Month: April 2013

[Dominic Holden][1] presents a look at what more security cameras would do, and wouldn’t do in our country. This entire debate reminds me of the decent (but not great) TV series: Person of Interest. The show surrounds a smart computer geek, who created a program that analyzes all available data on the U.S. population (from […]

“Twitter is a deliberate abstention. Somehow I hate the idea of there always being, in the back of my mind, this little voice saying: ‘Oh, I should tweet about this.’” — George Saunders

I knew nothing about the sale of Instapaper until well after the news was posted online. After reading the news I wasn’t sure what to make of the entire situation. My knee jerk reaction was to cancel my account and just use Pinboard.in instead. However I stopped to consider what, why, and who was taking […]

[Tom Rogan writing about why conspiracy theories are usually good][1]: > And yet… Tsarnaev is innocent until proven guilty. In this sense, his supporters are little more than amateur defense attorneys — odd and pathetic, perhaps, but harmless. And they’re actually helping uphold the American tradition of a presumption of innocence. This is freedom. The […]

Just to see how many people would respond, I posted on App.net the other day that I wanted to hold a Seattle meet up during WWDC for those not attending the conference. Two people said yes, and for App.net that’s batting 1.000, so here we are. Here’s what I am planning (please email me to […]

[Jason Kottke on some of the first weblogs][1]: > Those weblogs were idiosyncratic, about a little bit of everything, and sent people away to keep them coming back — a stark contrast to the late-’90s portal strategy of “stickiness.” Also a stark contrast to most major blogs of today. Think: TechCrunch, *The Verge*, Huffington Post […]

[Jim Ray](http://jimray.tumblr.com/post/48626134951/twitters-music-app-is-beautiful-in-that): > Perhaps I’m just too far past what Twitter considers cool, but a stream littered with #NowPlaying refuse (or Vines or Foursqure check-ins, for that matter) is a sign that I need to spend some quality time with the unfollow button. Twitter has built an app that requires users to abuse their timelines […]

[Sunstroke gained a modest update today][1] to version 1.4. New in this update is a few little things, one neat one: > Added the ability to long press on the sync button to force Sunstroke to refresh the Fever server. That’s a really clever little update — I love how minor but powerful that touch […]

[Federico Viticci has a very detailed review][1] of what is new in Drafts 3.0. I haven’t used the app, but to call it a scratchpad any longer is really unfair. There is a tremendous amount of power in Drafts — one could spend months in the app configuring it. I have a lot of respect […]

*Today* Horizon calendar ships a major update. Gone are two of the biggest drawbacks of the application: bad icon and no natural language input. The former was one of the biggest reasons I wouldn’t put the app on my Home screen and the latter is a nice little extra for me. The new icon took […]

[Panic has released Status Board][1]: > Status Board takes your data and gives it meaning. Use the easy built-in widgets. Or massage your data for our Graph and Table widgets. It’s going to be awesome. Like every other nerd, when [Panic teased about Status Board back in 2010](https://www.panic.com/blog/2010/03/the-panic-status-board/) I really wanted to get my hands […]

[Harry Marks,][1] responding to [my “country club” post about App.net][2]: > App.net is as inclusive as you can get because it puts users and developers first, not big-name companies and celebrities. App.net treats its user base as more than just one big antenna for ads and there are actual support channels that don’t end in […]

[Seth Godin on skeuomorphic design and businesses][1]: > Yes, it’s far easier to get understanding or buy in quickly (from investors, in-laws and users) when you take the shortcut of making your digital thing look and work just like the trusted and proven non-digital thing. But over and over again, we see that the winner […]

[Duncan Bayne lists the sites he is using to replace Google][1]: > I’ve replaced Drive, Calendar and Contacts with my own installation of ownCloud. It’s great – I’ve got full two-way sync with my Android devices, and complete control over my own data. I had never heard of [ownCloud][2] before, but it certainly looks very […]

[Rolf Dobelli on the health hazards that reading news presents][1]: > Online news has an even worse impact. In a 2001 study two scholars in Canada showed that comprehension declines as the number of hyperlinks in a document increases. Why? Because whenever a link appears, your brain has to at least make the choice not […]

“The way they make these waiters carry around 20 pounds of salad and breadsticks on giant trays is just silly. They should just push around wheelbarrows or something and use shovels to scoop it directly into people’s faces.” — Garrett Murray

[Farhad Manjoo writing for Slate about the useless practice of following breaking news][1], has this point about what happens if you just catch up with one in-depth article the following day: > And that’s it: You’ve now caught up with all your friends who spent the past day and a half going out of their […]

“I may buy a lot of stuff, but should I only be viewed as “a consumer” in the eyes of the government and my democracy?” — Jason Katzer

[1000 Lumens, small enough to carry on your keychain.][1] Even if that was all that this flashlight project was, I’d still back it for $120. I flipping love flashlights. However, this is a lot more than that (if you can ignore all the Tom Cruise swooning). > Helioslight is a programming flashlight. You can change […]

I have spent a lot of time chiding my good buddy Shawn about [his love][1] for those hideous beasts that true-nerds call “keyboards”. You know, the ones that make all that damned noise… Mechanical, I think that’s what the cool kids call them. I never liked them. In fact, once I found the current Apple […]