Use the buttons below to filter journal entries, so that only those "tagged" with those words (that mention/touch on those subjects) appear. The previous version of the journal is available here – though the old version is only updated to March 15th, whereas the one you're reading right now is up-to-date (assuming I've pushed it, which I always forget to do!).

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March 10, 2020: This is my journal! For my first entry, I chose to write about the first 'codesketch' I ever did in this class. It's a red rectangle that says: "Hi, how are you?" As simple (and fun!) as it is, I think it actually presents one possible answer to the question at the top of my main website page (if you haven't visited it already, here it is). That is, a website is supposed to be interactive: a conversation between the person who visits it, and the person who made it. In a world increasingly defined by the rise of technology and by the absence of personal, human interaction, maybe more human web design is a way to reclaim some connection.
March 11, 2020: This is the second entry in my journal! I've made some (significant) improvements to this page, but there are still many, many changes I have to make. So far, I've made it such that, when the mouse hovers over a particular "journal entry," it will increase the "opacity" of that section of the page, making it easier to read. I've also made it so that the image in the back of the journal will stay fixed with respect to the window in which someone is viewing the page – the "viewport," perhaps, is the word for it? Both of these changes (believe me, there are more), though they seem simple, took quite some time to implement and refine – and challenges still exist. For instance, at the time of this writing, the journal entries are slightly off center, meaning I still have to refine the width and positioning of each "div." At the time of this writing, I also still need to make a relatively small decision (among a long, long list of many other things) that I feel may have large consequences for the overall "look" and "feel" of the page: Should the text be left-justified or center-justified?
March 12, 2020: This is my second journal entry today: I've changed the "journal" page quite a lot in just the last few hours. First, I fixed the problems outlined in today's first journal entry. I decided on left-justified text for the reasons outlined in the linked article (and also because I felt like it). I also added a "fade in" effect for the opacity of each journal entry. Similarly, I linked my first codesketch to the website's "home page" ("index"). These are just a few of the changes I've made so far, and I will continue to edit and improve and add (hover over the underlined text to learn why it's linked) to the site in the future.
March 13, 2020: I added an "archive" section! So far, it contains all the work I did in the months of September - December 2019. I also changed the font of this journal section – just one in a series of changes I think I'm going to make over the coming hours & days. I will add more to the journal later, as I am going to plan out my renovation of the journal section, plus the addition of another page – which is going to be a "canvas" of interesting things!
March 14, 2020: I've decided to reconsider my earlier decision of the 'canvas.' I'm going to begin by updating this journal, so that it's easier to read and to use. I also want it to look a bit better, and a little less...like it does now. I don't exactly know what I want it to look like, though. The archive page has a bit more of a 'streamlined' feel to it, and I want the journal to have a similar 'aura.' Also, I think I've decided what is to be my next project (the journal and archive being the two thus far) – and it's an ambitious one...a story! I don't know what it's going to be about or any other details about it, but it feels like a good idea! I was thinking, even, make a re-telling/illustrated version/animation-thing/something else of a book or story that was not traditionally re-told/illustrated/animated/whatevered. Do I know what I'm saying? No, not really. But I think the idea has potential. I was also thinking about book covers/book symbols. Most of the time, we try to spend as many words as we can writing and analyzing the sentences and finer elements of famous works of literature (I'm going to come back to this somehow later on!)...maybe try the opposite direction?
March 15, 2020: OK! After reflecting for the day, and making small tweaks to the journal section (removing the background image and changing the font and the opacity fading characteristics) I have decided to do something a little more specific. I'm thinking that myself and one other person will perhaps try to write a story together and then provide some sort of interactive component for it, as well. I'm not quite sure, as of yet, what it will look like or what this 'interactive component' will be. Regardless, right now, I am spending most of my time trying to figure out how to improve this journal. I want it to be easy to read, and I was thinking about attaching a 'word cloud' to it, such that, as it expands, potential readers will be able to click on a word/phrase and then see all the entries related to that word/phrase. It's just a thought, as of now....
March 15, 2020 There's a problem. I've just realized that no one is able to read this journal – word cloud or not – because I just accidentally removed it from the main page and can't get it back on. On an unrelated note, the coronavirus pandemic, as it was declared on March 11, is steadily intensifying.
March 16, 2020: The previous journal entry was much shorter than this one, but I have a lot to say. I realized during the period of having the journal suddenly – and inexplicably – offline (it reappeared without explanation!) that it was actually an opportunity to make changes I wished to implement before. That is, I'm adding "tags" to each entry (words that relate to its characteristics and content). There'll be an opportunity to then filter the enteries based on which "tags" they have (using buttons). Currently, it's under construction. When this journal gets large enough that it will span multiple months, enteries will also have tags that relate to their dates (March 2020, for instance, will be a filter option). In other words, it's the 'word cloud project' adapted (and made much, much easier to use).
March 17, 2020: So, a friend and I decided to make a new project, one I'm extremely excited about. We're making an interactive mystery story – it will have different endings based on which choices are made. It will be created through the software "Twine" (previously linked), and hosted on a new website we are creating together, that will be linked to both of our websites. We're still planning it out, but we're going to create it in installments – "chapters" (the link is a web page on the etymology of the word "chapter," and I'm not quite sure why I linked it, I just think etymologies are interesting) – and for each chapter, we are going to make a journal entry that explains the changes, additions, and updates we made and how we made them (no spoilers, though!). These will all be compiled on a separate page of the website, that essentially functions as this journal does – "tags" and all.
March 18, 2020: I'm still working on the updated version of the journal. In the meantime, I'm wondering what title we're going to give this "mystery project." On the main page of my website, at least, I'm going to refer to it as "a story," I think. I've also been considering the design of the new website that will host the interactive (not quite 'Choose Your Own Adventure,' though similar, so I linked it) story – we've sketched it (along with the first couple sections of the first chapter) out. I'm going to try to upload some of our "storyboards," so stay tuned for that....
March 19, 2020: This journal entry is entirely a diversion of the projects I've been talking about so far. I'm going to be writing about something that I haven't really talked a whole lot about in this journal – that's typograpgy. Specifically, the font that I've chosen: IBM Plex Sans (previously linked). It's available through Google Fonts and there are tons of different variants of it. I've always been interested in typography – typefaces are broadly categorized by many different criteria. One of the most important is whether or not a font has serifs. Serifs are, and this is not my definition (it's from Wikipedia), small lines or strokes regularly attached to the end of larger strokes in letters or symbols within a particular font or family of fonts (I may have modified slightly). (Speaking of defining mainly visual things, especially in typography, I find it extremely difficult! My version of the definition of a serif: the small thingy at the end of a letter.) There some competing theories as to why exactly serifs originated in the first place, all of which I find pretty fascinating. IBM Plex Sans is called 'sans' because it doesn't have serifs – it's a sans- (without-)serif font. More updates in the next journal entry tomorrow (March 20, 2020).
March 20, 2020: This is the second entry in my series about typography! Having learned about some of the basics of typography, let's analyze the font "IBM Plex Sans" in a bit more depth. It was designed as a kind of tribute, I guess, to IBM. I personally believe this is reflected in the style of the font – it looks like an old number-processing software with its clean, simple, sans-serif lines. (You know, I originally tagged this post with "typography" only, but now I'm realizing I should also tag it with "design.") When I chose it, I thought it was perfect for conveying the purpose of my website: communicating simple messages (if messages at all) in fun digital (if possible interactive) web design, writing, code-sketching, engineering, and whatever else projects.
March 21, 2020: To wrap up the typography series (trust me, it will return), I wanted to talk about a great graphic designer. Her name is Paula Scher. She's designed (or had a hand in designing) and re-imagining some of the most iconic logos and identities of so many institutions accross the country, and around the world. Not only that, but she was featured in the first season of the Netflix series "Abstract: the Art of Design." She designs the signage and visual identity for Shakespeare in the Park every year. Amongst her accomplished and surpassing body of work, she has created the Highline logo, the NYC Parks Logo, the Public Theater logo, the Atlantic Theater logo, the Library of Congress logo, and the Citibank logo. But, trust me, that's not all. She also makes amazing, complex, detailed maps of any number of places, that, instead of just conveying simply the normal information about roads or bridges or buildings, also has something else 'attached' to it – forming a high-density cluster of information that is at both incredibly large in scale and 'volume,' but also entirely microscopic and granular, if looked at from the right persepctive. For instance, in one map, she imposed the images of all commercial air routes over the United States onto an already colorful, crowded, vibrant map of the country. This is a link to the "design consultancy" where she works (it's called "Pentagram"). I encourage you (or anyone) to look at her work (or watch the "Abstract" episode that features her) – it's really amazing.
March 22, 2020: I'm very excited (the link is to a page listing the synonyms – and antonyms, I guess – of "excited," I linked to it only because I felt like it, not sure why) to say we've finished outlining Chapter One of the "Mystery Project." I want to, but I will not, I have resolved, give any spoilers away about the content of the chapter so far.... Stay tuned (though it might be a bit until we can get it up and running). (I am resisting the urge to link to the as-of-yet unfinished content of Chapter One and the website!)
March 23, 2020: I did it! I got the updated journal up and running, tags and all! I still have quite a few things to fix (having to do with margins, especially), and I want the heading to be a bit more exciting, and add some criteria about dates to the tag list (and potentially have a separate section to filter by date alone), but all that's for tomorrow (or later today). Today, I'm going to push the journal and all the journal entries I forgot to push before! (I also want to add a button to go back to the homepage on all the other pages – I have to remember that!)
March 24, 2020: Journal update (the link is the etymology of the verb update, although it is being employed as a noun in this context, sorry): we've come up with the names of all the characters and such for the mystery project. We also added some new features and ideas that (for the sake of my "no spoilers" promise) I will keep a mystery (get it?).
April 7, 2020: Video 1: I'm going to be very honest here: I am much more familiar and comfortable with HTML/CSS than JavaScript! That being said, as I watch this video (and I also learned more about Event Listeners from the two Event Listener videos and the two subsequent Review videos), I am beginning to gain more confidence (slowly but surely!). From this video, however, I also learned something else that I think will be really helpful to creating future codesketches and projects. That is, organizing code in a much more logical and consistent fashion! Even for the code in this journal (though less so than for other projects) I create extra steps or make it unnecessarily complicated to go back and fix something when there is a 'bug' because the code is so disorganized. As a secondary goal to learning more about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript through these videos, I am going to try to make my codesketches for them (and going into the future) much more organized and standardized! Video 2: First, and update on my organizational quest: I have not only made the codesketches I am currently working on much more organized, I have also started to go back into my other codesketches and make them a bit more organized, as well. I find this is helpful, especially when going back in to make a project better! For instance, though simple, my index page was very disorganized, so when I went in to change the links slightly, I also cleaned up the format, making it easier for me to make ajustments and improvements in the future. More specifically on the second video, something that is interesting to me as I watch and code around its subject matter is that I am learning more about what an Event Listener actually is! I often feel that when I learn about topics in computer science, it takes me longer to understand them than it does to begin to implement them – but I can only use a tool to its fullest extent once I fully understand its function and purpose. As I move forwardd with learning the structure and implementation about Event Listeners (and other aspects of Java Script), I also want to continue to learn more about the purpose and the theory behind them. Video 3 So far, I feel like my knowledge of HTML/CSS is pretty centered/grounded in "real code," so to speak – experience with using it to make "real" websites or "real" projects that will be pushed through github online. I couldn't really connect the theory of Event Listeners and JavaScript to the practical application of them, and still saw them more as some sort of abstract, almost computational, something that has a purpose, but I really just didn't quite know how it fit in with everything else (I don't know if that makes sense, I hope it does, but sometimes when I start writing a tangential, strangely personal, sentence, even I can't decipher it when I go back to read it). Now, as before, I am beginning to gain greater understanding of what an Event Listener is – connecting "theory" to "practice." Now: why the fixation with Event Listeners, you ask? I reference Event Listeners particularly only because they are the element of code I still struggle the most to implement. Oftentimes, I have to rewatch a section of a video to ensure I am getting the "formatting" right, that I put it "in the right place" in the code, I used appropriate "labels" (I'm not sure what the term for this is, but when I say labels, I mean "terminology," especially referring to other aspects of the code, that help it link together and give it function), etc. Another thing I've found helpful has been (roughly) following the organization of code in the videos – which has helped deepen my conceptual understanding of the material by allowing me to easier read and understand the "flow" of the code. Hopefully some of this journal entry makes sense! That's all for now – although I'll certainly be posting more about these topics, etc. as I go along!
April 14, 2020: This will be a journal entry about one of our assignments: adversarial fashion. The inspiration for this assignment came from the New Yorker article "Dressing for the Surveillance Age." (I would like to preference the idea for my design by saying that I really like the New Yorker. It is a great magazine. Funny, on point, and, of course, occasionally it deviates from the standard article topics to address things like the psychological effects of being an alpine climber, etc. It is also full of some really, trully, fantastically funny "Shouts and Murmurs," wonderful, moving short stories, and, of course, cartoons – Roz Chast's work is particularly amazing!) It is inspired by the liscense plate clothes/backpacks/etc. of "Adversarial Fashion" (the brand/company), and also by what was written in the New Yorker article referenced above. I hope you enjoy what is certainly an interesting image: adversarial fashion in the age of coronavirus. It is a top hat, with a mask, and a slightly metalic-looking "veil" that is designed to hide your face from certain angles (so that cameras cannot see it). The mask itself would be printed with optical illusions, so that any human further examining the images of you would be distracted. Because of the mask/face sheilding component, this could especially be worn by healthcare workers (or anyone on the front lines of battling coronavirus – transportation workers, food handling workers, etc.) who also do not want to be detected more easily by security cameras (now that there are less people on the streets). (I made this using sketch.io/sketchpad.) Without further ado, here is my design.
May 12, 2020: In response to the first question (surrounding whether or not someone's past actions necessarily inform their present ones), I think there are different answers to this question, largely based on situation and context. With regards to crimes (and the criminal justice system), I believe the answer is a resounding 'no' in almost all cases. Crimes (especially the most common offenses, such as drug use) are not motivated by malice or hatred or a special 'lawlessnes.' Most times, they are motivated by necessity – whether that be necessity of drug use due to an addiction, or necessity of theft due to poverty. In fact, I think this speaks to a broader misconception that often colors rhetoric and policy surrounding the criminal justice system. The problem of crime in America cannot be solved through more arrests or harsher sentences – it must be addressed through systemic changes that aim to alleviate inequality, and to make life easier for those who have it the hardest. In response to the second question, especially surrounding the use of algorithms in sentencing/bail, etc. I think they can occasionally be helpful, when trying to reduce the particular number of inconsistencies that might surround a particular decision. At the same time, however, algorithms can be biased – indeed, many algorithms constructed for this purpose have been demonstrated to show elements of racial prejuidice. This speaks to a broader harm of algorithms, which is that, while they have the appearance of being infallible, somewhere down the line, someone has to be putting numbers into a spreadsheet – meaning that biases often are deeply imbedded in so-called 'unbiased' constructions. Another example of this is a hiring algorithm used by Amazon to fill positions in its corporate offices. The algorithm was not employing individuals in an equal fashion. In fact, it showed a high propensity towards selecting male applicants over female ones – in other words, the algorithm itself showed a bias against women, much like (many) corporate recruiters do. Taking everything together, it is important to remain skeptical of everything you hear – rhetoric promising a 'crime-free' environment or algorithms promising to entirely remove subjectivity from the process – surrounding such crucial issues like the crimial justice system.