Hi, my name is Jason Kottke. I currently live in Manhattan with my wife Meg and son Ollie. For fun and income, I build web sites and edit kottke.org. My favorite font right now is Whitney by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Being generally sober, level-headed, and trustworthy, I'm usually the guy who is chosen to drive. One of my favorite things is that, for a moment after you dip your toe in, you can't tell the difference between really hot water and really cold water.
I believe that when people talk about solving problems with technology, what they're usually talking about is solving problems with design...which is to say, the application of psychology in a visual & functional context. I prefer red wine to white, movies to films, jeans to khakis, vanilla to chocolate, Pixar to Dreamworks, the subway to taxis, nonfiction to fiction, and Safari to Firefox. I use a daily face wash in my "T-zone" area. I look like the guy in these photos. I find going to the dentist relaxing. I've lived in WI, IA, MO, MN, CA, NY, NH, and, briefly, France. I don't have a plan.
Need to reach me? Get in touch.
A reverse chronology of my life (updated Feb 2009)
2009: Currently happening...
2008: Um, let's see. Hrm.
2007: Ollie!
2006: Got married.
2005: In many ways, the opposite of sucked.
2004: Sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked.
2003: I'm having performance anxiety about this whole year summary thing...
2002: Crikey, now I'm in New York. Can't quite figure out how I got here. Not exactly a point A to point B kind of thing.
2001: Despite much interest, I'd never been to Europe before this year, when I went three times in the span of 6 months. Paris and Antwerp in May, London in July, and Berlin in October. I would like very much to live in Europe.
2000: Finally made the move to San Francisco after thinking about it for a couple years. Definitely a big change for a small town boy like myself.
1999: I think this was the year I really and truly discovered the joys of sour cream. I never used to like sour cream....and then I started eating a little on baked potatoes every once and a while. Now, it's practically an obsession...I even tried sour cream on pizza. It wasn't too good.
1998: Fell in love for the first time.
1997: The Year of Growth.
1996: My dad and I went to Bejing, China for 6 days. I had a really good time. The Great Wall was the highlight of the trip, although I also played basketball in the Forbidden City. Really.
1995: I finished my senior honors thesis in two weeks. All 60 pages of it. The surprising thing is that it turned out well. Others thought it turned out really well and gave me some awards and money. I also dropped out of grad school to pursue a dream of sorts. Surprisingly, that turned out well too. Others thought it turned out really well and gave me some awards and money.
1994: Sega NHL '94 is simply the greatest video game ever. My college roommate had a TV, and I had a Sega Genesis & NHL '94. At any given time between 9am and 10pm, 7 days a week, there were usually 2 to 6 people in our room playing that game. I'd leave for class with a bunch of folks watching or playing, coming back three hours later to find a completely different group worshipping at the shrine of NHL '94.
1993: Frosted Flakes for dinner every single night gets to you after a while. And all those girls should stay away from that frozen yogurt machine.
1992: This was kind of a lost year in my college career. I can't really remember anything significant (or insignificant) that happened. Stagnant stasis.
1991: I used to have one of those Levi's 501 Jeans "Button Your Fly" t-shirts. One day at college, someone called after me, "Hey, Button-Your-Fly! You play volleyball? We need an extra player on our team." I removed my shirt and joined the game. I didn't wear that shirt much after that.
1990: "Hey son, are you going to college?" "Ummm...I dunno." "Hey son, you're going to college." "Ok."
1989: I used to love the Final Four. I was in several pools at school, I watched all the games on TV, and read just about anything on the subject I could get my hands on. The culmination of all this interest and effort was the final game of the '89 tournament: Michigan vs. Seton Hall. We all watched the game in Derek Warner's living room, about half of us, myself included, rooting for Seton Hall, and the other half pulling for Michigan. The game went into overtime and Michigan won. I think it was the best game of basketball any of us had ever seen...before or since.
1988:
1987:
1986: Like the JFK assassination for the Baby Boomers, the Challenger explosion was the significant event for members of my generation. I watched it happen live on TV in Mrs. Dennis' classroom. It blew up, Mrs. Dennis said, "Oh my God, oh my God," over and over again, and then the bell rang. Being the first student to arrive at my next class, I told the teacher somewhat matter-of-factly that the Space Shuttle had blown up. She too was horrified. A few minutes later, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker.
1985:
1984: All the other kids were ordering sticker books and MadLibs out of the Weekly Reader book club. Me? I ordered a special edition of George Orwell's 1984. Of course, I also had sticker books and MadLibs.
1983:
1982: We played softball in the warm spring air on one of the last days of school. My teacher, Miss Skrenes, invited her fiance to play with us as well. I remember thinking that all my hopes and dreams of ever marrying her were gone forever. My performance on the diamond suffered accordingly.
1981: I watched President Reagan's swearing in and the subsequent release of the American hostages in Iran. Reagan was the first president that I ever knew; I learned about Jimmy Carter later in school.
1980: I distinctly recall my 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Pederson, teaching us about leap years and about how 1980 was a leap year. 1980 remains to this day, for me, a magical year, not because anything significant happened to me or the world, but simply because of its leap status.
1979:
1978: Coming home on the bus from kindergarten one day, my nemesis was being particularly annoying. Being a kid of action in those days, I reached across the aisle of the bus, pulled his stocking cap down over his face, and popped him one right in the nose. It bled, and my parents were mad at me. I don't think he ever gave me much trouble after that.
1977: Star Wars came out in May, but I don't think I went to see it. My parents weren't big movie fans and I was only four, so even if we did go, I wouldn't have remembered it. My first memory of Star Wars comes much later, watching the VHS tape at my aunt's house with a VCR the size of Encyclopedia Britannica.
1976: My sister was born in August of this year.
1975: It was around this time that my parents moved from the Twin Cities to rural Wisconsin, where they both still live.
1974:
1973: I was born on September 27th at 4:44 am...or so they tell me. My parents named me after Jason of the Argonauts and Alexander the Great. Not exactly a humble beginning.
