Forty years is not a very long time. In the grand scheme of things, it is a blink. In the history of western civilization, it is only but a couple of generations out of the hundreds. Yet, in the history of this young country, it seems so long ago.
Forty years ago, give or take a few, my mother was in a jail in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Her mother was in jail too. They were in jail for a horrible and criminal act – sitting at a lunch counter. You see, only forty years ago in many parts of this country sitting at certain counters in too many parts of this great land was illegal for a number of it’s citizens. They sat at that counter, bravely, with many others for the purpose of being arrested. Their intention was to fill the jails. To make a point. To prove how futile such barriers were in the face of common sense, decency and justice.
Forty years ago, that justice did not include in many of it’s citizens. If you were, say, African-American, that justice did not guarantee you the right to vote, the right to live in many parts of your city, the right to send your kids to any school or even the right to sit at any old lunch counter and grab a sandwich. That justice did not extend to you if your were Black or Brown or Red, “just us”. Justice for all is one of the cornerstones that this country was founded upon. Yet for the first two hundred years it was only guaranteed for some. This is made even more ironic when you consider that it was an African-American that was the first to die for that very cause some two hundred years earlier.
Forty years ago, I was just barely one year old. I was African-American. I was born in the south. History tells me that, had it not been for the extraordinary efforts of countless others before me, including my Mother and Grandmother, I would likely not have the life I live today. I certainly would not live in the places I have lived. I likely would not have the jobs I have had. I would not have been able to marry the women I have married. Therefore, I would not have had the beautiful children, we have made together. They being a product of many races and colors. Their very faces are the embodiment of the American promise.
Forty years ago, if you had asked my parents if they thought I could grow up to be anything I wanted one day, even president, they might have said “yes” but they likely would not have believed it would happen in their lifetimes. They knew how many challenges were faced. Not just by African-Americans or other people of color, They knew the challenges that the country faced in just having the very conversations and conversions on this topic we call “race”. It could not be solved in forty years any more than it had been undone in the previous four hundred.
Forty years later, we all seem to look back on this with a kind of amazement. We all talk about it as if it is long ago and in a far away land called history. We forget what an amazing thing it is, and in how short of time, that we have come to this point. This is not to say, that many problems do still not exist. They do. Yet here we are. If someone now asks me if I think my sons or my daughter could be able to be anything they want in this country, even president, I will not only know the answer – I will believe.
Forty years on, the very possibility of being able to elect an African-American to the highest public office in this great land is a jaw dropping accomplishment – as is the very fact that I am able to cast a vote. There have been many who have fought and died, even within the last forty years, to ensure it. I think we as a people, and as a nation, forget that.
Forty years from now, I pray this moment is not lost in history on my sons and my daughter. Although, I imagine they will look back on it with that same certain amazement. Amazed that it had to be so hard, for so long, over something so simple, yet made so complex. Perhaps by then they will be consumed with other issues just as important as liberty and justice and the way in which we guarantee it to our citizens. Whatever those fights may be, if there is any lesson to take away from this time in history, it is that anything is possible. Do not give up no matter what the cost as it is no higher a price paid than by countless others that came before you. And, if you must give up everything, in order to see a cause through, never give up this…
Hope.
Callie Shell – Obama – Digital Journalist
Callie Shell – Obama – Digital Journalist
Beautiful and intimate photos of Obama on the campain trail. These are stunning.
iPhone = Game Changer
I had to go to the post office today to mail some packages. While waiting in line, I decided to be productive by answering a few emails.
Once up at the counter, the postal agent noticed I had forgotten a number on the zip code for one of my packages. No problem, the address came from and email so I looked it up on my phone and gave it to her.
Then, I requested tracking and proof of delivery for one of my packages. the postal agent processed the tracking slip and handed me my copy. As soon as I received it, I placed it on the counter and used my iPhone to take a snapshot note into Evernote. In doing so, the photo gets uploaded to the “cloud”, the text in the photo of that slip is run through OCR and made searchable, and then it is synced to my various machines. Therefore, no need for the slip.
iPhone = Game Changer.
Service: Online Only: The New Yorker: This is the photo Colin Powell discussed during his endorsement of Obama. Beautiful.
My Manifesto: Time is precious
Time is very precious. More precious than money. One can always make more money but one can’t have back this moment… Or this one.
To me, the logic seems simple. Money can always be replaced. Time can not be replaced. There is, therefore, no price you can place on time. Time’s value is immeasurable. If given the choice between time and money, choose time.
This entry in my manifesto is a reminder of that. It is a reminder to heavily consider how I am spending my time. It’s inherent value. To make sure that I am not trading it for any less than it is worth. A reminder that, even in the pursuit of money, my time is spent in a way that is productive and has meaning. If not, then no amount of money in the world is worth it. It is for this reason I refuse to spend even one moment too many in a job I do not like or doing something that I do not enjoy. The work we do should add value to our lives in the form of growth, compassion or fulfilment.
Time is precious enough to me not to waste it. Not to waste my time or the time of the people I encounter in the course of this life. I value their time just as much. I have wasted too much in this life and want to make sure to work every day to not feel as if I have wasted any more.
You may notice that time is a reoccurring theme in my manifesto. There is good reason. It is that important.
Working Class Hero – John Lennon (via jigowatts) – Happy Birthday John.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Design Decisions: Inspiration
I would be lying to you if I told you that all of the ideas for the latest version of patrickrhone.com sprang fully formed from my oversized noggin. It would also be a lie if i told you I was inspired by any single website or idea.
With that being said, here are some of the sources of the inspiration for this design:
B-list
I mentioned before that I was inspired by this post by James Bennett at B-List. What I have not mentioned is that I was also inspired by the idea of having navigation to last and next entires in a minimal way beneath the post itself:
Ryan Tomayko
In the post mentioned above, James Bennett references a post by Ryan Tomayko regarding minimalist design and what the great Edward Tufte refers to as “Administrative Debris. This was also a huge influence, especially in the arena of navigation choices:
Memo
Memo is a graphic design firm in New York City. I am really inspired by their website which features just a bit of contact info and pictures of their work, all on one single page:
Seed
Wow. How can one not have been inspired by the single page design concept for the last Seed Conference. Stunning in both the idea, execution and honoring the past while being fresh at the same time:
Of course, those are just a few. There are way too many to list them all here. These are just the ones that stand out the most to me right now. This is just my small way of saying thanks to all of the great web designers who continue to take great care with the craft and continue to inspire and impress.
Design Decisions: patrickrhone.com 2.0
I thought it would be useful and fun to walk through some of the choices I made while considering the new design of this site. My goal was not to create a site that was even more minimal, simply for the sake of doing so. My goal was to honor the idea of having everything the site really needed and nothing that it did not and to put the content first are foremost. Especially on the front page.
In the previous version of the site, the front page was a splash page of navigation choices:
This actually was a popular design and was featured many places including online web design features and even in a real honest to goodness print magazine (the dead tree kind).
The question I often asked myself was if anyone actually used this. As a matter of fact, this question was a driving force when coming up with the current design. I did not want to assume the answer to these questions because, if it was used and I removed it, I would hear about it from visitors to the site.
Therefore, I decided to take a look at Google Analytics, which is a service used to monitor traffic to, from and on a website. I have had it installed on the site for a while in order to have some idea of where my traffic was coming from. That being, a map of where people are clicking on your site, how much they are clicking one site element verses another, and also how long of a time they are spending once they get there. Here is what I found: No one really used the front page navigation.
Most people would either click on “journal” to go to the blog or they went to the blog directly (via a bookmark or a link from another site). That being the case, why not land them on the blog directly? So now, patrickrhone.com lands you on the main journal page.
Next came the question of the navigation on the journal itself:
Once again, noted for it’s design. By 37 Signals even!
The question must be asked though. Did anyone use this? I mean, I was pretty sure if they were not using the navigation on the front page they would not be using it here but what about the navigation to the individual categories? For instance, surely there must be sometimes people want to see all of, and only, the productivity posts. Once again, the analytics told me that it was used from time to time, but not often enough to warrant it’s inclusion on the front page. As it turns out, you know who the biggest user of the category navigation was? Me. And even I did not use it enough to warrant it’s placement here.
That being said, it was being used sometimes (i.e. mainly by me) so I did not want to lose it completely. Therefore, I moved this navigation to the archives page, where I could also provide a more complete navigation to the rest of the site.
Furthermore, I asked the question, what content were most people coming to the site coming for. The answer I found was that, more often than not, people were coming to see the latest post. Those that subscribe via RSS are subscribed for that reason – to be notified of, and read, the latest post. Therefore, why does any other post beyond the latest post need to be on the front page? If someone wants to see other more recent posts, why not simply provide a link to the post before (or after as the case may be) directly under the post itself? Then again, if someone wants to see a listing of more recent posts, why not provide that on the “archives” page? So, this is what I did. Hence the “one post” design.
The status section was a neat idea to me at one time that apparently, from my research, no one else (outside of friends and family) ever really looked at.
This functionality for them has been largely replaced by Twitter which, even at only 140 characters per post, provides a much more detail rich account of “what am I doing” than this ever could. Therefore, it was dropped.
So, what then to do about the colophon and contact sections:
Believe it or not, people actually did look here from time to time. People who wanted to get in touch or find out a little more about the site design (i.e. “Is there a template I can download?” or “I love it. Do you mind if I ‘borrowed’ it?”). Therefore, it was important for me to keep this information but it did not have to be broken out into two separate pages. Thus, the info page was born.
Not all of the changes happened on the front, user facing, end of the site. Some of them happened on the back end. The move from Moveable Type to WordPress being one of them. There were several reasons for the move. The first one being that I was on an older version (3.3) of Moveable Type to begin with. So I knew I would probably want to upgrade to MT 4 as part of the redesign. If I was going to have to do a major upgrade anyway, it would be a good time to switch if I choose to. After having done several WordPress installations for clients with Michael, I had grown to enjoy the interface and more intuitive (to me at least) admin management features it had to offer. Also, since it is in wider use and is open source, there seems to be far more in the way of plugins and extras available.
Well, there it is, some of the design choices I made when coming to the current look and feel of the site. Once again, comments are off for now but I welcome feedback via e-mail or Twitter.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Welcome to patrickrhone.com 2.0
If you are reading this on the website, and you have visited before, you probably notice some changes. If you are reading this in a RSS reader, I invite you to come take a look at the website because the rest of this post will be meaningless to you otherwise.
I have been thinking for quite some while about how to take an already basic and minimalist design and further reduce it to the bare minimum of what I feel it needs to be. This was further inspired by this post by James Bennett that really got me thinking about blog design and what it most important (and what is not really important at all).
What I desired was a design that put the content first, above all else, and let the rest of the site elements mostly disappear. This also meets many of my deeper beliefs about simplicity and being in the present. What you see here before you is the realization of that goal.
Here is the new road map to help you get around:
* The front page contains only the most current post. That’s it. One post per page.
* Navigation to to the previous and/or next posts is directly below each post.
* Navigation to categories, a list of recent and popular posts, info about the site, contact information, etc., has been moved to the archives or info pages respectively. These are found at the bottom of each page.
* A link to the RSS feed is also in the bottom navigation.
* For those that care, I have also switched blogging engines from Moveable Type to WordPress.
* Comments have been turned off for now. I am still trying to come up with a way to do them that is in fitting with the new design and, more importantly to me, reduces spam (boy was I getting a ton). You can send comment to me via e-mail or Twitter for now.
Speaking of comments, I would welcome any that you have about the new design. Special thanks go out once again to my friend, web guru and all around Badass™, Michael Armstrong.