I wrote an essay called The Virtual Book but I never defined the term. By virtual book I mean a book unbound by the traditional and physical constraints of printed books. Even though I think the greatest possibilities await in the virtual world of computers, I don’t think virtual books need to be digital. The possibilities that excite me challenge not only the physicality of books but also their intangible attributes.

A virtual book can be multimedia. It can consist of words, images, video, audio. There, we got the obvious one out of the way.

A virtual book can be readerdriven. Instead of forcing readers to follow the author’s thought process, a virtual book can let each reader steer the way. Wikipedia does this already. It lets you search the page for keywords, skip to the section you’re interested in, and even escape into a tangential topic, never to return. This is a natural way to consume Wikipedia because its form affords it.

Books generally have one start and one ending, but a virtual book can be nonlinear. Wikipedia is again the obvious example. But letting the reader drive is only one way to create a nonlinear book. It’s also possible to create multiple entrypoints, or even multiple endings, like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.

A virtual book can be dynamic. It can change after its initial creation. Printed books, on the other hand, are static snapshots laboriously rendered by a particular author at a particular time. But what if a theory is debunked? Or a hypothesis confirmed? Or a record shattered? Or, in the case of storytelling, what if a loose end can be tied up neatly?

A virtual book can be nonmonolithic. It does not need to be discrete or selfcontained. It can consist of many interconnected parts that make up the whole but can exist without it. It can reference other virtual books, borrow bits from them, and lend bits of its own. For example, if Herbie Hancock’s memoir was a virtual audiobook, it could allow its snippets to be reconstrued into a documentary about jazz. (If Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary series was also ‘virtualized’, it could have been updated 15 years after its release to include bits of Herbie’s narration.) In fact, it could provide material for documentaries about many different topics: jazz, funk, hip hop, Miles Davis, Black Nationalism, Nichiren Buddhism, meditation, and crack addictions, to name some of the obvious ones.

A virtual book can be responsive. What if a reader could expect a book to field spontaneous questions? ChatGPT is an obvious candidate here, but the possibility is broader. What if Herbie Hancock returned to his memoir every now and then to answer questions that readers had left behind while reading it? What if readers could raise flags on issues that factcheckers would then verify or return to the author for amendment?

The possibilities are plenty, and they are thrilling. The difficulty in realizating them is not technological, but legal and political. Powerful companies – and therefore governments – are hugely incentivized to prevent the free exchange of “intellectual property”. To make virtual books possible, we need not only the technological power of software, but also its progressive politics.

**non-negotiables *sad not to have

Big enough, first of all. With two pillows just for me. Fitted sheet and a duvet, no top sheet. Percale cotton or linen, in a nice color. The duvet cover must offer a way to secure the duvet inside it so that it appears and feels like one item. What has worked well in my experience is a duvet covet with eight ties inside it and a zipper at the bottom hidden behind a flap.

The frame must be sturdy and stable. No squeaking when getting in and out of bed.

I never take baths. Even when I do, they’re not so much a luxury as a trifle. Showering, on the other hand, is special. It is, first of all, a daily respite, a place to relax and recharge. But what makes it invaluable is that it doubles as an opportunity to

. And for this moment to flourish fully and consistently, I need the right physical space.

Good design, as they say, is invisible. A good shower demands no effort or conscious attention from its user. It lets them get clean while their mind wanders. To achieve this, it must make it extremely easy to do all the basic things: get in, stand, wash, rinse, and get out. It sounds obvious, but the standard tubshower hybrid most of us have at home

.

Bonus points for nice tiles and for a flat entry with no intermediary ledge.

I hate overhead lighting that is bright and direct. The inconvenience of switching off five lamps in a living room is nothing compared to having to withstand the piercing glare of bare bulbs shining down horribly into my eyes. For switch-operated room lights, I much prefer track lighting aimed at the wall or lights diffused by rice paper pendants. The goal is to create a soup of light.

Also, as per pattern #252, pools of light, lights should accentuate or even delineate spaces and subspaces. Don’t just light a whole room, light each space within the room. And, importantly, “spaces” should be defined by human activity and experience: a private corner where you or your loved ones sit to read, an area where a little group may sit to talk or play games, etc.

Recently, while visiting Halifax, Nova Scotia, my wife Z and I sat in the corner of a coffee shop, admiring its beautiful interior. Throughout our trip, I had been pointing out places where patterns were applied or might have been. Suddenly I realized we were sitting in one. #179 alcoves calls for a subspace within a larger space to which a subgroup of the larger group can retreat to socialize in partial privacy without vacating the bigger communal space, thereby conserving the feeling of connection that comes with sharing space with others. (While writing this I notice that coffee shops are a place where it is crucial to create alcoves, and not just once, but many times over.)

The pattern calls for a lowered ceiling, which suggests that the pattern be planned during construction. (In fact, this imperative is codified as a general pattern: #207 structure follows social spaces.) But the coffee shop used a clever alternative to achieve a similar effect: they placed a light fixture directly above our corner seating and brought it down to a low height so that it functioned like a lowered ceiling. This technique merges #179 alcoves and #252 pools of light in the way that the book likens to poetry:

Especially leafy ones. Pothos, monstera, ficus. I’m not a huge fan of aloe veras or succulents. Snake plants are ok.

Whenever I see a home tour on YouTube and it lacks a cushy sofa in the living room, I mourn it. Armchairs and chairs are not enough. For me, couches are fundamental.

I am picky how the couch feels to sit on, too. I think I prefer a slightly low and certainly a deep seat. Its texture and color matter, too.

Also, see pattern #251, different chairs, which provides seating variety to create options for different people or the same people in different moods.

I don’t like to wash dishes by hand. It takes so long. And it feels meaningless, unlike other chores, like plant watering. Plus, I’m prone to excema.

I need big and many windows. In the living room, at least, artificial lighting should be optional in the daytime. Northfacing windowsills (in the northern hemisphere) are fantastic for plants. Direct sunlight is nice, even if just a little bit.

Preferrably an espresso machine with a grinder with a portafilter holder. At least, a pourover setup: a gooseneck kettle, a cone dripper, a scale, and a burr grinder.

Makes me sad to watch movies on TV speakers.

On the walls. Nothing fancy. Nicelooking stuff and stuff with personal significance (see pattern #253, things from your life). Not generic or massproduced prints. Trendy interior design brands have ruined Matisse figure prints, at least for a few years.

I say worktable instead of desk because my current worktable is actually our dinner table. It’s a great setup because we don’t use it much otherwise.

Preferrably with a big table surface. Bonus points for a mounted monitor that doesn’t take up any deskspace and can be swiveled out of the way.

I like an assortment of glasses and mugs. Nice shapes, materials, and weight. Uniform cutlery. Matching set of dishes, bowls, and bowl plates.

I don’t care for the massproduced mugs, regardless of what image or words are imprinted on them. I like large handles so that it is easy to hold the mug with one hand without touching or bumping into the hot mug’s sidesurface.

It’s annoying to fish for my keys or a fob to unlock doors. For that reason, I sometimes prefer parking on the street than in a garage. In general, I love being able to walk out of my home and virtually straight onto the street. I like views but they’re not worth long elevator waits. A view of a nice neighborhood street or leafy trees is enough for me.

I’m a strong believer in having a designated place at the entrance for placing house keys upon entry. (Also, see (c) cultivate meaning in objects and places.) And I recently noticed that there’s a similar satisfaction in having places throughout the house for settings things down. A surface next to each seat for setting down a drink. A convenient place to put items that you use regularly like spatulas, toothbrushes, towels, bathrobes, kitchen trays, and so on. A loading deck of sorts at the bottom and top of staircases, where one can set down things than need to be brought up or down at a nonurgent time. A common case for this kind of inbetween surface is to set down glasses, mugs, and other bits that need to be brought to the kitchen.

A key aspect of these places is that they are convenient (see (a) avoid causes of mental clutter & friction). It shouldn’t be necessary, for example, to activate your core to pick up or set down when sitting anywhere in the living room. There should be a spot right there, within reach from a natural sitting position.

After writing the above, I revisited

. Thanks to its relative obscurity, the ebook version was available to borrow immediately from the library. I’m pleased to find out the authors encourage readers to come up with their own pattern languages. It occurs to me that some of the my patterns might have some tacit principles in common. I want to deduce them and make them explicit so I can reference them from relevant patterns and thereby uncover principles that underpin my whole pattern language.

I’m trying to articulate the common principle, assuming there is one, between my preference for (i) a sole duvet and for (ii) a walk-in shower. In the same way I resent having to think about stepping into a bathtub and about where I step while I shower, I resent having to keep track of a top sheet while in bed. I much prefer to interact exclusively with the duvet. I am aware that it sounds contrived or even slightly insane, but these things cause me minor mental friction that I wish I could eliminate in totality. I love to relax my mind, and it’s hard to do so when distracted by little frills and imperfections.

I think there are many little bits in my patterns that can be traced to my intolerance for mental friction. My distaste for (xiii) having to unlock doors on my way out of my home or having to wait an indeterminate amount of time for an elevator. My preference for (xii) big mug handles, so I don’t have worry about holding the mug a certain way to avoid burning my knuckles.

Nowadays it’s easy for me to take for granted the convenience of bluetooth headphones, but, years ago, wired headphones caused me constant psychological chafe. It irked me to have to supervise that pesky dangling cord and it momentarily ruined my calm when it got yanked out of my ears unexpectedly. To minimize the probability of it catching on protruding bits, like the jagged knobs of our kitchen cabinets, I used to run the cord up my shirt along my back, out through the neckhole, and into my ears like I was in the secret service. (This was my variant of the common practice of running headphones under the shirt on the front side, which had the issue that, when not in use, the cord would dangle and swing down in front of you.) I bought my first pair of cordless headphones in 2018 and they were a revelation. The freedom was exquisite.

I realized how much I love walk-in showers because my current Seattle apartment has one. In fact, I love it so much that, when we got a roommate, I requested continued access to the bathroom where it is.

Living in different places and in different arranagements is a great way to learn what you like best and what you can’t do without. (This is one of the perks of renting, I think.) I learned, for example, how important it is for my wife Z to have a room to be alone in by sharing with her a one bedroom apartment that had minimal architectural division or sound insulation between bedroom and living room. We covered the french doors with curtains to create visual separation, but that didn’t do much to muffle sound. The important fact was not whether she was alone or not, it what whether she felt like she was in a private place to unwind and recharge.

Experimentation is possible also within a single home. For example, I’ve been able to relocate my various plants within the apartment many times, especially the ones that sit on individual wooden stools, which are easy to move and fit into small spaces. The same is possible with artwork, especially if you use command strips or some other hanging device that leaves no trace.

A place for keys at the entrance is convenient for arrival and departure, and it effects a pleasant sense of transition. Arriving, it feels nice to unburden oneself of logistical paraphernalia necessary for navigating the world outside, which accentuates the feeling of returning to a place of convenience, comfort, and familiarity. The inverse is true as well. On departure, it feels nice to equip oneself before stepping through the doorway into the world.

Ordinary actions like these can have meaning. This imbuing of meaning into inanimate objects and impersonal surroundings is part of the process that transforms house into home. A building or even a room becomes a place where one is provided for and made feel secure, where one can rest at ease.

A home is sprinkled with meaning throughout. A quiet, comfy place to read and relax. A welcoming common area to be together. A room of one’s own, a private space. All these are ordinary physical spaces that provide precious and intangible nourishment.

It’s obvious that negative meanings undermine a home. But neutrality and meaninglessness do as well. Each bit and each place devoid of meaning is like a little leak out of which seeps out the precious feeling of hominess. They silently steal from our home’s potential as a place for rest and renewal.