Kindred Spirit

I have been doing a lot of research on design lately; everything from materials & manufacturing to design theory to interface design. There are a lot of cool web logs out there that follow trends and showcase new products and developments. My favorites are Core77, an industrial design blog, and Gizmag, an Australia based technology magazine covering invention, innovation, and emerging technologies. I find myself doing my gleeful geek laugh at a lot of the cool things I discover at those websites. I've also found and been reading some of the essays by the late Jef Raskin. He is quite the renaissance man, with a wide range of interests and talents. He was the brains behind the original Macintosh computer and user interface. He was also a very skilled musician, RC plane designer/builder/hobbyist, scientist, tinkerer, writer, and philosopher. I find his writings to be insightful, humorous, and enlightening. I would very much like to have met him. I hope that I will be able to absorb a lot of knowledge and wisdom he has shared on his website.

It is good to know that his son Aza is carrying on his work. The new "Archy" system is quite intriguing, and I'll probably try it out soon. It is still in alpha phase, so I don't know if I want to install it yet. I recommend you try out the zooming user interface demo there if you have broadband.

I've had a lot of ideas for interface designs lately, but I have a feeling that it will be a few more years before they would become easy or practical to implement. I have a feeling that what the Raskins have done and are doing will be very big very soon.