Reply All is my favorite podcast. It bills itself as “a show about the internet.” The latest episode is about diversity in Silicon Valley, approached through the lens of a black engineer who recently quit his job at Twitter. It is fascinating and absolutely worth a listen. One of my favorite parts is an example […]
David Cohen, a storied activist and leader on campaigns for social and economic justice, passed away at the end of last year. Between 2005 and 2007, David and I worked together at Experience Corps in Washington, DC. We shared an office for a brief time. At one point, I recall showing him the keyboard shortcuts […]
You were awesome.
A couple weeks ago, Bates College was on The Simpsons. I found out on a Sunday evening via Facebook, where a friend mentioned he had just seen the show poking fun at Bates. Next, I checked Yik Yak, where some of our students were talking about seeing it as well. Because Simpsons episodes and clips […]
The weather for this year’s Bowdoinham Polar Bear Dip was quite a departure from last year. No ice to break up, no snow on the ground. It was nearly 50 degrees and sunny out. The upshot of all this was that I walked out onto the dock feeling waaay too cocky. The water was so, […]
Ernest Hemingway’s 1954 Nobel Prize acceptance speech is a succinct and enjoyable read. My favorite part is maybe the most inscrutable: Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he […]
Watching a tragedy unfold from the other side of the world can at once be deeply moving and terribly frustrating. It can be hard to know what to do, how to react. Even if the events have no tangible, concrete effect on your day-to-day life, the urge to express empathy with the victims can be […]
I was very sorry to learn that legendary font designer Adrian Frutiger passed away on September 10. After a somewhat painstaking process of research and testing, last month we finally switched to his “Neue Frutiger” as our sans serif font on bates.edu. The response has been very positive, and I love seeing it there every […]
I have been thinking about this phrase today. It comes to me from a lesson imparted to campers at the summer camp I attended as a boy and worked at into my twenties. Here’s how it is presented there: Be kind. Do at least one act of unbargaining service each day. I have always really […]
A few weeks ago — following four days of training in Washington, DC, on the heels of a fifth in New York the year prior — I completed a set of online tests and received my UX Certification from the Nielsen Norman Group. I’ve been exploring and learning about the field of User Experience for […]