MollySimon Bot (2019–Present)
I trained an AI on the first 7 years of text messages I exchanged with wife. It sends us a new message every day, and has started to dream.
Looking North (2019–Present)
My other blog, which focuses on northern islands such as Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Newfoundland. After returning home from trips to these places, I wanted to know more about their history and culture. This blog is an outlet for my northern fascination, a place to share stories and inspiration.
Moped Army (1997–Present)
I co-founded the world’s largest moped gang (55+ local branches, past and present) and have been the designer/coder/sysop of the website for over 20 years. Today it is the largest information resource about vintage mopeds in the world. This is my longest running and most involving project, requiring near daily moderation and maintenance along with periodic new feature development. I also act as the organizational administrator, facilitating discussions around membership rule changes and running the yearly review processes for existing and new branches.
News Now (2013–2019)
Born out of my love of NPR (and frustration with their official app) I built a very simple iOS app that plays the latest news with a single tap. I maintained the app for 7 years, including a complete rewrite, and received positive feedback and a 4.5 star rating from my users. The app was free, and my distribution was within the terms of the NPR API. Unfortunately, at some point, NPR re-branded their hourly newscast to be called “News Now” and in 2019 their lawyers instructed me to remove my app from the App Store. I still use it every day, but it’s no longer available for download.
Understanding Industrial Design (2014–2016)
I wrote a book, published by O’Reilly Media, that examines the discipline of industrial design through the lens of seven principles: sensorial, simple, enduring, playful, thoughtful, sustainable, and beautiful. The intended audience includes UX and interaction designers who are increasingly blending digital and physical to create connected and “smart” products. I collaborated with my colleague Kuen Chang to develop the concept and document the many product examples used throughout the book.
Small Flock (2011)
As a personal challenge, I wrote a short (< 140 character) micro-story every day for 100 days. I was interested in exploring how much meaning, emotion, and narrative I could fit into such a compact format. These stories were originally posted to Twitter, and later archived on smallflock.com.