Took the kids to IHOP around 10:30am. Despite many tables were empty, the hostess asked us to wait for five minutes. Another group of Spanish folks came in and the hostess told them the same thing. Then an old white man walked right in. When the hostess told him to wait, he asked, “Why do I need to wait when there are tables available?” The hostess didn’t stop him. He just sat himself down at an empty table and we just had to wait for our turn. I didn’t complain or anything. The hostess who spoke with an accent appeared to be new on the job and didn’t seem to know what to do.

Hôm nọ đi H Mart ăn trưa ngồi kế bên bàn ba người Á Châu. Một ông già hói, một người đàn bà xồn xồn, và một thiếu nữ độ 30 mấy có thể nhỏ hơn hoặc bằng tuổi của tôi. Lúc đầu không biết là người Việt cho tới khi ông già gọi người đàn bà xồn xồn là má và gọi cô thiếu nữ là em. Té ra mẹ vợ ông này còn trẻ tuổi hơn ổng nữa. Thật bái phục. Định qua hỏi ông ấy có nhận đệ tử không.

A philharmonic performance via turntables. Simply stunning sound.

I haven’t followed John Gruber’s “The Talk Show” for a while. I am no longer interested in Apple products and I can’t keep up with each two-hour episodes. This one with Jason Kottke is different. They talked about the blog in its early days. Both John and Jason are doing quite well with the blogs. They also talked about redesigning Daring Fireball, which doesn’t seem to happen anytime soon. I enjoyed the conversation.

Anil Dash:

This one is so obvious, but we seem to have forgotten all about it: The web was designed so that everybody was supposed to have their own website, at its own address.

Ironically, Anil published this piece on Medium instead of his own site.

Dan Cohen:

Meanwhile, thinking globally but acting locally is the little bit that we can personally do. Teaching young people how to set up sites and maintain their own identities is one good way to increase and reinforce the open web. And for those of us who are no longer young, writing more under our own banner may model a better way for those who are to come.

Love to see more people getting back to blogging.

• “Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet” by Andrew Marantz
• “Does Recovery Kill Great Writing?” by Leslie Jamison
• “25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music is Going” by The New York Times Magazine
• “Listening to Miles Davis and John Coltrane’s Final Tour” by Richard Brody

Huber de Givenchy’s words to live by:

Life is like a book: one has to know when to turn the page.

By Hiếu Minh Nguyễn

Convinced she’s in hell

my mother wakes me & begs to be taken

to the lake. Wailing in prayer on the kitchen floor

her skin itching with heat, a flame seizing for god.

I believe her. One day, we will all know when suffering comes

to play the instrument of our bodies. Her song, a single note

a copper kettle whistling for mercy. From the blue-black sand

of McCarrons, I watch her disappear

under the night water. Moonlit rings

spill from her absence.

I have not checked my Analytics for a while; therefore, Google emailed me to let me know that I had 1.4K users visited Professional Web Typography in February. Based on the lack of support for the book, I did not realize that the site is still active. Although the book has published two years ago, the content is still relevant. Last week I made some minor changes to keep the information up-to-date. Last night, I published a new chapter on “Exploring Variable Fonts.” Go read it if you haven’t.

Google also notified me that I had 1.3K users visited Vietnamese Typography in February. Although the support is scarce—except for one big donation from a Vietnamese-American fellow—the book gives me the opportunity to do advising on supporting Vietnamese language. The experiences of working with type designers and foundries give me more insights on how they approach Vietnamese diacritics and how I can help them solve the issues that they have. I am looking forward to more advising opportunities.

Overall, I am still very proud of these two projects and will continue to work on them.

One of the oldest blogs that still updates everyday. Jason Kottke reflects:

On March 14, 1998, I was 24 years old and dumb as a brick. Oh sure, I’d had lots of book learning and was quick with ideas, but I knew shockingly little about actual real life. I was a cynical and cocky know-it-all. Some of my older posts are genuinely cringeworthy to read now: poorly written, cluelessly privileged, and even mean spirited. I’m ashamed to have written some of them.

But had I not written all those posts, good and bad, I wouldn’t be who I am today, which, hopefully, is a somewhat wiser person vectoring towards a better version of himself.

I visit Kottke.org once in a while, but I am glad that he still updates regularly. Congratulations, Jason! See you in 2028.