Nilay Patel on the new Verge:

So we sat down and thought about what was really important to us and how to make our homepage valuable every time you open it. We also thought about where we came from and how we built The Verge into what it is today. And we landed on: well shit, we just need to blog more.

So we’re back to basics with something we’re calling the Storystream news feed, right on our homepage. Our plan is to bring the best of old-school blogging to a modern news feed experience and to have our editors and senior reporters constantly updating the site with the best of tech and science news from around the entire internet.

I am glad to see The Verge reinvigorates blogging and I hope to see blogging makes a comeback. I miss reading blogs.

Back in April 2020, I had the pleasure of reviewing the Vietnamese diacritical marks for GT Pressura, designed by Marc Kappeler and Dominik Huber. I am so glad to see the type family being refreshed and expanded, according to the release note:

The Extended subfamily gives GT Pressura room to breathe, embracing a more organic rhythm with a variety of character widths. In its departure from GT Pressura’s strict beginnings, the type becomes more elegant and “more Swiss Style,” according to Moiré. Extended has the approachable proportions of a modernist grotesque typeface with completely mechanical design details.

The mini-site is just lovely. Take a look!

Robin Rendle’s latest blog post resenates with me. He writes:

Blog your heart! Blog about something you’ve learned, blog about something you’re interested in… Blog about your annoying kids and your fucked up relationship…

For nearly two decades, I have been blogging like no one is reading. I blogged about my life, my issues, and my fucked ups. I got myself in trouble on a couple occasions when I spoke my mind. I don’t know if blogging has helped or hurt my career, but it definitely has changed my life for better or for worse. Regrets I have a few, but then again, too few to mention. I only slipped up a couple of times in the past 20 years. That was not so bad.

MODX still remains one of the underappreciated content management systems in the game. If I have to choose WordPress, Drupal, Joomla (is it still relevant?) or MODX for a medium- to large-scale website, I would go with MODX without hesitation. The only downside to MODX is the tiny community. MODX still struggles to grow. Comparing to WordPress, MODX’s development is much slower because it doesn’t have contributions and resources like WordPress. Nevertheless, its platform and power take no backseat to WordPress, especially MODX Cloud.

The Law School migrated to MODX Cloud for over a year ago and the experience and the service had been exceptional. One of the best features on MODX Cloud is the ability to spin up a development cloud exactly like the production cloud in a couple of minutes. When MODX released version 3.0.0 back in April, I needed to spin up a development cloud to test first before making the upgrade to the live site. I am glad I did because I could have been screwed if I went ahead and upgrade from version 2.8.3 to 3.0.0 on the production cloud.

To create new cloud in MODX, I logged into the dashboard, hit the “Add New Cloud” button, gave it a name, changed the version to match the version of the production cloud, then hit the “Complete Cloud Creation” button. Once the new cloud was created, I went to the backup archive, chose the latest backup from the production site, then selected “Restore Backup Into” the new cloud. That was it. When the new test server up and running, I upgraded MODX from version 2.8.3 to 3.0.0.

Although the upgrade passed, the site didn’t work 100 percent. Third-party extras, such as getResource and Article, hadn’t yet compatible with the new MODX. This is where MODX falling behind WordPress. One of the best features of WordPress is the upgrade compatibility. In addition to MODX, the Law School also uses WordPress Multisite, which is currently powering 46 sites, and we never ran into any upgrading issue. We even set automatic upgrades for the core and all the plugins.

The Law School main website, which is powered by MODX, is much more complicated than the sites in WordPress, but a major upgrade shouldn’t break the site. I tried to fix the issues myself on the test site, but I haven’t had any success and MODX’s small community isn’t helping much either as I reached out for support. As a result, I have been holding off on making the upgrade to version 3.0.1 until the Extras get upgraded to MODX 3.0.1. So far I haven’t seen any progress on MODX to get the Extras work with the new MODX release. Though MODX continues to support version 2 with the release of 2.8.4 and I had made that upgrade.

My heart broke a little as I had to turn in my iPhone 6 Plus to Verizon. It is still in great condition, but the apps have continued to stop updating. I intended to keep my 6 Plus as long as I could, but a few apps I used for work could no longer update. Since my employer foots the bill, I have to make the upgrade. I was going to go with 14, but Verizon wouldn’t let me trade my 6 for 14 for $300. I chose 13 Pro Max with 256 GB instead. It is definitely a beautiful phone and I hope it will last for at least five years.

After listening to Link, Hoàng Thùy Linh’s latest release, I wrote down hilarious lines just to amuse myself. I also revisited her previous album, Hoàng, released in 2019, which I like a bit more. Then I had the idea of creating a sample page for Vietnamese Typography based on these two albums.

My initial concept was to create a three-column grid layout for each song with image, lyrics, and pull-out quote in each column. I abandoned the concept because I didn’t want to spend too much time on it. Then I simplified it to just pull quotes and lyrics. I created the first song right in the browser and didn’t like the result. I cut out the lyrics and just put all the quotes together in one running text.

For typography, I selected Canicule Display, design by Kostas Bartsokas. Even though Culicule is still a work in progress, it comes nine weights and supports Vietnamese, which makes it usable for this project.

For photography, I went with a screen captured from her “Tứ phủ” video. I like the simplicity of this photo as well as the shades of pink, which is great to use as a background. To add a twist to the design, I flipped Hoàng Thùy Linh upside down as if she was hanging off from the top of the screen. Then I laid the quotes from each song over her.

The result was quite striking and different from what I had done before. I head toward a typographical exploration rather than a readable presentation. Even though this tiny project ate up more of my sleep time than I had anticipated, I found it gratifying. I want to experiment with more playful typography for the web. Take a look at the final design.

It has been hot as hell driving the Toyota Sienna 2011 in the summer since the A/C no longer blowing out cool air. The dealer wanted to charge me $189 to fix the issue. I recalled someone told me about AC recharge, but I could not find anything on YouTube. On Saturday, my wife told me about the product called A/C Pro ACP-100 Ultra Synthetic R-134a Car Refrigerant Kit, 20 oz and I picked it up at Walmart for $37 yesterday.

Then I found the official video on YouTube on how to recharge your car A/C. The process took about two minutes and I had my A/C back. The kids and I were rejoiced. We went to the skate park to rollerblade and Tea Do for boba teas and Street Fighter. I am not really a fan of Tea Do, but it has some classic arcade games for free. The kids loved Street Fighter.

After the summer hiatus, I stepped back into the rink for the first time last Wednesday. Needless to say, my chops have become rusty. I went back to the basics and tried my loop and flip jumps. I still need a lot of practice, but I am just taking my time. I am not in any rush. As long as I don’t lose interest like my kids, I’ll just keep going.

Aggressive skating is going well for me. I hit the skatepark everyday. I haven’t done anything too crazy, just learning to stall on the quarter pipe and to grind a bit. The progression is slow, but I am enjoying it. Aggressive skating is a good exercise for an old man like me. The skatepark is always free and if I come at the right time, I get the whole part to myself. My sons joined me sometimes, but their hearts aren’t in it like they used to. My second son is such a natural skater. Even though he doesn’t practice everyday like me, he surpasses me. He can just skate with effortlessness.

I can’t wait for the winter to come so we can hit the slopes. Fortunately my sons are still interested in skiing and snowboarding. We already bought the Epic pass for the three old kids and myself. My youngest is still free and he will be reusing his skis from last year. Xuân is all set with brand new boots and a pair of twin-tip skis. We’re still searching for a snowboard for Đán and a pair of twin-tip skis for Đạo. My wife isn’t sure what she wants to do yet.

For me, I bought a new pair of ski boots, Lance RX 120, to replace an old pair of Lance for junior I bought last year for $40. I’ve worn them out already. I also bought a pair of Head XENON Xi 5.0 for $50. I didn’t know what the heck I was purchasing. It turned out to be such a fantastic pair of skis. I went from green to double black diamonds in them. I only started to do some research yesterday and this pair was made in 2008. It is still in great shape after 14 years.

Over the summer, I bought a pair of K2 Apache Sabre (119-72-103) for $75, which came with poles and a bag. I thought it was a good deal. It turned out this pair was also made in 2008. As much as I love my Head skis, I wanted to let my wife use it to learn on the bunny. It might be a bit too long for her. I tuned up both my K2 and Head skis; therefore, they will be ready to hit the slope in the winter.

Two months ago, I picked up a used Burton White Collection snowboard for $35 for my second son, but it is a bit too big and heavy for him. I am thinking of giving snowboarding another try. I didn’t do too well last season, but I gave up after I bruised my thumb when I stuck my hand in the magic belt. Đán, my second son, took the lessons together with me, but he advanced so quickly. He went from the bunny slope to double black diamonds in a month or so. My hope is to get to the blue slopes on snowboarding.

This morning, I was scheduled to participate in a professional group photoshoot to celebrate my 10 years of service at George Mason University, but I couldn’t make it because I was exposed to Covid over the weekend. When our third son didn’t want to get out of bed, he complained that he felt tired. We decided to give him a home test and the result showed up positive immediately. We tested everyone, including myself, and our results were negative.

Nevertheless, we notified our sons’ school. Our third son who tested positive needed to stay home to quarantine. He slept in the same bed with me last night, which meant I would be affected as well even though I hadn’t shown any symptoms. Covid had finally caught up to me after it killed my mother. Before I succumbed to Covid, I went to the skatepark to just ride it out. The park was completely empty during school hours. I hopped onto the highest pipe and looked up at the sky. I talked to my mother and asked her to protect me and my family. I knew she had been looking out for us since she had gone to heaven. We had dodged Covid up to this point because she had kept us safe, and this unfortunately exposure was no exception. I have faith in her.

After I picked up my first son from school, we went to CVS to pick up more Covid test kits. We went home and tested our first son. His result was negative. I took the test again and I was still negative. Our third son who tested positive in the morning asked us if he could take it again. We hesitated, but then why not? This time his result came back negative. We used a different kit to test him again and the result was still negative. Either these home tests were unreliable or my mother had done her miracle. I believe the latter.

Tomorrow I will take our third son to CVS to get tested again. Let’s find out if indeed my mother had made another miracle to keep us Covid-free.

In his latest video, Type Designer Stephen Nixon spent 40 minutes sharing his approach for designing Vietnamese diacritics—something I had always wanted to see since I started to do research for my thesis. Even though I don’t know anything about Glyphs and RoboFont, the process looks intriguing. The best part of the video is when Stephen walks through a book called Vietnamese Typography by yours truly. Of course, I am biased.

As Stephen pointed out, designing Vietnamese diacritics seems to be intimidating at first, but with my website as a reference and some practice, you will do just fine. I am always available to review if you need feedback on your Vietnamese diacritical marks. If you’re designing a Latin typeface, you should have no excuse not supporting Vietnamese diacritics. You have all the resources you need at your fingertips; therefore, you should plan to incorporate Vietnamese diacritics early in your process.

Watch Stephen’s video for technical details. Reach out to him if you have any technical questions. Get in touch with me if you need help with your diacritical design. I charge a small fee, but we can also negotiate if your budget is tight.