Logan Willmott

New Zealand bred, NY fed. Design / creative code. Product design, @crosbylegal ex @mercury @tryramp @square @xero

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

https://t.co/KODwT4eDqF

[kepano @kepano]

File over app

File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read. Use tools that give you this freedom.

File over app is an appeal to tool makers: accept that all software is ephemeral, and give people ownership over their data.

In the fullness of time, the files you create are more important than the tools you use to create them. Apps are ephemeral, but your files have a chance to last.

The pyramids of Egypt contain hieroglyphs that were chiseled in stone thousands of years ago. The ideas hieroglyphs convey are more important than the type of chisel that was used to carve them.

The world is filled with ideas from generations past, transmitted through many mediums, from clay tablets to manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, and tapestries. These artifacts are objects that you can touch, hold, own, store, preserve, and look at. To read something written on paper all you need is eyeballs.

Today, we are creating innumerable digital artifacts, but most of these artifacts are out of our control. They are stored on servers, in databases, gated behind an internet connection, and login to a cloud service. Even the files on your hard drive use proprietary formats that make them incompatible with older systems.

Paraphrasing something I wrote recently:

> If you want your writing to still be readable on a computer from the 2060s or 2160s, it’s important that your notes can be read on a computer from the 1960s.

You should want the files you create to be durable, not only for posterity, but also for your future self. You never know when you might want to go back to something you created years or decades ago. Don’t lock your data into a format you can’t retrieve.

These days I write using an app I help make called Obsidian (@obsdmd), but it’s a delusion to think it will last forever. The app will eventually become obsolete. It’s the plain text files I create that are designed to last. Who knows if anyone will want to read them besides me, but future me is enough of an audience to make it worthwhile.

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

@danserif Haha this is true. The pace of the game means you can get away without a tv at all

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

Why is "Redzone, but for the World Cup" not a thing?

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

@danserif Reported and blocked.

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

@5tr4n0 This was just a single pass. I'm curious what the shooter/weight trick is though?

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

Regularly irregular #plottertwitter

[Rafael Shimunov @rafaelshimunov]

Three decades ago, billionaire Ted Turner asked astronomer Carl Sagan if he was a socialist.

[Azad Balabanian @Azadux]

Incredibly inspiring work from the NY Times RnD division @NYTimesRD finding a native way to incorporate PG scans in an article - https://t.co/pM4nFkO3gd

animation is controlled by scrolling. Feels really great,

[Matthew A. Cherry @MatthewACherry]

But took months to figure out testing centers for Covid-19

[ABC News @ABC]

"You are still not mature enough to tell it like it is," teen climate activist Greta Thunberg tells world leaders at #UNGA. "You are failing us, but young people are starting to understand your betrayal."

"The eyes of all future generations are upon you." https://t.co/oifIOZZW3v

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

~4hr time lapse #plottertwitter

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

Trying for organic looking growth #plottertwitter

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

Rivers of New Zealand. 🇳🇿 #plottertwitter

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

@ox It didn’t come out well because of the artifacts left by raising & lowering the pen for each tile. I ended up making the ‘future optimizations’ you mention... 1) Store all the paths. 2) Loop through again, joining the paths that start/stop in the same place. 3) Draw. 4) 🍺

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

@ox Hey! Nice write up! Yeah, I had a very similar approach, although I also controlled how close circles could get to the corners (avoids the tiny center dots too). Here was my first attempt...

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

@paulgb Uni-ball Signo UM-153. They’re a little blotchier than I was hoping for

[Logan Willmott @__lw]

@zats @PlotterTweeter Yup! I just use a 2mm bleed & crop marks to trim it afterwards