Blog
Writing helps me think more clearly. This archive is longer posts; quick updates now live in notes.
Topics: AI, blogging, photography, programming, projects, Signboard
One of the latest things I've been working on for Unmark is turning the app into a Progressive Web App (PWA). Among other benefits, this affords Unmark the capability of being a "Web Share Target" on Android. (Sadly, only Android for now) A Web Share Target is very similar to a feature you likely use every day and…
Don't have time to get to all of these links today? No problem. Try Unmark (I'll send you an invite if you'd like.) Also, there are tons more. Apollo-related stuff: With it being the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo program there is a slew of content surfacing this year. Here are a few things I've enjoyed and a…
Joshua Blakenship (dude has a name like a superhero doesn't he?) on 15 years of blogging and on bringing his personal blog back online: I don’t know much, but I know I miss 2004 web, personal websites, and curation that has nothing to do with algorithms. And maybe you do, too. So here we are, dusting off the…
Jessica Williams (presumably no relation to whom this post is about) writing for Times News regarding Jeff Williams, COO of Apple, speaking to students and faculty at Elon University , regarding Steve Jobs' new plan for Apple in the late-90s: Apple would become “the Sony of the PC industry.” It would make computers fashionable, and it would go…
skywhopper, on Hacker News, commenting on a thread relating to Mark Gurman's scoop on Apple's (supposed) plan to have apps running on iOS and macOS using the same (or, similar) code bases by 2020: And then the Mac is losing what should be its primary audience through unwanted innovations and otherwise stagnant hardware, and a failure to recognize…
I've devoted a lot of my time and effort in trying to help local entrepreneurs through advising, attending meetups, and being an active part of the local tech and business communities. I haven't, however, taken those insights and shared them here on my blog. Nor have I done much to help promote local businesses through my blog. So…
👉 Pete Brown: It is always so disappointing when I discover a site that seem interesting and I want to follow it, and then I find out it is on Medium.
Brad Frost: As time goes on I find myself increasingly annoyed with login forms. Excellent suggestions for designing simple, usable login forms. I've made a note to double-check anything I make with this list.
See more in this series. Gravitational Waves – A New Era of Astronomy Begins – Brian Greene hosted a panel about the monumental discovery. Amazing work. The Discarded Image: Episode 01 – Jaws – I'm long overdue linking to this. Fantastic breakdown of Spielberg's camerawork. End of Opportunity – What a run! JP Morgan is working on JPM…
(I had no idea what to title this post.) Peter Kafka, reporting for Recode earlier this year, re: Verizon shuttering relatively large services they've purchased over the years rather than "bothering" to sell them off (like they did with Flickr): So if Verizon thinks a property with 100 million users is better off dead than sold, think of…
Fred Wilson, in a post where he contemplates his blog becoming an email newsletter to reduce his technical debt in running a blog: Many AVC readers don’t bother with any of that and simply subscribe and read via email. For them, AVC is an email newsletter. The number of readers who engage that way has been growing a…
I want to be regular with this series. I do. I've just been busy. Sorry. Here are some links that you might find interesting. I did. The HU – Mongolian Heavy Metal Band – Modern rock made with traditional Mongolian language and instruments. Fascinating. I play these on Spotify all the time. Jack Black on YouTube – He…
Maddy Savage, BBC Capital, re: Sweden's leave policy: For the last two decades, full-time workers with permanent jobs have had the right to take a six-month leave of absence to launch a company (or alternatively, to study or to look after a relative). Bosses can only say no if there are crucial operational reasons they can’t manage without…
Last year, around this time, I published an interview with Manton Reece – founder of Micro.blog (M.b) – about how the platform was growing and what the goals for 2018 were. It was such a great interview and it helped me to understand the direction that M.b was going that I knew I had to interview him again…
Sunset out the passenger window – January 2019
(If I sent you to this page, it is likely because you're in violation of my license. Please read.) For the last few years my photos have been licensed as attribution only by a simple statement on the bottom of my web page in my footer. My images get stolen, without credit, a lot. Since my licensing wasn't…
Noah Read recently visited China. His post has some lovely photos and great first-hand insights. I like this bit: The trade war, debate over the gravity of China’s economic slowdown, currency manipulation, Chinese vs Western interpretations of economic theory, and debt backed development were all in the air in our lectures, company visits, and discussions. However, these details…
Josh Pigford, last year, on leaving Baremetrics leaving Medium: I realized Medium is really great about surfacing content, but it removes the face of it. It neutralizes all content to basically be author-agnostic. It’s like Walmart or Amazon in that you can buy from thousands of different brands, but you rarely actually know what brand you’re buying…you just…
Stephen Hackett, at 512 Pixels: Regardless of all of that, I think it’s clear the leadership at Twitter has no idea what they are doing, and I think the network’s time is ticking away faster than ever. Not to be contrarian but I disagree. Update January 24, 2019: I must have misread Hackett's post. I thought he was…
When Instagram first started to hit popularity – long after their failed attempt at being a check-in service – the app was all about photo filters. Anyone could snap a photo with their phone and quickly add a filter to make it look "better" or at least more interesting. It made everyone feel like a photographer. At first…
There were a number of responses to RSS isn't dead. Subscribing is alive. Partly due to being on Micro.blog Discover and perhaps also due to Brent Simmons linking to it (thanks Brent!). Chris Aldrich: I’ve been enamored of the way that SubToMe has abstracted things to create a one click button typically with a “Follow Me” or “Subscribe”…
DHH: These days Medium is focused on their membership offering, though. Trying to aggregate writing from many sources and sell a broad subscription on top of that. And it’s a neat model, and it’s wonderful to see Medium try something different. But it’s not for us, and it’s not for Signal v Noise. SvN was not long for…
Sinclair Target, writing for Motherboard: Today, RSS is not dead. But neither is it anywhere near as popular as it once was. This isn't the first nor the last article to cover the creation of the RSS standard, its rise to relative popularity with Google Reader, and its subsequent fall from popularity. But the big point that many…
Mike Haynes: We appreciate everyone’s patience as we worked through the development process and look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback. Mike may see the development and launch of Dialog as taking longer than he would have liked, but from where I sit the app has come a long way in a relatively short period of time….