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  How to Seem (and Be) Deep

I recently attended a discussion group whose topic, at that session, was Death.  It brought out deep emotions.  I think that of all the Silicon Valley lunches I've ever attended, this one was the most honest; people talked about the death of family, the death of friends, what they thought about their own deaths.  People really listened to each other.  I wish I knew how to reproduce those conditions reliably.I was the only transhumanist present, and I was extremely careful not...

   Deep,Work,Smart,Work style,Study     2011-10-23 11:46:11

  Today on history : Twitter cofounder Evan Williams was born

Evan Williams, born March 31, 1972. American entrepreneurs, has created a number of Internet companies, including Pyra Labs, (operational blog, Blogger) and Twitter. He was Twitter, CEO from October 2008 to October 2010. Twitter former CEO Evan WilliamsEvan Williams grew up on a farm in Nebraska Clark Village. At the University of Nebraska, he studied a year and a half, then he started to work. He did different technologies work in some tech start-ups in Key West, Dallas, Austin, Texas. In 1996...

   Twitter,Cofounder,Evan Williams,Introduction     2012-03-31 08:49:18

  Useful Bash Scripts

Many people hack together shell scripts quickly to do simple tasks, but these soon take on a life of their own. Unfortunately shell scripts are full of subtle effects which result in scripts failing in unusual ways. It's possible to write scripts which minimise these problems. In this article, I explain several techniques for writing robust bash scripts. Use set -u ...

   Linux,Shell,Bash,Command,Robust     2012-01-15 10:28:00

  Writing robust shellling scripts

Many people hack together shell scripts quickly to do simple tasks, but these soon take on a life of their own. Unfortunately shell scripts are full of subtle effects which result in scripts failing in unusual ways. It's possible to write scripts which minimise these problems. In this article, I explain several techniques for writing robust bash scripts. Use set -u ...

   Robust,Shell script,Set,Commands     2012-03-19 13:25:26

  Why I left Google

Ok, I relent. Everyone wants to know why I left and answering individually isn’t scaling so here it is, laid out in its long form. Read a little (I get to the punch line in the 3rd paragraph) or read it all. But a warning in advance: there is no drama here, no tell-all, no former colleagues bashed and nothing more than you couldn’t already surmise from what’s happening in the press these days surrounding Google and its attitudes toward user privacy and software develo...

   James Whittaker,Google,Leave,Microsoft,Ad     2012-03-14 13:43:44

  Stop Making Apps

There are a bunch of iPhone apps I own though I have no clue what they do. These apps include but aren’t limited to; FLUD, Apptitude, Cartoonatic, Can’t Wait!, Punch, Pah, Prize Claw, Traveler, Concur, Jajah, Fast Customer, Pimple Popper and many more whose names I can’t even remember.Occupying my valuable homescreen real estate are also a bunch of apps whose purpose I remember only because they were built by people I know or am friends with, but that I sadly never use. And ...

   App,Apple,Android,Stop     2011-11-12 10:54:42

  HTML5 and Accessibility

Accessibility for people with disabilities is a legal responsibility in many countries. It's also the right thing to do, and one of the characteristics distinguishing professional developers from the WWWs: WYSIWYG-wielding wannabes. But for many, accessibility has been a somewhat black art, requiring adding extra stuff to your code like alt text, table summaries, ARIA information that can be difficult to test by developers who are not assistive technology users themselves.The arrival of HTML5 ha...

   HTML5,Accessibility,Video,Music,Canvas     2011-08-19 08:13:44

  Why developer-friendliness is central to API design

Today, APIs play a bigger role in software development than ever before. The evolution of computing has been dominated by ever-increasing levels of abstraction; the use of higher-level languages, of course, but also the development of platforms, libraries, and frameworks. Professor Douglass C. Smith claims the progression of this second category far outpaced the development of programming languages.  Developers are also noticing that difficulty has shifted from designing algorithms a...

   API,User friendly,Significance, Improve quality     2011-12-21 02:29:54

  Why would a developer invest time in your startup’s platform?

The notion of developing a platform is highly addictive for technology founders. It ticks every “this is awesome” box and its drawbacks do not become evident until after you’ve already overcommitted.When you’re sunk deep in your idea, you start seeing the infinite number of directions it might go. It could be used for creativity or education or advertising or television or personal productivity or anything.Possibilities are exciting.You soon realise you can’...

   Platform,Invest,Attraction,Sell point,Developer     2011-10-31 10:49:37

  Stop obsessing over HTML5 and CSS3

As web designers, we all seem obsessed by HTML5 and CSS3 at the moment. Endless posts, tutorials and discussion about them dominate the blogosphere. But how much are we learning that can be applied today? Don’t get me wrong. We all need to understand HTML5 and CSS3. And a lot of it can be used today. My point is that we seem to be spending a disproportionate about of time reading up on the subject when so many other areas deserve our attention. While others are reading yet another tut...

   Clients, Opinion, Web Designers     2011-06-24 00:55:06

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