![\"screen-shot-2017-03-09-at-5-33-45-pm\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/files\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-09-at-5.33.45-PM.png?resize=150%2C281\")
<\/span>A\u00a0decade ago<\/em>, I once spent too long creating a\u00a0stylesheet for a tiny “how-to” template: the numbers in boxes laying out a three-step process, whether to switch fonts,\u00a0bold, padding, background and border colors. Making the css just right to work on screens of all sizes.<\/p>\nIt looked something like this. \u00a0>><\/p>\n
In fact, almost exactly like that. \u00a0Some things worked, some didn’t. \u00a0I tried to add padding to the left of the roman numerals, tried to remove the pixel of whitespace above the bordered boxes, without success. \u00a0Should the roman numerals be left-aligned but the boxed text centered? \u00a0Since then, scores of similar templates have copied and remixed\u00a0it, changing text and context but not style. \u00a0The color palette I settled on, almost content with it, shows up on hundreds of pages. It would now take a script and many hours\u00a0to find and tweak\u00a0each\u00a0instance of the design.<\/p>\n
I run across one myself every few months, and experience river-shock: the sense of seeing something simple you did once that has a quiet, pervasive mark that cannot be undone. \u00a0This is quite different from the sense of pride or dismay that comes from seeing the expected result of a major endeavor: a book in someone’s hands, a clinic building\u00a0in use or in disrepair, a student now teaching others.<\/p>\n
Another memory<\/em>: One week I set about compiling a collection for a museum, a complete series of parts, diagrams and XO laptops: a few boxes full. \u00a0I had sent background context by mail, but at the last minute took a fine-tipped sharpie and attached clarifying notes to post-its on each cluster.<\/p>\n Years later, visiting the museum with a friend, I ran across the display as part of a history of computing; the electronics beautifully preserved as I had hoped, as I saw with pride. \u00a0And \u2013 river shock \u2013 a\u00a0handful of my post-its, with small diagrams and 8pt-font notes to the curator, exactly where I had placed them. \u00a0Anyone with access to the materials could have chosen one of each and put them in a box; my\u00a0handwriting made it seem like my own workdesk, enclosed in perspex and on display.<\/p>\n On occasion a visitor will find\u00a0one of the historical texts I’ve preserved against linkrot and plagiarism, like the acquiantance checking up on\u00a0the man trapped in Charles de Gaulle<\/a> airport, or a\u00a0friend running across their favorite college essay<\/a>\u00a0or spellpoem<\/a>, and I have a shadow of that frisson. \u00a0A passing fancy, created to be found anonymously by others,\u00a0appearing at least once more in the endless river of daily life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Footprints in a self-similar\u00a0river. The occasional passing act of will that remains and is amplified downstream, so that at some future moment, perhaps fording at another spot altogether, you discover a print announcing to you alone that you have been there before. A\u00a0decade ago, I once spent too long creating a\u00a0stylesheet for a tiny “how-to” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[216,205,207,78850],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fly-by-wire","category-glory-glory-glory","category-indescribable","category-noetic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVvB-136","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4036"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4062,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036\/revisions\/4062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}