Bookend Gifts

Art

The news came out this weekend on Mercury News and the Chronicle, so it’s worth addressing here: The Bay Lights, a public art project that uses San Francisco’s Bay Bridge as its canvas, is a project I’ve supported since I first heard of it and the idea captured my imagination. I was happy to make the first monetary donation when the project got started, and as of last week I was able to make a closing bookend donation for the remaining amount they needed, a bit above $1.5M. It was an honor to chip in along with the thousands of other supporters who have already donated to make the project a reality.

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. — Pablo Picasso

My hope is that over the next few years, and perhaps beyond that, the lights brighten people’s experience of San Francisco whether they see them every night or they’re one of the 16 million that visit the city every year. Hopefully that effect, however small, spreads to their other interactions long after the lights are off and the sun comes up. There are countless good causes around the world, some which I support regularly are listed on my about page, and I hope to have the opportunity to support many more in the future, but this close-to-home gift to a city that has given me so much seemed like the right thing right now.

If you haven’t seen them yet, here are the lights in action, more on the tech fixes happening to the lights on TBL, and photos I took climbing the bridge a few months ago:

Samattical

Automattic

Today is the day! The first day of my sabbatical. What an experience it has been. On Thursday I delivered my very first Ignite talk on the subject! Here it is.

The Ignite format is a tricky one as a speaker! I will do better next time. My friend Connie has delivered seven Ignite talks now and I thought hers and Adam Savage’s were the highlights of the ones I saw. (I didn’t see everything because I was popping in and out.)

Preparing for this sabbatical has been the most fun I’ve had working at Automattic, ever. It brought so much clarity to things, we’ve been able to resolve in hours things that have lingered for months, including two acquisitions, several hires, big strategies, and more.

After this talk I caught a redeye to NYC to meet with the WordPress.com leadership team and hand off my leadership there to Daniel Bachhuber.

It is a beautiful symmetry that the first-ever sabbatical taken at Automattic was by its CEO at the time, Toni Schneider, which gave me the opportunity to step in and try on being a CEO, and it’s an incredible gift that Toni is returning to be CEO of Automattic while I’m out for the months of February, March, and April.

What am I going to do with all this free time? Blog a ton. So follow along if you want to see this journey. I’m going to try to open source all the things. šŸ˜‡

Update: I ended up extending this to May 15 since it got a late start.

Death of Windows?

Uncategorized

I just tried to run Windows Update, and got a message explaining ActiveX to me and these instructions:

To view and download updates for your computer, Windows Update should be listed as a Trusted Site in Internet Explorer.

To add Windows Update to the trusted sites zone:

  1. On the Tools menu in Internet Explorer, click Internet Options.
  2. Click the Security tab.
  3. Click the Trusted Sites icon, and then click Sites...
  4. Uncheck the “require server verification” checkbox.
  5. Make sure the following URLs are listed in the Web Sites list box:
    • http://*.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
    • http://*.windowsupdate.com

Note: If you need to add a URL to the Web Sites list and the Add button is disabled, contact your system administrator.

What a usability nightmare! Perhaps this degraded user experience in the name of “security” will open the market for systems built on a foundation of security wrapped in an enjoyable and easy-to-use interface.

Best and Brightest

Uncategorized

The Best and Brightest, Glamorous Life #33. Who says Zeldman gets linked less?

Zeldman has had a profound influence on the way I think about the web. I started taking web craft seriously because of Zeldman. WordPress exists because of Zeldman. I am where I am today because of Jeffrey Zeldman. This isn’t hyperbole, just statement of fact.

I think now is an excellent time for people to take a walk through his archives and highlight their favorite articles, something I’ll do myself at least once a day every day this week. If you’re doing something similar leave a comment so I can follow along. It’ll be interesting to see what people were most influenced by from one of the most influential fathers of today’s web.