame silly faces. The photo above is lit from the side, providing a perfect mask to emphasize my oldest son’s face. I love how the light blows out the freckles around his nose, while those around his eyes appear in shadow. Since his face is protruding from the window, the photo has a 3D quality to it.

Pin-hole Perspective

This is a shot only iPhone could take. The porthole windows are just big enough to slide the lens-side of my phone into them. The wide lens—combined with the angle —gives the photo a unique look, which reminds me of pin-hole photographs.

Tunnel Vision. Burke, VA instagram

The composition turns the tube into an expanse, which my youngest is gazes into. He could be looking for treasure or trouble. It was a bright day, and he’s backlit. He casts a defined shadow on the slide, which looks to walk into the tunnel ahead of him.

By shooting the inside—without context—I deconstructed the cylindrical quality of the slide and provide a fresh composition for this familiar object.

“Dad, you be the Green Goblin!” I don’t know when or why I was always the Green Goblin, but it stuck for years. ↩
Haters gonna hate, but I love the front-facing camera for funny faces. I have piles of self-portraits on my boys, courtesy of iPhone. ↩

The Camera in your Pocket

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have been asked countless times: “I want to learn more about photography, which camera should I buy?” People think their camera is stopping them—it’s not. If you want to learn, take more photos.

An ideal first camera should be simple to operate and constrained. I think you should have:

A versatile prime lens—ideally 35mm or 28mm—that closely matches your natural vision.
A fast maximum aperture—f/2.8 or better—which shoots well under common lighting conditions.

I carry such a camera in my pocket, everyday. My current phone, an iPhone 6s, has a camera with a 29mm equivalent focal length, and a fixed aperture¹ of f/2.2. Perhaps the answer isn’t a new camera, but one you already carry. You can learn a lot about photography from shooting with an iPhone.

Below are six areas of photography, with examples of what I’ve learned.

Color

White balance adjustment is automatic and iPhone nearly always nails color rendition. Here’s what a professional photographer had to say:

“…each gets fantastic color and auto white balance in real-world crummy lighting conditions.”

That’s from his review of the Fuji X100T, not the iPhone. In other words, the color from iPhone compares to a $1300, dedicated camera with a larger sensor and best-in-class color reproduction.

This unedited² photo from iPhone speaks for itself.

Mirror Sunrise. Lake Royal, Virginia

Wide Angle

The 29mm focal length of the iPhone is classified as wide angle. These types of lenses are often used for landscapes, but can produce interesting photographs of close subjects, too.

You can take advantage of the inherent distortion to add fresh perspective on familiar scenery and portraits. Vanishing lines, such as those in the banner seen at the beginning of this post, are easily captured with the iPhone.

Capitol Perspective. Washington, DC instagram

Motion

iPhone has a fast, electronic shutter that can fire at 1/2000th of a second³. This shutter speed is best put to use with burst mode. Hold down on the shutter button and iPhone captures full resolution photos at a blazing 13fps⁴.

Combine fast shutter and high capture frame rate⁵ to freeze fast moving objects. For example, combine a child with water—the results can be seen below. I held down the shutter just as he ran for the sprinkler. Later, I selected the image when he was directly over the spray⁶.

In the Face! Campbell, CA instagram

Detail

iPhone fares well against cameras with much larger sensors and more megapixels. Courtesy of a custom Apple ISP, iPhone captures more detail than expected from a 1/3” sensor.

In the shot below, iPhone resolves individual strands of thread. The color of the combined effect resolves too, which creates an interesting texture as you look through the exhibit. There are so many technical elements that work in tandem for this image to resolve: (1) focus, (2) white balance, and (3) resolution. With iPhone, it was little more than point and shoot.

Rainbow at the Renwick. Washington, DC

Intimacy

There are two ways to make your subject fill the frame: (1) use a lens with a longer focal length, or (2) get closer. Pros will tell you to “compose with your feet” as way to become more connected with your compositions.

The position of your camera is paramount to perspective. iPhone is lightweight and inconspicuous, so your subjects won’t be afraid if you get close. Since I don’t raise the iPhone to my eye, I’m more likely to find a more interesting angle.

In the photo below, my son is squinting as he looks up, which helps you feel the cold. Head on, you wouldn’t see Thomas the Train Engine under his hood. Instead you have the perspective of a falling snowflake and enjoy the wonder of a little boy in the snow—with those adorable freckles⁷.

Echo 3 to Echo base. Fairfax, VA instagram

Development

When I got into the hobby, I read a lot of pros talking about headroom in their images. Unlike most other cameras, which provide access to RAW files, the iPhone only gives you jpegs. Fortunately, those jpegs have proven amenable to post-processing.

The social network, Instagram became popular by giving every iPhone photographer access to high quality color correction and film emulations. An entire cottage industry of apps with photographic filters was born. For a few bucks and a little bit of work, details and colors in your photos can pop. I’ve already mentioned my personal favorite, RNI Films. Other favorites include VSCO, Mextures, and Camera+.

With these apps, you can exaggerate color, add clarity, noise, grain, or remove color entirely. I generally err on moderation and try to avoid leaving my photos over-processed. Below I’ve exaggerated colors to bring out lines created by the setting sun on distant clouds. It’s not often you see an oncoming storm during sunset—it didn’t need much⁸ for the image to pop.

Storms at Sunset. Claremont, VA instagram

Follow me on Instagram

Most of these photos can be found on my Instagram account and I’ve provided links to each in the captions, where applicable. If you’re looking for more of the above, you’ll find a variety from goofy to well-considered.

Under extremely bright situations, the aperture can toggle between f/8 and f/2.2 ↩
I did crop the image, but I did not do any color boost, sharpening, or correction. At first, it appears there is banding in the reflection. However, those bands are merely ripples in the water. Stunning clarity. ↩
As best as I can tell. Most manual cameras don’t allow a shutter faster than 1/1000th of a second. However, I’ve seen shutter speeds approaching 1/2000th when looking at EXIF data from some of my photos. ↩
Frame rates estimated from this article in Macworld. ↩
For comparison, the latest Canon professional series DSLR, the 1D X Mark II, can only manage 14fps. It also weighs 3lbs and retails for $5,999USD. ↩
I deleted the rest. iPhone storage isn’t unlimited, after all. ↩
I typed “sprinkles” in an earlier draft, because that’s what he calls them. One day he’ll learn the word “freckles” and our fun will be over. Sigh. They grow up so fast. ↩
The grain you see in the image is the actual grain from the iPhone 5, plus the dust scratches from the Instagram filter Hudson. The newer version of Hudson doesn’t add these faux flourishes. The iPhone 5 wasn’t great in low light, compared to newer iPhones. Using Hudson was one way I would embrace the inevitable grain and give the image a film-like quality. ↩

iPhone on the Streets

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Street photography fascinates me. Done well, it can capture an era. Most articles on the topic discuss techniques for being inconspicuous, since it’s required for the photographs to feel natural. Personally, I’ve never had the nerve to do it.

Shooting from the hip—the combination of zone focusing and large apertures—is the pervasive method to capture candid moments. Effectively, it’s a way to take photographs without other people noticing. Since the camera stays off your face, it looks like you’re fiddling with your camera, instead of taking pictures.

The need for stealth is so crucial to street photography, I wondered how the iPhone would fare. After all, everyone is on their phone in public¹.

Waiting in Line. Campbell, CA

I decided to give it a try two weeks ago, while walking back from the local farmer’s market. Each stand backs up to the sidewalk, which gave a clear line of sight into the market through the tents.

Technique

Not sure what I could capture, I held my phone in landscape around my hip—casually—while still walking. Instead of looking down at my phone, I focused on each stand. When I found an interesting group of colors, or I was close enough to capture someone paying for food, I took a picture.

I never bothered to set focus, letting the iPhone handle it. As the light and distance to subjects changed, I hesitated for a few moments, waiting for the iPhone to catch up and re-focus.

California Fruit. Campbell, CA

The selected photos each had a different quality which caught my eye. Scenes backlit by the 10am sun, and the curious halos it created around subjects. Facial expressions, and color groupings from different produce. The graphic boxes with California printed across them.

The iPhone proved the ideal invisible shooter. Not even my family noticed I was shooting photos.

Processing

Back at the house, I was pleasantly surprised by the images. Empty crates, staging tables, and tents provided the perfect frame for an unsuspecting sea of humanity. Unlike how I normally shoot, I composed these photos after capture. Each capture was a different surprise. I didn’t know what I had until long after I was finished.

Exchanging Money. Campbell, CA

Every photo shown has been cropped—sometimes heavily. Since I didn’t carefully frame each shot, it was expected. The iPhone captured enough resolution. I feel comfortable enough to print any of these at poster size.

During selection, I focused on interactions. Two people physically interacting. Or the contrast with how people under the tent interacted with light differently than those outside of them.

Not only did the iPhone capture the photos, it also processed them. I used RNI films’ excellent app to apply vintage or monochrome filters to each photo. I originally planned to exclusively use monochrome, but couldn’t bring myself to hide the beautiful colors of the market.

The experiment was a success—and I am hooked. Two nights ago, walking to an ice cream shop in downtown I spotted a pair of buskers. Five minutes from capture to Instagram.

Street Buskers. Campbell, CA

Probably trying to catch those fucking Pokémons. ↩

Reflections on Week 34

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I started regular posts three weeks ago with an earnest desire to improve. My goal was to write something every day. This week was a doozy—first day of school, my in-laws were in town, and work was particularly hectic. That was enough to distract me from writing, before I found out a dear friend lost his wife in a tragic accident¹.

I wrote a post this week that wasn’t published. I didn’t write it for you—it was for Daniel. Three weeks I have written every day to improve my prose. I needed them all to find the right words for him.

There is a third post about my personal style sitting in pieces on my machine. I’ll get to it eventually. A post about mechanical watches, and plaid shirts could not make sense of this senseless week. Next week I’ll return to photography. About capturing beautiful moments, which—recent events reminded me—are fleeting, and should be cherished.

On a positive note, I did receive a lot of encouragement about the clothing posts. It’s a reach to go from computers and photography, then to clothes. This week was about finding what works for you, which is a thread² I found in common with everything I’ve written thus far.

One tiny bit of errata: my post on the basics of personal style contains nine footnotes. I think that’s a personal record for a single post. Not quite Jules Verne levels, but I aspire.

Finally, I promised to post my favorite photo from last weekend’s adventure. We stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge, then drove to Muir Woods and hiked the short trail. Normally I would’ve taken 800 photos, but last weekend I only took 60—twelve less than I allowed myself for the entire trip.

Even though Ben is nothing but excuses, I’m a man of my word:

Cathedral Grove. Muir Woods National Monument, CA

Take care when reading the link. Daniel is an exceptional writer. If his words don’t rip out your insides, then you’re not wired right. ↩
I couldn’t help myself. ↩

The Basics of Personal Style

Wed, 24 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I think about personal style like a system framework. There’s optional API¹ and non-optional API. Unless you’re a lifeguard or a body builder, shirts and trousers are required components of your daily life. These are the fundamental building blocks of your style.

You want these basics in neutral colors, so they will match anything. This reduces the amount of thinking that goes into your daily wardrobe selection.

My Style

The basis for my personal style is a modern take on the jean/t-shirt look from the 50s and 60s made popular by actors such as James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen². I will layer on top of these basics, as the situation dictates.

There are two major considerations for each component of my basic wardrobe: (1) transition from work to home, and (2) availability.

First, I want my basic look to be my home look. When I return from work or a night out, I want to remove clothing instead of changing entirely. The look I describe below can walk the boys to the playground, take out the trash, and run weekend errands.

Second, because I frequently travel, I require each element to be easily replaceable. For this reason, I purchase off the rack from a major retailer. For my basic style, I shop at the Gap.³ Anywhere in the US, I can walk into a Gap retail store to replace torn denim, or a coffee stained undershirt. Perfect.

My Basics

I purchase basics in bulk. I’ve found a fit, and material I enjoy, so I own enough to last a week and a half⁴ between laundry cycles. Since these are my clothes which will wear out most frequently, a yearly replenishment is expected.

Undershirts. I used to buy them in packs of six before I moved to California. The weather here dictates a layered approach to clothing that caused me to rethink my undershirts. I wanted an undershirt that could stand on its own. That’s why I recently switched to a more fashion forward V-neck t-shirt.⁵ More durable, less see-through. Comfortable.

If pair them with denim, I’m work ready. Simple. At the end of the day, I can replace the denim with shorts and transition to an evening at home with my boys. If I have a meeting with management, or a hot date, and I need a dressier look? Easy; I can throw an oxford over top the undershirt and I’m ready.

Trousers. My trouser of choice is a dark, vintage-wash denim. Always a straight leg—never tapered or slim, which would only accentuate my body size. I wear Gap’s vintage straight since they have a shorter rise than most male jeans⁶. A shorter rise makes my legs appear longer⁷.

Dark colors are more slimming, and they look dressier when paired with the right shoes. I have a few lighter wash pairs for when I want to look (and feel) more casual. I avoid excessively loose or relaxed fit jeans. If you wear them fitted, you’ll be surprised how trim they make you look. I made the switch two years ago and the Architect approves⁸.

Shorts. Khaki shorts, just above the knee. I prefer a darker, chestnut color and vintage wash⁹ if I can find them. Never pleats, always the same color. Paired with an undershirt, I can walk to the playground with my boys. Add a collared-shirt, a nice watch, and I’m ready for a summer evening out.

Other than workout apparel, I don’t own any other shorts. Khaki is the perfect neutral. I prefer the 10” length, since I find the 7” uncomfortably short. Anything below your knee makes you look like a dwarf.

Those are the basics. Simple, and classic. Anything more and I have to think about what matches in the morning. This base layer can stand on it’s own or provide the foundation for any occasion.

All that remains are the accessories.

Exhibit A, B, C, and D ↩
I forgo the leather jacket for plaid. After all, I’m a child of the early 90s and Nirvana. ↩
Why the Gap? They were originally a San Francisco garment company, so their classic styles are meant to be layered. Convenient for my climate, which can have a 40 degree (F) swing in temperature. ↩
That doesn’t mean I own 10 pairs of pants. Assuming I buy similar style and color, I can get away with wearing pants multiple times in a week without notice. ↩
In addition to black and white, I also wear Niagura Navy and Daybreak Blue. I’ve linked to Gap Factory Outlet, because I find their version fits me better. The neckline on the regular Gap version is too deep for my taste. ↩
Their selvedge denim is also quite nice, as well. ↩
I have an unusually short inseam for a 6’ male. In fact, the Architect and I share the same inseam, despite me being 7” taller. ↩
Pro Tip™: When your partner raises their eyes and says “Wow, I like those”, you go back to the store and buy three more pairs. ↩
Gap calls them “lived in”, which sounds gross to me. I wish they called them what they are: soft. ↩

Elements of Personal Style

Mon, 22 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I want to talk about style, in a nerdy sort of way. Style is not often a word associated with nerds, but I don’t see why that should stop us. I’ve always been conscious of the need to have a personal style.

I’m what is kindly referred to as a big guy. Not once have I walked out of a Banana Republic with an outfit worn by the mannequin. My personal style went through phases where I attempted to hide my size, telling myself I wanted to be comfortable. It took me a while before I understood how to dress appropriately for my size.

My own style has evolved over time. Since I would never be a medium, I decided to look good as an extra-large. Looking good is a comfort on its own. Maybe you catch a glimpse at yourself passing a mirror, or its the way your pant leg drapes over your shoes—whatever it is—feeling good in your clothes is a joy I want everyone to experience.

To be clear, I’m not talking about fashion. Fashion is fleeting. What everyone needs is a personal style—a framework—for everyday dress that suits their personality and day-to-day life.

You’re probably thinking, “I don’t want to think about how I dress.” Before you stop reading, hear me out. Just like you, I want to roll out of bed and dress myself without thinking. That is exactly what a personal style can give—only you won’t look like you just rolled out of bed.

Later this week, I’ll go over the basics, then talk about how I like to dress them up. Below are a few of my rules, to set the stage:

Clothes that fit. Baggy, loose, and relaxed are three adjectives that should not describe your wardrobe. Replace them with tailored, and fitted. It may sound counter-intuitive, but fitted clothes are slimming¹.

Clothing that drapes off your body can draw awkward lines and create volume in your silhouette where it doesn’t exist. Gravitate towards straight pant legs, and tailored shirts. Try a size smaller than you would normally buy. Bring a friend to the store and ask them if it looks too small. You might be surprised by their answer².

Natural fibers. Cotton, linen, jersey, silk, and denim are your friends. They breathe easier than synthetic fibers and feel more comfortable on your skin. Consider your phone or computer—we find them more appealing when they are made of natural materials. Shouldn’t it be the same for clothing?

Save the fancy synthetic cloth for your workout gear, which you should never, ever wear in public unless you’re working out. Sweat pants are for walking the dog and mowing the lawn.

Neutrals. Bold color and pattern introduce the subjective calculus of what matches, and what can be mixed. You can avoid this by only wearing one pattern (typically a shirt³, scarf, or neck-tie). This means that the rest of your outfit should be a neutral.

When in doubt, look for a neutral color such as black, navy blue, brown, gray, or white. Avoid colored denim. Avoid pattern. This will leave you with more versatility and less trouble in the morning when you figure out what to wear.

Try on, before you buy. Clothing sizes are more marketing than science. I cannot button an extra-large oxford from J Crew, but can fit a friend inside of an XL from Nordstrom. European designers tend to size small, and Japanese designers size even smaller. Go into a store and try them on in a fitting room.

I avoid online shopping for anything but my basics. With those, I already know my size and I own enough to understand the variance. Oh yes, garments can vary even if they are the same size, from the same designer. Clothing is not rocket science and tolerances are larger than you expect.

If you remember nothing else, try everything on.

Avoid being too fitted, garments shouldn’t pull during natural movement, like sitting down or reaching for something on a tall shelf. Also, your genitals shouldn’t go numb. ↩
People may ask you if you’ve lost weight, too. This is my favorite compliment—why can’t people just say “You look great.” Assholes. ↩
Patterned pants should never be worn, unless your Great Uncle invites you to play golf or someone loads you into a cannon, then shoots you across a row of cars. ↩

Notes & Errata from Week 33

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The perpetual item on my one day TODO list below “Write more often” is “Share your photographs.” Much of the type design on this site was considered in deference to photography, which I hoped would fill its pages. This week I can check that box off my list.

Despite an ocean temperatures slightly warmer than ice water, the California beaches are beautiful and extremely photogenic. When combined with the consistent weather, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to shoot. I chose three of my favorite photographs taken since moving to California and it’s no coincidence they are all from the beach.

I wanted to talk about the importance of a photographer’s vision—what they see and their ability to recognize a shot. Like so many others I had hit a slump. When this happens it’s easy to get caught up in the technical aspects of photo capture, and ignore maxims that can—and should—simplify your process.

Any aspiring photographer whose spent more than a five minutes online has read two phrases: “f/8 and be there” and “Sunny 16”. Instead of writing yet another article describing these techniques, I wanted to focus on how I applied them to capture specific photographs.

Photography fascinates me because it’s a discipline which is highly theoretical, but cannot be mastered theoretically. Photographers must see beyond the clinical and form their own opinion, capturing what they see.

Notes from the week

Originally, Unnecessary Adjustments was a single paragraph in the Photographing California, which warned about becoming absorbed by the moment. As a separate piece, it grew into full-blown catharsis. As I strove to capture the perfect moment, I had missed everything else.
I received a lot of skepticism about my “36 exposure per SD card” limit. This weekend I’m hiking Muir Woods with my family and bringing just two SD cards. 72 exposures, no rear LCD, and manual exposure. If anything turns out, I’ll post my favorite in the follow-up for next week.
Writing about photography is decidedly more personal than I anticipated. Especially if you want to talk about images which succeeded. I’m normally not one for trawling site analytics and twitter mentions, but this week I was on pins and needles.
Astute readers can find out The Architect’s actual name, if they paid attention.

See y’all next week.

Sunny 16 State

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I wish I knew more about exposure. Sure, I can trick the AE program in my camera to create interesting results. I have a passable understanding for when to expose for shadow details and when to push highlights. But I don’t have the slightest idea how to calculate optimal exposure without help.

Not yet, at least. I’m starting to learn.

Exposure is the amount of light collected by the camera. You control exposure with three settings: (1) aperture, (2) shutter speed, and (3) film speed or ISO. Each camera has a minimum and maximum value for each setting. When you adjust one of these settings, it changes the amount of light collected, according to a logarithmic scale called exposure value (EV).

A difference of 1 EV is often referred to as a stop. Adding a stop (+1 EV) doubles the amount of light collected, while reducing a stop (–1 EV) cuts it in half.

A good camera, like the Fuji X100T, provides dials for controlling aperture, and shutter speed. Each marked division on these dials denotes a single stop.

So ends theory.

Starting Point

What I’ve always wanted to know is how to properly expose a given scene. With a light meter, I’ve had a starting point that could be adjusted to achieve a particular image. Where do I start without a meter?

Enter the Sunny 16 rule, which I discovered in a book I recently finished:

On a sunny day, set aperture to f/16 and shutter speed to the reciprocal of the ISO setting for a subject in direct sunlight.

It sounds too simple, but this is all the information I need to properly expose a scene. No light meter required. In fact, the photo at the start of this post uses the very EV defined by Sunny 16.

The ISO in this photo, 200, is the slowest¹ I can select. According to Sunny 16, the recommended shutter speed is 1/200th a second, or the next closest (which is 1/250th a second on my Fuji), with the aperture set to f/16.

As I described at the beginning of the week, I prefer to shoot moving children at f/8. Since I increased the aperture two stops, I had to reduce the shutter by two stops (1/500th second) to compensate.

The drama of the above photo comes from the surf crashing against the cliff in the upper right of the frame. Since the surf is the only part of the image in direct sunlight, the exposure draws emphasis to it. By under-exposing the rest of the image, the crashing water seems to leap from the page.

Happy Days (Are Here Again)

Clouds, shooting indoors, and large buildings casting shadows are just a few things that will reduce the amount of incident light in your frame. You’ll need to compensate accordingly: larger apertures, longer shutters, and larger ISO values. Kodak includes handy charts, similar to this one², on their film packaging. I was surprised to find only a few scenarios to remember.

That said, these are more like guidelines really. Exposure, while mathematically described, is an important part of a creative process for photography.

As shown in the above photo, not every subject in your frame will share the same exposure value. You can exploit this fact to draw attention towards certain parts of your shot, just as you can with focus or depth-of-field.

Sunny 16 is a starting point. Nothing can replace the knowledge and intuition gained from actually going out and trying. Unless you’re fortunate enough to live in a place where every day is a bright sunny day, it will be a challenge to experiment.

Lucky for me, I live in California—where every day is happy.

ISO 200 is the lowest setting the Fuji includes by default. You can select a lower ISO value in the menu, but it may produce a compromised image. ↩
Chart originally created by Dirk Fletcher ↩

Unnecessary Adjustments

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The cross-country move forced me to clean out my basement office this past winter. Hundreds of hard drives, USB sticks, and zip disks¹ were stuffed with years of photographs. As I consolidated them into a single Lightroom library, I noticed a disturbing pattern.

Several years ago, I started to examine the edges of the viewfinder after taking a photo while the camera was still pressed to my face. I wanted to improve my composition skill and a photographer with a better eye than mine suggested the technique. It worked too, which lead to second—and sometimes third, fourth, fifth—attempts at the photographs. My expectation was that the subsequent frames would be more successful.

As I reviewed a decade of photographs, it was apparent this expectation was misguided. I would most often select the original, if any at all. I was wasting time. Taking photos was becoming a disruption. According to the boss, I spent too much time fiddling with my camera and less time enjoying the moment with my family.

Ouch.

Instincts

After the fact, it’s easy to see I should learn to trust my instincts. Take one photo. Put the camera down. Go back to what I was doing. Be more deliberate.

Ken Rockwell has a curious mnemonic for a technique I’ve found very effective. Instead of immediately grabbing the camera, he recommends a slower, more thoughtful approach:

Once you’ve got a hankering to stop and take a picture, stop and ask yourself exactly what it is that made you stop.

It sounds simple, but this advice made my photographs more opinionated. Now when I raise my camera, I’ve already thought about what I want to shoot. Unfortunately, I still don’t trust myself to get it.

The Crutch

Visualizing the shot is all well and good, but meaningless if I can’t break my nasty habit of chimping. The Architect suggests I should shoot film. While certainly appealing, I’m nervous about switching away from a camera I know. Film is gonna be a huge change.

Since the Architect is never wrong, I’m going to try and approximate shooting film with my digital camera²:

Turn off the Rear Display. The X100T has an option to route everything through the eyepiece³ and leave the LCD turned off. No display, less temptation to tweak and fiddle. No chimping.
No EVF. In addition to the rear LCD being turned off, I’m also relying exclusively on the optical finder on the X100T. This should also help me think more about exposure.
36 images, one ISO. I take too many photos, and I want to reduce the review burden. So I’ll limit myself to 36 exposures per SD card. I will only set the ISO whenever I load an empty card, to mimic the constant speed of a roll of film.
Review images on the computer. If I want to see a photo, I have to load it on the computer and review it there. Everything is a surprise, just like film.
Manual exposure only. I want to rely less on the camera, and more on my own understanding of light. This is a topic unto itself and part of my desire to do more things on purpose.

This won’t be easy. But if I want to learn, I need to remove more of the computer from my camera.

Yes, those god-awful clicky disks of death. My only remaining functional drive required a screw-driver to be jammed on top of the disk, which forced it on the spindle. I will not confirm, or deny, that the drive was set on fire after I was finished. ↩
Before you start shaking your head, consider that Leica is selling a digital camera in 2016 without a rear LCD display. They market it as the “joy of anticipation”. Consider my list a way to save $6,000 and use the gear you already own. ↩
I normally use the Eye Sensor option, which will turn off the rear display when the camera is on your eye. ↩

Photographing California

Mon, 15 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, the boys and I set out on an adventure down the Pacific Coast Highway. After we found a beach near Morro Rock, the boys quickly took to the water. Always the same: chase the surf out to sea, then retreat as it crashed back towards them.

It was bright, the boys were moving fast, and the aperture of my Fuji X100T was set to f/8. At some point the boys started running towards me, kicking high in an attempt to splash water on my face. After the third or fourth time, I knelt down in the sand, aimed the camera in the distance, and half pressed the shutter release. Focus locked, I then reframed on the duo headed towards me, and waited. As soon as they filled the viewfinder, I closed the shutter.

Only later did I realize they were holding hands.

f/8

There are a few things in this image that happened on purpose, but most of it was luck. The line the surf draws across the sand. Just the right amount of ocean spray to add depth. Luck.

As I continue to explore photography, my hope is for more things to happen on purpose.

For example, I know with the lens focused near infinity, and the aperture set to f/8, any object more than three feet away will be in focus. This leaves me free to concentrate exclusively on composition. And when focus is locked, the shutter closes immediately. If the boys weren’t too close when I closed the shutter, the entire image would be sharp.

By asking the camera to do less, I had more control to focus on what mattered for the photograph.

Be there

Had I worried about a shallow depth-of-field, which would blur the background and isolate the boys, I’d miss the shot. The X100T is known for slow auto-focus. Instead of fretting over settings or gambling with continuous auto-focus, I knelt down and got a better angle.

The photo succeeds because I engaged the boys on eye-level. Had I relied on the camera to do more, I would be cursing its limitations. Instead, I used a classic technique and shot the photograph I wanted¹.

After taking the photo I was soaked, and the boys were laughing at me. When I got home, I had to take a wet cotton swab to wipe away the encrusted salt from the knobs and dials on the camera. A telephoto lens would’ve saved me some clean-up, but I’d have missed the fun.

The photograph was worth it. I look at those faces and I’m right back on the beach, splashing and playing.

The sub-headings for this article are an homage to an old mantra of documentary photographers. While I wasn’t on a battlefield or photographing a busy street corner, I did find the technique useful to capture fast-moving children. ↩