Hello Interoperable Readers, For the 11th edition of Interoperable, I wanted to pivot from my normal tech-nerd topics into something more personal. I've wanted to write about teaching and teachers for a long time now. Finding the correct words that felt sincere and honest enough to live up to the sincerity and honesty of my teachers ha...

Hello, dear Interoperable readers, A core tenet of this here fancy internet publication is maintainability. A side-effect of maintaining yourself, your stuff, your plants, and/or your dog is amassing a small collection of useful tools. For the 10th edition, I've assembled a list of four useful tools for useful people. Enjoy! The Black ...

Hello/Salut Interoperable readers! I'll spare as much of the New Year dribble as I can. This year will be less about setting challenging goals and more about maybe "themes?" to borrow a term from the venerable duo of Myke Hurley and CGP Grey. This year's theme is to balance novelty and comfort: continue to read, write, and be thoughtfu...

Photo: The author in front of Lego spaceman mural, Soho, London July 2022Hello Interoperable readers! And welcome to August 2022. These days I now see August with two faces. As a kid, August would mean an end to summer holiday freedom and a return to school with its rigour on the one hand and beautiful friendships on the other. As an a...

Photo: Regent Street decorated for Pride, June 2022 Hello Interoperable readers, June was merely a decent reading month, not the great reading month I might have hoped for. I must admit that news from my home country that Women's rights are being stripped away has made my largely escapist reading habit hard to keep up with. As I type t...

Photo: Cows grazing on the slopes of Horsenden Hill, a favorite local walking spot of the author who is also the person who took the photo. June 2022 Alright, we're halfway through 2022, the year where I've tried to be more intentional about my reading. I have also attempted to be more deliberate and thoughtful about other media consum...

Photo: Piccadilly Circus London, UK Sunday 5 June 2022 Credit: The Author Greetings Interoperable readers! (Nearly all half dozen of you!) Another month has passed and it's time to recap my mission to attempt to read five books a month, every month for 2022: 1. Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Jo...

Photo: 207 Bus towards White City. Photo Credit: The Author Whew! April was not a kind month. Between (finally?) catching the virus and travelling in haste to care for an ailing relative, I did not dig as deeply into my reading backlog as I would have liked. Frustratingly I only completed a single book in April 2022: Atlantic: Great Se...

Photo: Two-up on a scooter, just outside of Holland Park. London, UK 2022 Credit: The Author Interoperable readers! Maybe you're new here or have forgotten about my 2022 Reading Challenge, there are some rules/goals I set for myself. Basically, I want to try to complete five books each month for all of 2022. Here are the books and some...

Image: El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1920 “ “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”— President Dwight D. Eisenhower” Alright, so I am riding a self-care high. I just left my 4th incredibly productive therapy session, I'm listening to Judge John Hodgman, and I am ready to… process my notes in a semi-public...

Photo: National Art Library London, UK (Credit: The author) In my current note-taking application of choice, I have a small section called "External Brain" where I dump handy nuggets that I think will be useful or that I am in the process of internalising. I thought for the launch of the title of this newsletter thing Interoperable, it...

Time to go over another month of my 2022 reading challenge (rules are posted here). Overall, February was anxious and not a personally productive month. I can probably write a whole post on the whys and hows behind that. But overall, I'm pretty proud of the reading and thinking I was able to accomplish: 1. The Hail Mary Project by Andy...

I can't remember where I first saw this little meme/macro above; it was probably on are.na (which is hopelessly hip Pinterest). Despite being hopelessly hip, the artsy nerds on are.na have that, je ne sais quoi, thatcreative spark that has been vacuumed up from a lot of the internet these days. Anyway, this little image has been in my ...

I should have written this long before I posted the dismal results of my January Reading Recap. It's never much of a challenge if there aren't any rules. I don't want to bog reading down with too many restrictions, but I don't want to give myself an out and re-read easily digestible fiction to hit my five books per month goal. Here are...

I think a major contributing factor to New Year's resolutions failing is that January just plain fucking sucks. The festive season should extend into the early part of the year and we can start making plans in early February then really get back to work in early April as God or whatever intended. That being said, I made a goal to read ...

As an art student (please groan heavily and/or leave now) I made what I think were an equally cringy/fun set of books published under my corporate alter ego "The Centennial State Electrigram Company" At the time I was and still am obsessed with creating art with single individuals or small groups of people in mind then exposing that wo...

DAJA DJ6 Laser Engraver This was an offhand Kickstarter purchase that turned out to be price for performance one of the nicest “tech” purchases I’ve made in the last few years. Set-up was a little involved and clunky and it is certainly not by any means fast, but for little gifts and personalizing my own stuff it’s been spectacular and...

James Hoffmann is best described as an obsessive coffee professional: he's a world champion barista, co-founder of Square Mile Coffee a roasting outfit in London, UK, and like seemingly every entrepreneur these days he's also a prodigious YouTube creator. On his channel, Hoffmann covers all minutiae of the coffee world from niche (lite...

I enrolled at the Denver satellite campus of the University of Colorado thinking I might as well just continue doing the only thing I am even remotely good at, photography. Though I have never made much of a career out of this interest-come-passion, identifying and thinking as a photographer or as a "creative" has opened more doors and...