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Great post going over the anatomy of Smaug. It seems Smaug changed from one release to another. Keen eyes. /via Michael Heilemann on Twitter.

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Or, at least according to John Gruber many don’t. There’s a nihilistic streak in tech journalism that I just don’t see in other fields. Sports, movies, cars, wristwatches, cameras, food — writers who cover these fields tend to celebrate, to relish, the best their fields have to offer. Technology, on the other hand, seems to […]

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Wil Shipley, in a story about porting Doom to NeXT, describes John Carmack’s code: Don’t take this to mean his code was spaghetti—it was actually some of the easiest-to-understand code I’ve ever worked with. It has an almost indescribable quality of "obviousness." Like, you know when a really good teacher explains something, it seems obvious? […]

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Interesting, the way this stuff works. According to the BBC Jack Dorsey merely has an opportunity to join the board of The Walt Disney company. Shareholders will be able to vote on his selection at the company’s annual meeting on 18 March. However, he’s already listed on the company’s web site as being on the board. Weird. […]

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What does it take to build a social network of 1B+ people sharing billions of statuses, photos, videos, links, events and more? Earlier this year Facebook has opened up their research publications. Fascinating stuff for nerds.

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Writer Pro took the web by storm the last few days. One thing that bothered me was how "reviews" I was reading from people that A) had never used it, and B) weren’t writers. This isn’t to say you absolutely have to be a writer to use Writer Pro but from the videos it sure […]

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Recently the Buffer team opened up on how they structure their employee compensation. Recently, we also made the decision to apply our ideas around transparency to compensation. We hope this might help other companies think about how to decide salaries, and will open us up to feedback from the community. This isn’t anything new, mind […]

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I’ve never seen a single episode of Katie Couric’s daytime show Katie. And I don’t know why I’m posting about this at all. But I found it intriguing that less than a month ago Yahoo! CEO Marisa Mayer wrote: In addition to being the face of Yahoo News and shooting features for our homepage, Katie […]

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Nick Heer has a few thoughts regarding the hoopla around tech podcasts of late. He also has a few suggestions for how a tech podcast, that he’d enjoy, should be structured: By having a structure in place, rambling is reduced. A good editor can remove most off-topic talk and lag time, but having some sort […]

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J. Kenji López-Alt exhausted 32 pounds of flour in 100 tests to make 1,536 chocolate chip cookies until he got it just right: For the past few months, I’ve had chocolate chip cookies on the brain. I wake up in the middle of the night with a fresh idea, a new test to run, only […]

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In February of this year I completely cleared out the accounts I follow on Twitter, moved those I wanted to continue following into a bunch of lists, and started over. Why? Because I wanted new perspectives. Today, I’m doing it again. So if you see me follow you or unfollow you it is more than […]

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Jason Kottke, writing for Nieman Journalism Lab: The design metaphor at the heart of the blog format is on the wane as well. Ina piece at The Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal says that the reverse-chronological stream (a.k.a. The Stream, a.k.a. The River of News) is on its way out. Snapchat, with its ephemeral media, is an obvious […]

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Why is it so quiet when it snows? Duncan Geere writes about exactly that in The silence of snowfall. I recall one of my high school teachers saying "I’ve never heard something so loud as the silence that happens during a snowstorm." Silence can be deafening. When I was younger I’d spend countless hours outdoors, […]

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If you could have anything (whether or not it actually exists does not matter) what would it be? Dustin Curtis wrote up some of the things he’d like and a few of them are great. Such as, a device that would detect cancer, a pill that would limit caloric intake daily, and an always on, […]

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The war for our attention rages on. Allow me to propose a timeline for how Instagram Direct, a feature inside of Instagram 5.0 that allows users to share photos with one or many people rather than with all of Instagram, more than likely came to be: Snapchat becomes a leading photo-sharing service. Snapchat turns down […]

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The Public Domain Review is "a not-for-profit project dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available online." You’ll have to excuse me while I catch up on the last hundred years or so.

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There is a bunch of news outlets saying that Spotify has now made streaming music free on mobile devices but that isn’t exactly accurate. Until this most recent announcement non-premium Spotify users could use Spotify Radio for free on their mobile devices. Spotify Radio worked like this; a user chooses a song or artist and then […]

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This Tumblog is making the rounds; After iOS 7 icons. Essentially it is a gallery of app icons showing what they looked like before and after their iOS 7 updates. I know many have said that the aesthetic of iOS 7 is stripping the personality of apps and they may be right. But I think what […]

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Shawn Blanc’s The Sweet Setup continues to prove its worth. This time Steven Owens sticks his neck out to say that Paprika is simply the best recipe manager for iPhone, iPad and Mac. To put it simply, Paprika provides all the features you need to be an organized and effective home cook. Paprika also works […]

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Just when you thought there wasn’t any room for improvement on the umbrella comes UnBRELLA from designer Hiroshi Kajimoto who spent a decade on the redesign. Spoon & Tamago: Why exactly would you want to invert an umbrella? When you jump on a crowded train after escaping a downpour your dripping wet umbrella usually brushes up […]

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So there is a planet that is so far away from its host Star that it has astronomers rethinking the very way that solar systems are formed.  It has been dubbed HD 106906 b. Wikipedia: On December 4, 2013, University of Arizona graduate student Vanessa Bailey, leader of an international team of astronomers, detailed the […]

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Ryan Tate, for Wired’s piece on Foursquare: Whether the new Foursquare is as useful to the general public as it has been for its initial testers remains to be seen. But in the wake of last week’s launch, Crowley is still aiming for his magic number: 100 million users. Kyle Ruane and I were talking […]

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Jessica Lessin, ex-WSJ reporter, has launched The Information after collaboratively reporting via her own WordPress-powered personal blog for several months. Why? She writes. Technology news needs a reboot. There are more stories and outlets than ever, but a troubling cycle is playing out: The race for pageviews and ad dollars is causing publications to focus on quantity over […]

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Shawn Blanc has had both the iPad Air and iPad Mini for three weeks. He goes through and tries to answer all of the questions anyone could possibly have if they are considering a new iPad and simply can’t choose between the two. One of two things will have to happen before I get a […]

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It seems a few restaurant chains have begun using tablets instead of waiters for ordering your drinks and food and for accepting your payment. Ben Brooks: I am all for this, in fact I would pay more to not have to interact with servers — instead getting a tablet. In our team chat some of […]

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Madhur Dutta declares Riposte the best App.net client for iPhone on The Sweet Setup: At first glance, both Felix and Riposte pack quite a punch. But after testing both the apps thoroughly, I believe Riposte definitely has more to offer. It is significanly easier to use (the learning curve for Felix is quite high), it […]

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Instant classic. If you’ve ever read the Richard Stallman rider then you’ll know that Stallman is a man that may not have much of a sense of humor. I doubt he’ll like this. /via The Loop.

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Instant classic. If you’ve ever read the Richard Stallman rider then you’ll know that Stallman is a man that may not have much of a sense of humor. I doubt he’ll like this. /via The Loop.

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Instant classic. If you’ve ever read the Richard Stallman rider then you’ll know that Stallman is a man that may not have much of a sense of humor. I doubt he’ll like this. /via The Loop.

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Instant classic. If you’ve ever read the Richard Stallman rider then you’ll know that Stallman is a man that may not have much of a sense of humor. I doubt he’ll like this. /via The Loop.

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Instant classic. If you’ve ever read the Richard Stallman rider then you’ll know that Stallman is a man that may not have much of a sense of humor. I doubt he’ll like this. /via The Loop.

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Instant classic. If you’ve ever read the Richard Stallman rider then you’ll know that Stallman is a man that may not have much of a sense of humor. I doubt he’ll like this. /via The Loop.

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Chris Lema is writing about generosity every day on his blog for all of December. He’s half way through the first week. Here is a quick recap of what he’s covered so far. The Opposite of Generosity: We just don’t always feel rich. And I get that. Bills come in. We have to choose which […]

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Jim Wang, blogger and investor in my company Plain, recently published a great blog post asking 78 bloggers, yes 78 bloggers, what they would tell someone who is just starting out. Before I give my answer (Jim didn’t ask me but I love blogging so I will answer it anyway) I’d like to highlight two […]

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Chris Gonzales answers Shawn Blanc’s question about working remotely on Twitter in longform on his blog. I’m glad he did. The funny thing I’ve noticed is that it seems like each pro is also its own con. I worked at home, both remotely and for myself, for about 10 years of my career. Gonzales hits […]

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Instant classic. If you’ve ever read the Richard Stallman rider then you’ll know that Stallman is a man that may not have much of a sense of humor. I doubt he’ll like this. /via The Loop.

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Jason Schuller has started an email newsletter for creative people called Creatively. It is full of great links from inspiring sites, applications, articles, and videos. I was really proud to have my post Why you should applaud when people make things featured in Issue No. 5. Thanks Jason. I suggest subscribing.

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The Barley team had the opportunity to sponsor the beer and pizza for a WordPress Meet up in Sydney, Australia earlier in the week. It was about 36 hours before we officially debuted Barley for WordPress to the public. Photo by Will Brown. The above photo is those attending the WordPress Meetup watching a special […]

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It has been a pleasure to follow Ben Saunders and Tarka L’Herpiniere as they attempt to complete "the longest unsupported polar journey in history". Here’s Ben, remarking on Day 31 of their journey: I think I’ve said this on a previous expedition, but out here I’m acutely conscious of my own heat, and of having to […]

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App.net, the Twitter-clone turned app services turned file sharing turned something only a developer can understand…. now has released something that should be a huge hit. They call it Broadcast. In the announcement post Dalton Caldwell explains what a Broadcast is: A Broadcast is a new type of message that is always received as a push notification. […]

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Today Shawn Blanc launched The Sweet Setup, a resource to find the very best applications for your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. There are so many fantastic apps and other tools to help us with all these tasks. And that’s why I built this site. Because I want to use the best tools for whatever the […]

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