Websites? Wobsites. Wibsits!

On the way down to California, my dearest Lucy Bellwood stopped by to have a fun, distanced chat about websites, online dating, science writing, and Miss Piggy. It’s the first episode in our dark-web-punk-rock podcast: I’m Sorry, You’re Welcome.

On science writing, Lucy said:

The trouble with science writing is that it is designed to try and be objective. And therefore objective often means "strip every piece of character out of this, because it is a form of editorializing." And I understand that within the field, I get it, but it was so shockingly striking to me where I was hearing from these scientists who were, in person, so passionate about what they were doing. So funny, so interesting, so experienced. Pointing at things and going "Look at this! Wow." Joyce literally had a silk track jacket that had been custom printed for her with the 3d mapping array that she had helped work on for some seamount, which I think is so cool. Okay. Anyway, but you would read their writing and it would be like, where is this person? This person is not present in the writing that I am reading about this project and the writing doesn't accurately capture, for a lay audience or possibly even for a fellow scientist audience, the enthusiasm and tenacity and excitement of the people who are doing the work.

Also, me had this to say:

I think this is the problem in general with web design. The problem with websites is that they're just endless... I don't know how to describe this, but you need to create these borders around the thing. You need to create edges. [...] And the thing I like about, going back to Newsletters, is that with a lot of websites, they have a million links in the footer. And they're always trying to grab your attention. And with that, I wanted to just—it's probably not a good thing for my own personal brand—but it just ends, it just stops. There's just black space.