Care
As a species , we have proven that there is nothing we can’t do if we set out to do so. We have cured the incurable countless times before. I fervently believe that, if we can send robots to Mars and fix elections with money, we can cure cancer. All it takes is the same thing it always has for every one of those challenges…
Care. Patrick Rhone
I don’t know Patrick personally, we’ve never met and probably will never meet. He’s just a guy I follow on Twitter and App.net because his tweets and posts show that his interests and mine align.
Where is the International News
Claire Belinski explains in the badly titled How to Read Today’s Unbelievably Bad News :: Gatestone Institute where good international news coverage has gone.
Something has gone very wrong in American coverage of news from abroad. It is shoddy, lazy, riddled with mistakes, and excessively simplistic.
Above all, it is absent.
Mainly this is why:
In the event of a massive breaking story—such as the uprisings in Tahrir Square—the networks parachute their people in. They bone up on the story by reading the local English-language newspapers (and in any country where English isn’t widely spoken, it is important to ask: Why does it have an English-language newspaper? The answer, usually, is that the paper is trying to sell a particular version of local events to investors and to English-speakers—a version, needless to say, that is not necessarily the whole truth).
AT&T effs users again
The beard, Jim Dalrymple nails it in AT&T fucks users… again:
“Our network sucks balls. If we tried to let all of you rapid iPhone users have FaceTime, our network would take a firey crash into Hell. Many of the executives that have been too goddamn cheap to upgrade the network are now scared shitless that they will lose their cushy bonuses. So we decided to fuck our users.”
Why? AT&T is only allowing cellular FaceTime if you buy into their new overpriced and underserviced family share plans. I am on a grandfathered unlimited data plan, which is not really unlimited. The new share plan will cost me $40 a month more for significantly less data that we already use (and our usage is way less than the cap or throttle trigger on the unlimited plan).
Hipstamatic fires its devs
Of all the stupid things to do, Hipstamatic fired its 3 devs, 1 designer and writer yesterday. Here’s how it played out on Twitter.
So in case you didn’t get the memo. Entire team laid off. 3 devs, 1 designer, 1 writer. Some of THE best people I’ve ever worked with… Jonathan Wight
This is a company making 22 million dollars this year (according to The Verge here). And expects to continue without its creatives!
RIP Twitter
“I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.”
In March, Ryan Sarver, Platform Lead at Twitter speaking with MG Siegler on Techcrunch in Twitter Drops The Ecosystem Hammer: Don’t Try To Compete With Us On Clients, Focus On Data And Verticals:
We need to move to a less fragmented world, where every user can experience Twitter in a consistent way.
My Sublime Text 2 Setup
I have been using Sublime Text 2 for a month or so now, and I still do not love it. Here’s hoping TextMate 2 gets it’s game on. But at least I have it working closer to the way I want it to work and look now. Here are the minor changes I have made to make it work for me and how it compares to TextMate 2 (Updated: See My TextMate 2 Setup - The Hiltmon).
Choosing Sunglasses
Two weeks ago I went kayaking on Long Island sound, and lost my sunglasses. Once again, my friends, it was time to research the next pair.
My criteria for sunglasses may differ from yours, they are:
- Good lenses: I program for a living, and need my eyes to remain in top condition for as long as possible. Cheap lenses increase eye strain for me, which is bad for my work and mood. UVA and UVB protection is obviously a must. So is having a light weight. Modern polycarbonate lenses achieve this goal.
- Low Glare: The greatest damage to my eyes after UV comes from glare, so I need good anti-glare protection while maintaining excellent clarity. For this, an anti-reflective coating and well done polarization really helps.
- Good Color: My hobby is photography, which means I also want to see a wide and true color range through my sunglass lenses. I seek a lens color that blocks a color gamut range I know about (and choose), and does not block other color gamut ranges. Cheap lenses shift colors which annoys me. Neutral lens colors such as gray or green have been my preferred choice (but I tried brown for the last pair).
- Wrap Around: Good glasses must not only protect my eyes from frontal light but also side light and reflections. I’m not looking for a full cycling wrap-around set, or side shields, but I do expect my sunglasses to curve around towards my temples to catch stray light.
- Comfortable fit: I pretty much wear sunglasses whenever I am outside, which means that the fit needs to be exceptional. No side or nose pinching allowed, and the glasses must stay on as I lead my active lifestyle. And perch comfortably on top of my head when indoors.
- Scratch and Moisture Resistant: I’m also not the most careful person out there, so having a pair of sunglasses that shake off dust, water and scratches is very valuable to me.
- Looks Good: Honestly, this is probably the most important criteria for most people, but being the geek I am, it’s the last thing I look at. I do, however, have some self-respect, and so this is also a requirement.
Previously, I had always gone towards the Ray Ban classic green lenses, the ones made famous in their Wayfarer and Aviator ranges. I have always liked the protection and neutrality these lenses provide. In fact, my wife just replaced her sunglasses with modern Wayfarers, and they are most excellent. But they look horrible on me.
App.Net Funded
Today, App.Net got funded. Not many of us expected that to happen, but it did, and we’re happy to pay our $50 or $100 to kick it off. Most reports are reporting this service as a paid Twitter clone, and yes, that’s part of it. But the goals are bigger:
- You are not the product: The product in Twitter is you, because it’s free. On App.Net, you are paying for the ID and the service and the access. It’s yours. Your ID. Your Data.
- Low or no Spam: Adding a spam account to Twitter is easy, bots can sign up. If a spammer wants to use App.Net’s platform, they have to pay $50 per account, not a viable business model for them.
- It’s a platform: The real plan for App.Net is to provide a real-time platform for inter-process communications across the web, with tweets being the first cab off the rank. Twitter is all about mass and messages, not as a common carrier.
If you want to reserve your twitter handle, better back App.Net today before funding closes at join.app.net.
Textmate 2 is now Open Source
My favorite programmers editor of all time, TextMate, recently updated to TextMate 2 Alpha. I’ve been using the alpha for a while, still love it, but it’s an alpha release and therefore buggy and slow. So I’ve been trying out Sublime Text 2 as a replacement. So far, I switch between TextMate 2 Alpha and Sublime Text 2 daily, only because closing the last tab in TextMate 2 closes the darn project editor and that annoys me.
Expect the Unexpected
There was a panic at one of my client sites today when the reporting software I wrote for them stopped working. Instead of presenting reports as usual, the software threw an unknown error.
WTF, an unknown error!
I wrote the darn system, I know all the errors, because I coded all of them!
A quick glance at the logs indicated that indeed, Passenger was throwing an unknown error when accessing one Rails URL (and all others were working just fine). It’s as if that Rails path just disappeared.