May 2012
19 posts
How Yahoo Botched Its Acquisition of Flickr →
If the Internet really were a series of tubes, Yahoo would be the leaking sewage pipe, covering everything it comes in contact with in watered-down shit.
Remember that scene in Arrested Development where George Sr. hears all his charges read out in one go?
The Avengers Defeated Irony And Cynicism →
Yes, this is the world we live in, where the government can listen in to your conversations and might even be willing to nuke a major city, but we don’t have to live like it’s a dystopia. There’s still hope for decency as long as there are decent people.
I loved every minute of The Avengers, mainly because it was just plain fun.
The Facebook Fallacy →
Facebook has the scale, the platform, and the brand to be the new Google. It only lacks the big idea. Right now, it doesn’t actually know how to embed its usefulness into world commerce (or even, really, what its usefulness is).
Maybe Germany got a bailout too →
In short, over the last couple of years, much of the risk sitting on German banks’ balance sheets shifted to the taxpayers of the entire currency union
You can’t get into debt without someone lending you money.
Behind a Press Release →
Because Prototype 2 is great, and because nobody called me, and then started hiring people to run the show, I had my assistant start packing up my office days ago.
Good look at what happens beneath the surface when a guy gets fired from his own show.
The Avengers Request to Remove Clint 'Hawkeye'... →
I’m writing on behalf of the Avengers here, but we wanted you to formally reconsider the inclusion of Clint ‘Hawkeye’ Barton to the Avenger initiative.
My thoughts exactly.
Copycats and innovators →
How do I feel about all the Flipboard clones? I’d rather be competing with 1,000 copy cats than 1,000 innovators.
This tweet from Mike McCue was doing the rounds recently, and I don’t think I could disagree more. Innovation improves life for everyone. If my competitors are innovating, I’m challenged to do better, to improve, to earn success in the market. Copycats cause...
What Eduardo Saverin Owes America →
Is this fair? No. It’s worse than that, though. It’s ungrateful and it’s indecent. Saverin’s decision to decamp the U.S. suggests he’s got no idea how much America has helped him out.
I’m conflicted about this whole issue. Yes, Saverin clearly owes America a lot. But how is what he has done any different to, for example, Apple wanting to avoid repatriation taxes on their profits? Why...
How iCloud and Core Data syncing works →
Apple’s documentation for Core Data syncing via iCloud offers very little insight into how it actually works. Unfortunately, if you have no concept of what is happening behind the scenes, at least in vague terms, it is difficult to grasp what you should expect during the syncing process.
Fascinating.
BBC News - Pirate Pay torrent 'blocker' backed by... →
Pirate Pay has been backed by Microsoft and has so far worked with Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures to stop “thousands” of downloads.
The tool poses as real bit torrent users but then “confuses” peer-to-peer networks, causing disconnections.
Critics argue that the method will be ineffective in the long term.
Once again, attacking the wrong problem. In the big picture of...
2 tags
Removing plugin dependencies from IB3 Nibs
ibtool --remove-plugin-dependencies --write MainMenu.xib.new --plugin ~/Downloads/BWToolkit/BWToolkit.ibplugin MainMenu.xib
(In this case, Xcode refused to correctly use the copy of the plugin I pointed it too, so I had to fall back to the command line.)
GitLaw: GitHub for Laws and Legal Documents →
Imagine a public system like GitHub but instead of source code being tracked, legal documents such as bills/laws are tracked (and just like GitHub, versioned in git). Imagine if, before any bill is introduced to Congress, its contents were posted on this publicly available medium with adequate time before a vote?
I love this idea. Whether you could ever get anything like this implemented is...
Top GOP Pollster to GOP: Reverse On Gay Issues →
It’s advising Republican candidates to emphasize the conservative nature of gay marriage, to say how it encourages personal responsibility, commitment, stability and family values. It uses Dick Cheney’s formula (which was for a couple of years, the motto of this blog) that “freedom means freedom for everyone.” And it uses David Cameron’s argument that you can be for gay marriage because you are...
Clergy Rebukes Media for Asking Wrong Questions... →
Finally got a chance to watch Rev. Barber’s remarks on NC’s Amendment One. Make time if you skipped it. http://t.co/vvx0C6S7
Tennessee Lawmakers Need A Reality Check →
The Gateway Sexual Activity Bill was passed by the Tennessee House of Representatives. The bill outlaws students handholding with each other while at school (because, according to the Tennessee House of Reps this is a “gateway” to sexual activity.) It also allows the parents of the student to sue the teachers if they feel the teachers aren’t doing enough to prevent sexual activity among the...
On making fun of Starbucks and being discerning →
I try to be discerning in everything, because I love it. I love the research and acquisition of specialty things, I love finding new and better versions of the things I like, and I love discovering the immense depth of hobbies and goods that most people never see.
Most people aren’t discerning, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to be.
An old post, yes, but as true as it ever...
Don't Mind Me: Zynga's Going Down →
So the matchup is Zynga against the field, the field being every person in the world who knows how to, and has the will to create a social game. Who would you bet on?
Thoughts on RubyMotion →
If you think that using RubyMotion is going to make it so you don’t need to learn Objective-C… you are wrong.
This actually echoes one of my main concerns about RubyMotion: a big part of development, of learning to build Cocoa apps, is trawling through tutorials and sample code. If your main reason for wanting to use something like RubyMotion is a desire to avoid Objective-C altogether (and...
April 2012
7 posts
Open sourcing - Alex MacCaw →
However, the majority of my work never sees the light of day. I’m constantly working on small projects and ideas, and for whatever reason they never get released publicly.
I want that to change; there’s no point in code languishing in my private Git repositories.
I personally subscribe to Tom Preston-Werner’s ‘open source (almost) everything’ philosophy - if it’s...
10 Myths About Introverts →
Labeling someone as an Introvert is a very shallow assessment, full of common misconceptions. It’s more complex than that.
It turns out that Introverts are people who are over-sensitive to Dopamine, so too much external stimulation overdoses and exhausts them. Conversely, Extroverts can’t get enough Dopamine, and they require Adrenaline for their brains to create it. Extroverts also have a...
Lessons from a 40 year old →
I also want to mention a term people in the VC-world consider derogatory, which is “lifestyle business” where someone builds a site, and brings in enough money to support themselves. Investors see that as a bad thing, and it boggles my mind sometimes when I think about the twisted world that produces that kind of idea.
Six Stages of Debugging →
GOV.UK →
Unfortunately, far too often .gov websites cost millions and don’t deliver as needed. GOV.UK is open source, mobile-friendly, platform agnostic, uses HTML5, scalable, hosted in the cloud and open for feedback. Those criteria collectively embody the default for how government should approach their online efforts in the 21st century.
Promising start.
“One of my responsibilities as Commander in Chief is to keep an eye on robots....”
– President Obama talking to the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon. (via juliasegal)
This man. Don’t ever change.
(transcript from whitehouse.gov)
Our Geek In Chief, ladies and gentlemen. (via heidi8)
'The Newsroom' →
I will watch anything by Aaron Sorkin: http://t.co/JHbHLt8h
March 2012
6 posts
Hacking is Important →
The folks who create process care about control, and they use politics to shape that control and to influence communications, and if there is ever a sentence that would cause a hacker to stand up and throw his or her keyboard at the screen, it’s the first half of this one.
3 tags
IssuesHub withdrawn from sale
On March 28th 2012, Github announced that version 2 of their API would be terminated on May 1st. As IssuesHub runs on this version of the API, existing copies will cease to function as of this date. I am of course unwilling to supply a product that will become inoperable in a month, and so I have unfortunately had no choice but to withdraw IssuesHub from sale.
I am currently working on version 2...
California Teacher on Leave Over Porn Video... →
Student claims that a junior high teacher was moonlighting as a porn star were initially dismissed after school officials said they couldn’t find any images of her on the Internet.
RADAR OR GTFO →
These are good people, and they care about this stuff. Help them help us.
Give it five minutes →
There are two things in this world that take no skill: 1. Spending other people’s money and 2. Dismissing an idea.
February 2012
23 posts
Homebrew and Xcode 4.3
Now that the default directory for Xcode is /Applications, Homebrew may not be too happy.
Error: No developer directory found at /Developer.
Fix this by first ensuring you have the command line tools installed (Xcode > Preferences > Downloads > Components > Command Line Tools), then running the following command:
sudo xcode-select -switch...
Suggested Viewing Order →
If you are showing someone the official editions of Star Wars for the first time, you have to make a decision about which order to show the films.
This makes so much sense.
Just a thermostat. →
Complexity is easy. It’s fun to come up with new ideas and it feels great to say yes to everything, to avoid making trade-offs.
It’s simplicity that’s hard. To make a great product, you have to define its core – a single challenge – and painfully, painstakingly eliminate creative features to stay true to the product and its purpose.
What else would one expect?
What’s the waiter doing with the computer screen? →
“The guys that create these kinds of systems … they have …. Well, you can’t do things the way you wanna do them. You can check off a reservation in the system, with the mouse, but hey, it’s at least four clicks away from this screen. And you can’t tell if the guests have been showed to their table or are waiting in the bar. So it’s much easier just to draw on the screen. (And when the...
Rails Went Off The Rails →
Rails is old and busted; Node.js is the new hotness. But people hate Node.js because of “the hype.” This amuses me, because the only things I know about the hype around Node.js come from people who hate Node for that hype.
I will freely admit to knowing next-to-nothing about Node.js, but I’m also a big ‘use what you know’ guy. I know Rails, I know how to make it do what I...
Force rbenv to find rails →
If your system seems to think rails isn’t installed when you know for a fact it is, you might see something like the following error:
`Rails is not currently installed on this system. To install it, run sudo apt-get install rails.`
Don’t. Instead, try the following:
`$ gem install railties && rbenv rehash`
Use Pow with rbenv →
In ~/.zshenv:
`export PATH="/Users/username/.rbenv/shims:/Users/username/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"`
Restart Pow. Done.
Why we don't trust retainCount →
Graham Lee on a specific example of why you should never, ever rely on -retainCount for anything.
Why this method is still public baffles me.
Do Things, Tell People. →
If you you don’t have any marketable skills, learn some. It’s the future. We have Khan Academy and Wikipedia and Codecademy and almost the entire world’s collective knowledge at your fingertips. Use it.
Then make something that you can talk about. Make something cool. Something interesting. Spend time on it. Go crazy. Even if it’s the least useful thing you’ve ever made, if you can talk...
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man...”
– Citizenship in a Republic, Theodore Roosevelt, April 23 1910
The Piracy Threshold →
The vast majority of people are happy to buy your stuff, but only if you’re reasonable about it. £10 for a movie isn’t reasonable; it’s greedy. People don’t feel that’s the right price. We’re not asking to get things for free, but we’re not willing to be fucked.
iOS vs Mac →
The iOS platform overtook the OS X platform in under four years and more iOS devices were sold in 2011 (156 million) than all the Macs ever sold (122 million
The Evolution of Piezo (Christa/Piezo) →
Worth a read, if only for the first footnote.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note Is the Most Useless Phone... →
Just focus on a quality product, and you won’t have to release eight “flagship” models a year.
On privacy, hashing, and your customers →
Try not to be a dick; check that you’re not being a dick; be less of a dick.
Jeff Atwood leaving Stack Exchange →
Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange have been wildly successful, but I finally realized that success at the cost of my children is not success. It is failure.
I doubt there’s a single developer out there today whose job - life - hasn’t been improved by Stack Exchange.
Inside Stripe →
Stripe’s aim, the cofounders agree, is to make accepting payments online as simple as embedding a YouTube video.
I’d argue Stripe don’t want to be the next PayPal. They want to be better.
I can’t wait till these guys launch in the UK.
Github's Zach Holman on The Apple Voice →
Most startups don’t have the luxury of meeting every one of their customers. They can’t explain the case for their product in-person.
Instead, we market our product with words. We craft those words with our voice.