Notes

Notes from 2013

580 notes

Dec 2013

I realize how odd some phrases must sound to non-technical people. "I try to stay away from libraries, and roll my own as much as possible."

Thanks for the retweet @aarron As a founder and an Atlanta native. I love what you all do at MailChimp.

Jesse ran what was effectively a phantom empire scattered all over the world— A look at the Dark Lord of the Internet buff.ly

It must be something to do with these crazy grooved wheels.

I will say that IKEA shopping carts have incredible handling.

A century on, there are uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the outbreak of the first world war. buff.ly

The Falcons are going to have to work on the offensive line in the offseason. This last drive has had some horrific blocking. #atlvscar

Tough loss for the Falcons, but that was a great play by Navorro Bowman. #atlsf

Miss school, like money? Job Listing: '$40K a Year to Attend Harvard University as Me' buff.ly

The UK is building infrastructure against humanity. Censorship for the sake of the children.

So the UK is telling citizens what they can and cannot access on the internet. That is quite a slippery slope. Porn now blogs later.

So much unnecessary complexity built into these display ad networks. No wonder BuySellAds is making a killing.

That is especially the case if you are pushing sheisty college loans.

If I didn't sign up for your email, won't just report you as spam. I'll file a complaint with MailChimp or your provider.

Dear Email Marketers,

If you hide your unsubscribe link I'll mark you as spam. That will get you out of my inbox.

They were clinging to Adobe Flash like those guys who still wear trucker hats... hahaha.

Was hoping for some tough questions on @60Minutes about where the NSA draws it's ethical line. Spineless reporting tonight.

Not sure I want to support users on touch-screen laptops. I don't want to support devices with poor ergonomic design. #aeasf

Mobile-first design is taking a small screen and making it better, as opposed to taking a big screen and making it worse. -@lukew #aeasf

When design is practiced without forethought or responsibility the end result is not creation, but destruction -@monteiro #aeasf

As the capabilities of the web grows, so does it complexity. Abstraction allows us to battle complexity. - @chriscoyier #aeasf

Don't build separate mobile websites. Don't fork your content. It's not a strategy if you can't maintain it. #aeasf

All users are non-JavaScript users while they are downloading your webpage. #aeasf

Start with the smallest part of your design and build out from there. - @beep #aeasf

The guy that increases conversions 34 percent gets a dish at the cafeteria named after him. - @lukew #aeasf

Keep the keyboard use to a minimum on mobile. #AEASF

"Carousels exist on websites to prevent people from beating the shit out of others in meetings." #aeasf2013

My room now smells like success and In-N-Out Burger. Good night San Francisco.

SF friends. Looking for a good dinner spot on market st near the place hotel.

Anybody going to be at An Event Apart in SF this week?

Just went on a liking and favorating spree. Deal with it.

Is bringing manufacturing back to the US going to change anything? Would people want those jobs?

The vast majority of available jobs no longer require a diploma—they require the willingness to learn a useful skill.

Googles Ads are starting to look deceptively like search results.

Textbooks are such a racket. Force students to pay hundreds of dollars for dumbed-down material that is rephrased and sold as new each year.

Sneak peak at a chat app I've been working on. Think I need to revisit some of the features. Already too complicated.

The Field Goal return play in the Iron Bowl was not a fluke. It was a perfectly executed play designed by Gus Malzahn hookemreport.com

Bickering about the iron bowl with the people at the tire service center.

Whoa, Amazon working on delivery drones. Half hour delivery, can carry up to 60 pounds.

This guys was the real winner yesterday—Signholder Receives Over $24,000 In Bitcoin After QR Code Appears On ESPN buff.ly

Nov 2013

The only way Bitcoin can become an acceptable currency is if people can buy real things with it. buff.ly

Fantastic friday long form—How radioactive poison became the assassin’s weapon of choice buff.ly

It is amazing to see the growth of podcasting this last year—Maybe it's just because I've been paying more attention to the space recently.

Whoa, flight confirmations now appear at the top of your Gmail Inbox.

America used to be the best in the world at public works. The California High-Speed Rail project shows how far we've fallen.

All I see here is that two thirds of billion dollar startups didnt have one MBA on their team. buff.ly

There is a startup idea here. Filters for PR spam emails—Swatting at a Swarm of Public Relations Spam buff.ly

That wasn't supposed to be a slight. I think the story about why all the porn bots are following is fantastic.

Investigative journalism in the internet age—Why Did 9,000 Porny Spambots Descend on This San Diego High Schooler? buff.ly

The pitch counter play that St. Louis ran today was awesome.

Looking for a designer for one of your projects? I'd encourage you to checkout scoutzie.com A lot of quality designers on there.

Each of these interviews keep getting better and better. @SignalTower 's got a great one coming up in a couple weeks.

If this is true, it is a pretty poor move. Acquisition is SnapChat's only way out—Facebook offered Snapchat 3 billion usatoday.com

Didn't get as far as I wanted tonight, but signaltower.co does have an updated home page.

OK, this is the point where I decide to finish my new home page or go to bed.

If I applied to a top MBA school and declined it if I was accepted, would that still provide a value signal without incurring the cost?

One of the biggest challenges in the software industry isn't making something complex, but making it simple.

Anybody have success changing their wordpress blog's permalink structure to %postname% ? Keep getting 404s with the redirects in my htaccess

Google security engineers to the NSA and thew GCHQ — Fuck You

Looks like the FISA Improvement Act just legalizes all of the NSA's illegal activities. Cannot let that one pass.

Articles talking about 'Big Data' drive me nuts. For the most part people have just realized that they can use analytics to drive decisions.

Wow, Riley Cooper putting up 32 points, and the 4th quarter hasn't started yet—139 yards and 3 TD,

@kirillzubovsky Hi Kirill! Looking at Scoutzie and through some of your posts. Wondering if you would be interested in doing an interview?

@rickknudtson Thanks for the follow Rick! Flywheel seems interesting, especially free migrations. Would you be open to doing an interview?

Oct 2013

If you give a client free reign over the beautiful site you built for them, they will destroy it. Lesson learned.

Ooomf Founder Mikael Cho talks with me about why founders need to care about the problem their company is solving. signaltower.co

Economics has replaced curiosity as the driving force behind research in the 20th century.

Spending time in the frozen foods section is dangerous. There's ice cream here.

...Or if you are a developer and want to team up with a designer/frontend dev on a side project, let me know!

Pro Tip: Search Engine Terms are now nonexistent. Look at Queries under SEO in Google Analytics to find inbound keywords to your site.

Looking at the iPad Air and iPad Mini Retina it appears Apple is offering the same product in the Mini for $100 less—Am I missing something?

Listening to a discussion about antibiotic resistant drugs on @nprfreshair We need a new business model for pharmaceutical companies.

I love this—How to get rid of old stuff immediately, sell it for more, and use Amazon as a cheap storage facility buff.ly

I've got a lot of respect for a town that takes its bloody marys seriously. Keep up the good work Milwaukee.

Strip malls, car dealerships, and fast food places define urban sprawl.

Concepts like this are more exciting to me than electric cars—The FlyKly smart wheel makes any bike electric. buff.ly

...on our virtual website. I was unaware you could have a website that wasn't virtual.

Here is a relic! An instructional video on how to create a tree in adobe illustrator that I did in college. youtube.com

A $200 Chromebook development laptop. What a great option for schools.

After this project is over I will be able to focus on more important matters—this year's Halloween costume.

Sep 2013

Kentico CMS goes down as one of the worst pieces of software I've ever used. No regard for the user. Simple tasks are extremely laborious.

How is it possible that a CMS can come without automatic spell checking? The proofreaders are going to be unhappy with me this morning.

Those moments when coffee must serve as a substitute for sleep.

Good move picking up Jason Snelling with Steven Jackson out.

Only course of action is to employ a similar across all logos-same texture, color, grayscale, etc...

Logos can be brilliant on their own, but together they smudge design styles. In the end it cheapens the appeal of each mark.

Few things destroy a beautiful website more than adding a collection of logos to a page.

This is an incredible approach to 3D printing — Peachy Printer, The First $100 3D Printer and Scanner buff.ly

Creative Cloud is absolutely killing me. The amount of time it takes to save these PSDs is maddening.

If a story breaks in a paywalled garden, does it make a sound?

I see this hipster x marks all over websites, and always think clicking them will close something.

Well, this is odd. Usually spam has some sort of call to action. I guess I should buy Apple stock?

I feel like a kid every time Science Friday is on. Science Friday, Science Friday!

Blaming a busy week of work for my fantasy woes. Of course Greg Olsen is hanging out on my bench.

The first rule of running a pyramid scheme is don't include graphics of your pyramid scheme yfrog.com

I just crushed a steak, egg and cheese bagel from McDonald's. What have you done for society today?

Best bug ticket ever-we no longer serve chicken fingers. Please remove this from the menu.

The problem with HTML5 is the lack of legacy support for tags. I'd love to use <section> without the site breaking in older browsers.

Futurist exercise: World runs out of oil, but discovers deposits on Mars. What happens?

Be wary of principals that want to be wardens—School District Announces 24/7 Monitoring of Students' Social Media techdirt.com

@mikaelcho you and the team at @ooomf have done a fantastic job with marketing. Wondering if you would be interested in doing an interview?

Well, the Falcons v Saints game was entertaining as usual.

The Falcons offensive line needs some serious work.

Although, I have a better understanding of legalese—that horrible chain of prepositions leaves no detail to chance.

Mobile has a higher percentage of people with interesting hats than the normal city.

I'll say it, the penalty for the targeting rule is ridiculous—ejection from the game is overkill.

Great work by Cheng and the Newegg legal team—“Shopping cart” patent troll tries to save itself, gets pounded arstechnica.com

That moment when you open a Photoshop file and there are a thousand layers—nothing is labeled.

Great, what a convenient time for Photoshop to crash.

Open and closed envelope icons for a design project.

I will say that the @Yahoo design team has done some great work lately. The Yahoo Weather App, and @Flickr redesign are fantastic.

I don't dislike the new Yahoo! logo, but I feel for the designers. Micromanaged and design by committee-they got both.

Learning only happens when people are truly interested. This is why most teachers teach, but great teachers inspire.

If you found that article on schooling interesting I would encourage you to read a copy of John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction.

I've been seeing the image zoom on hover effect a lot lately. Generally, I'm hesitant about new UI ideas—this time may be different.

LinkedIn's endorsement feature is a borderline dark pattern UI. I shouldn't be receiving endorsements for press releases.

The primary function of the carousel in a user interface is to convince clients they don't need a "media center" or a "gallery" page.

My grandmother turns 100 today. Hitting the century mark is an incredible achievement.

You aren't allowed to use the initials 'NSA' without the permission? NSA parody shirt gets T-Shirt pulled. salon.com

Aug 2013

It is amazing that I still get paid backlink offers on my site. Are you trying to destroy your clients search rank?

Matt Bryant is 88 for 98 on field goals in the last three seasons—that is incredible.

An unanswerable government is far more of a threat to its people than any terrorist threat could ever be.

Looking over mockups this morning—In a months time there is going to be some seriously impressive digital work rolling out of Mobile.

Interesting exercise - replace NSA in every headline with China or North Korea. They seem mostly interchangeable.

Wow, Legatron could have made that kick from the other 40.

Giant Robotic Mining Trucks Love the Australian Desert — Awesome, but terrible news for truck drivers. buff.ly

It is amazing that google can't get their fonts to look decent in Chrome.

Designer friends—what are some reasons not to have a twitter stream on a homepage?

The Office Outlook web app is spectacularly bad—so much that it exceeds the desktop application. Quite the feat.

Between QA and feedback, I'll need to start throwing things soon.

Facebook Groups is the main reason I visit the site, but it isn't received a meaningful update in years.

Hard to form an opinion about Facebook. The product's main feature, news feed, is complete garbage, yet the stock continues to do well.

Soon getting a masters degree will be a requirement—before you know it people will be 28-years-old before they enter the workforce.

You get to solutions like "College should be free" by asking the wrong questions about education. buff.ly

It is interesting how dropbox has become my personal library. Is this the case for anyone else?

The best iOS 7 Redesign Concept I've seen. I love the app icons with images in the background. buff.ly

Interesting case study on the analytics of long stories—This Is What Happens When Publishers Invest In Long Stories buff.ly

Boston has started to slip from the tech radar as NY, Chicago and Atlanta grow. Devastating blow, especially to small development shops.

Interesting discussion on HN — Is Employer-Based Health Insurance A Barrier To Entrepreneurship?

So the NSA touches 1.6% of daily internet traffic? That is 389 Billion messages daily. buff.ly

I'd argue that it would be much tougher to compete with Amazon in ecommerce than Google in search-I know apples and oranges.

People talk about Google v Apple all the time, but the most interesting battle is Amazon v Wal-Mart. It's a war of attrition and logistics.

That moment when you are listening to Greenday on #90son9 and then Brittany Spears comes on.

On a lighter note quip.com looks awesome. Finally a product that can compete with Google Docs.

Is this a modern day equivalent of the Red Scare, and Senator McCarthy saying people were communists?

It took 10 minutes of cable news to realize why I don't watch cable news anymore.

Why not use the NSA's tools to look for pirated music and movies? - Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles buff.ly

What would happen if we asked all graduating high school students to attempt a business instead of going to college?

Except there is a trillion dollars in student debt with a good portion of that backed by the government.

Before 2007 nobody believed the value of their house would ever fall. The same thing is happening to college today.

Taking out a loan for college is no different than doing one for a business - It is a gamble either way.

The number one reason software startups fail is because they build products that their customers don't want.

Same thing with conversion testing — the worse visual designs tend to have the best conversion rates.

The more exploratory the visual experience, the worse the UX tends to be. Not bad, just something to keep in mind.

Jul 2013

People that have never worked in food service don't understand much tips mean — Millennial Fired For Tweet theawl.com

I can't help but crack a smile when someone refers to code as JavaScripts, and jQuerys — Add some Pythons in there for good measure.

I think teslas pricing model already assumes that, which makes the dealer fiasco that much more detrimental to tesla.

It seems that Tesla is the only company that has figured out that electric cars don't have to be ugly. slate.com

Someone needs to do what Tropico did For SimIsle, and recreate SimTower.

@foursquare is there an email/phone number where I can reach your sales team? Filled out an inquiry earlier this week, have heard nothing.

9 pm is way too late for kickball. The good news? Its theme week.

It is interesting that society is entirely dependent on technology, but few people in power understand how it works.

The enterprise software conundrum is a likely culprit. End users aren't usually the buyers.

Working on a new interview layout for Signal Tower — images, videos and pull quotes revisited. Feedback appreciated. signaltower.co

There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. Never in history has the path to market been cheaper or faster.

It drives me nuts every time I read an article about "solutions" to the employment problem and entrepreneurship isn't on the list.

Wow, awesome idea - raspberry pi + pico projector
+ tackle box = camping media center.

The Waffle House Epiphany: I didn't want to be a lawyer. I wanted to make a dent in the universe. buff.ly

The men who appeared on the beach that morning in 1981 are part of a tribe that lived in isolation for 65,000 years. neatorama.com

Incredibly impressed with the Umbraco CMS. It isn't as pretty as WordPress, but blows other .NET systems away.

Twitter's servers require an amount of electricity that could otherwise power 800,000 homes.

I'm no Apple fanboy, but it is awesome that Steve Jobs stood up to the NSA —Why We Can No Longer Trust Microsoft pcmag.com

If you get pedantic about it, the constitution is really kind of a greatest-hits mix tape of English Law. But they were hella-good DJ's.

Same homeless guy asked me for a dollar 3 times today. Why not 3rd time is a charm?

Omnigraffle rule of thumb - Sites with great IA are easy to lay out, sites with proor IA will make you want to throw things.

America Against Democracy — The matter is settled. It has been decided, and not by us. We can't handle the truth. buff.ly

Grounding Air Force One would be considered an act of war—Bolivian president's plane grounded over Snowden suspicions rt.com

Microsoft announced IE11? You would think after a decade of Hell for developers, they would change the name. I'm thinking a sea-faring bird.

Laws determine if something is legal or illegal, not right or wrong.

Want to post about that new "Flat Design" trend on Designer News? You might be beating a dead horse.

Jun 2013

I wonder if the #NSA is suspicious of this General Tso character I keep asking for.

Choosing @GoDaddy for hosting continues to be one of the biggest mistakes I've made — downtime and 500 server errors every week.

In the past you had to do something to be famous, now to just have to grab attention.

That awkward moment when you realize someone believed Alaska was an island...

Technology, whether you like it or not, is the dominant economic and cultural force of our time, redefining art, music, media and more.

When test scores become a game and real learning is negated in the process—Chinese students fight for right to cheat smh.com.au

Want to know what is important to hackers and entrepreneurs? Check out this morning's top stories on HN.

Following Moore's Law — in 2017 the hardware powering the 2011 Watson will cost just $2,000.

Hardware for the 80 teraflop Watson that competed on Jeopardy in 2011 cost $3,000,000, today it costs $20,000.

Ghost seemed awesome when I first heard about it on Hacker News. I might try building a blog on Ghost. buff.ly

One of the most truthful things I've heard in a while - it's not all about winning, but it is all about how well you wobble.

The problem with metric-driven systems is that people game metrics, which leads to a different outcome. Need an example? Test scores.

The reason so few actually know what they want to do — The Experience Deficiency.

I'm putting together a beginners guide to Google Analytics. What topics should it include? What hints/tips should be added?

Still no umbrella. Looks like I haven't learned my lesson quite yet.

Adding more college graduates does not stimulate economic growth - Dim Job Prospects for Chinese Grads buff.ly

A new lightweight lift cable will allow elevators to operate at twice the height, let buildings soar ever upward. buff.ly

The world must be ending —
Glenn Beck and Michael Moore agree Edward Snowden is a hero. buff.ly

Looking for a documentary to watch? The Trap follows the evolution of our post-WWII political and economic ideologies youtube.com

Godlike design — Play a bear in 3d Pong. (Requires Chrome)

Interesting button styles. Especially the green section (click the order truck). But some of them feel over-the-top. tympanus.net

"But before the Justice Department prosecutes Snowden, there are some other investigations that ought to happen." nytimes.com

Half of the nation's workers in science, technology, engineering, and math don't have or need a bachelor's degree. buff.ly

"We spend so many years locked away in classrooms that the rest of the world seems foreign."

Like a forest fire, clearing out the old is destructive. But what’s left behind is a clean slate — Fertile Ground marco.org

It's interesting that most love the look of iOS7, but designers hate it.

I'm frustrated with the difficulty of getting a podcast into iTunes.

The problem with the #NSA case isn't the collection of data, but the lack of transparency, and complete disregard for checks and balances.

Are coders worth it? In today's world, web developers have it all: money, perks, freedom, respect. aeon.co

An overreach of power — NSA collecting phone records of millions, under top secret court order issued in April. theguardian.com

Semicolons continue to be the bane of my existence. #codegrammar

Require universities to disclose the earnings of alumni and the nature of their employment to prospective students. npr.org

Today I learned that the American Bison is native to Atlanta, and may be imported with the Beltline project. asla.org

The euro zone is now essentially an economic prison, with Germany as the jailer and the common currency as the bars. buff.ly

The $2.7 trillion medical bill, or how colonoscopies explain why U.S. leads the world in health expenditures. buff.ly

The New York Times is considering BuzzFeed-Style sponsored stories.

Beer for the idea, coffee for execution—Why there are lots of famous drunk artists, but no famous drunk accountants. buff.ly

Incubators are not competing with venture capitalists, they are competing with traditional business schools.

May 2013

The first CIA official to whistleblow the practice of waterboarding is sitting in prison. Here is his story. buff.ly

Texas e-mail privacy bill requires state enforcement agencies to get a warrant for all e-mails regardless of the age. arstechnica.com

This year China will add as many internet users as there are people in the United States.

When we attempt to factory farm innovation, we breed out the very thing we’re trying raise.

Can someone explain to me why Facebook hasn't built its own ad network? That should have been created a year ago.

Money buys happiness only when it is spent on experiences and earned without costing too much time.

Sony’s bread and butter? It’s not electronics. Life insurance accounted for 63% of the companies profits last year. buff.ly

The three most dire reforms needed in the US — Education, Incarceration, and Taxation

The government should close tax loopholes instead of pointing fingers.

It's outrageous for the government to call out corporations for legally avoiding taxes—it's called smart accounting.

Putting together a podcast is much more of a pain than I expected. Anybody with experience have tips? apple.com

Finished a great group of interviews. The hurdles of healthcare startups, path to becoming a designer, and more this week on @SignalTower

More support that the last occupations will be artists and entrepreneurs — How free information will enslave us all.

I'm in the market for a new wallet. Anybody have a suggestion?

Only 0.45% students owe more than $200,000 in loans, but with 11.3 million students that means there are 50,000 students in serious trouble.

Speaking about affordable marketing for retailers at the Downtown Mobile Alliance this morning!

If there is a lesson in any of this Amy's Bakery drama, it's that the internet always wins.

LinkedIn wants to be the default online resume — for everyone except prostitutes. buff.ly

Wow, Amtrak had 2 billion in revenue last year. Quite a comeback.

"Kodak employed 140,000 people. Instagram, 13. A digital visionary says the Web kills jobs, wealth -- even democracy" salon.com

I'm not sure that the company with a reasonably priced color e-ink could overtake Amazon in the e-reader market.

It is even more unfortunate for the entrepreneurs who raised capital for their #CrowdFunding startups based on that deadline.

It is unfortunate to see the SEC dragging its feet on #CrowdFunding . The JOBS Act passed well over a year ago.

It would probably be easier to get a gun license, than a drivers license in Alabama.

Wow. Adobe is canning creative suite. Only way to get new versions going forward is creative cloud.

Apr 2013

Just wrapped up a few awesome interviews for @SignalTower Wish I could stay up and edit them, but it's already past my bedtime.

The only reason people read is to learn, and to be entertained.

Being right 100 percent of the time is not a productive business strategy.

Today I Learned that Chris Sawyer wrote RollerCoaster Tycoon in assembly—wow.

Cell companies should be scared to death of Google Fiber.

Would be very interesting to see Stripe or Square integrate Bitcoins into their payment systems.

It amazes me people will wait two minutes for a parking space twenty feet closer.

After that GoDaddy host comment I have a bunch of hosting providers sending me requests on LinkedIn -- Interesting.

My @GoDaddy hosting has been down for more than an hour now. I have huge downtime every week. I wont be renewing.

Need to test your layouts on different mobile devices? Go to Best Buy and test them.

11% of school children now diagnosed with ADHD. Perhaps the kids are alright, and school is the problem? nyti.ms

Mar 2013

SignalTower.co hit 10k uniques this morning, and we're not even halfway through March.

WordPress is now accepting Bitcoins? It's amazing that a new currency system can just appear out of nowhere.

As technology replaces every "job," two occupations will remain - artists and entrepreneurs.

It's unfortunate how EA has handled SimCity. They've hurt a huge amount of long-time fans, and squandered the work of their engineers.

It may only have a 1-star rating, but EA's SimCity has some hilarious 5-star reviews on amazon. amazon.com

“It’s just a fucking badass event tool — the most powerful shit ever created for event planners, ever.” pandodaily.com

It is absurd to focus on test taking as a skill. Such focus is put on gaming test scores that it completely negates learning in the process.

Technology has decoupled capital growth from job growth. The economy will grow regardless of unemployment numbers.

What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years. is.gd

Outside wedding in Birmingham tomorrow, and It's snowing.

Feb 2013

Does anyone know of an online tool to test websites on mobile browsers?

Xfinity, I have no idea what "Future of Awesome" means.

Any chance of adding an in-app thesaurus to @iAWriter ? That feature, would make it a perfect piece of software.

Designers it is 2013. You should not be using Polaroid photos in your designs.

Twitter Bootstrap has come a long way when the top complaint is a curse word in the documentation.

I just realized how much I have to learn about icon fonts.

Jan 2013

When there is a light at the end of the tunnel, often the government builds more tunnel.

I have a #DesignerNews invite. Anyone want to trade for a #dribbble invite?

This guy is going to have the best looking SCUBA diving site on the internet.

The era of polymaths is not over, many people have just been taught otherwise.

Older notes from 2012