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
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….
Here are a few things that came across my desk this week Yo-Yo Ma on Song Exploder – I really enjoyed this episode of what is always a fantastic podcast. Cocaine Hippos – As I was reading the Wikipedia entry for Hippopotamuses (as one does) I came across the fact that Pablo Escobar single handedly brought hippos to…
For the past 10 months my daily work computer has been the Dell XPS 13" 9370 white & rose gold laptop. Overall the experience with this hardware has been positive and most of the issues I've encountered have been software related (rather than related to the laptop itself). Here are some observations I've made about the device. The…
The Berthe Morisot exhibit, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia – January 2019 Seeing this post from Kottke spurred me to invite my Dad and a friend to quickly drive to Philadelphia to see this exhibit before it closed. I'm very happy that I did. I urge you to look into Berthe Morisot.
👉 Anton Peck on Twitter: Prediction: 2019 will be a noticable shift back to blogging. Social networks may see a slight hit. People have things to say, ideas to write about, stories to share.
Annie Mueller: Maintenance tasks—like washing the dishes, folding the clothes—not only keep the basics of life functioning, but they also honor life itself. We are not too good for any of this. We are blessed to be here. Let me remember this as I wipe the table. Let me remember this as I sweep the floor. Me, in…
I'm bringing back my What I saw this week series of posts for 2019. Likely to be published on Fridays. The Julie/Julia Project archive via the Way Back Machine – After re-watching Julie & Julia I hunted down this archive to re-read Julie Powell's original blog posts. Crypto Thesis for 2019 – Arjun Balaji helps to shore up…
Ton Zijlstra, replying to Frank Meeuwsen's post that was replying to my post, took a different angle: Over the last 16 years my blog has been a good instrument to trigger, feed and explore my curiosity. Me blogging more means I’m curious to expand my horizons again. His post reminded me of a discussion that came up in…
Fellow Dutchman Frank Meeuwsen, replying to my carpenter illustration in my What I don't know post (translated by Google Translate): I immediately thought of a conversation I had with the electrician a few minutes before. He explained to me how the power from the meter cupboard is distributed throughout the house and how overload and short circuit can…
Finger Lakes – December 2018 Eliza and I and a few friends rented an Airbnb on Cayuga Lake in New York. We then bounced between the eastern and western shores of Seneca and the eastern shore of Cayuga just before the wineries, breweries, and distilleries closed down for the winter.
Dan Abramov, lead contributor to React, in a post listing the various technologies, languages, etc. that he doesn't know: Still, even experienced engineers have many knowledge gaps. This post is about mine, and I encourage those who can afford similar vulnerability to share their own. But let’s not devalue our experience while we do that. This is an…