Notes

Notes from 2014

916 notes

Dec 2014

In 2014 we finally killed files, discovered the sharing economy is the renting economy, social is dead. avc.com

Be a skeptic and a believer—Working toward a warp drive: In his garage lab, Omahan aims to bend fabric of space" omaha.com

People are tough on Mike Smith. This was coming after Lions/Browns losses but until he joined the team never had consecutive winning seasons

Atlanta's offensive line is horrible and seriously needs to be addressed next season.

An alternative to "one thing well" is "everything poorly." It works especially well for entrenched enterprise players.

Waiting for all the #SEO Twitter bots to favorite this tweet. Hook line and sinker. #social #socialmediamarketing #SEM #socialmedia

Web is a much more interesting space than mobile. Someone please explain to me why I'm wrong.

Getting product right in the content space is so important—there's so much opportunity there.

In my opinion having a core product team that manages properties for lean editorial groups is a key differentiator.

Eater is everything AOL wished patch could be and more. The team ad Vox has had some incredible wins.

Someone has been trying to brute force advertisers.io. If you have a WordPress site Limit Login Attempts is a must.

Refusing to show or release a movie because of fears about hacking sets a very bad precedent.

Advertising friends, I'm adding a directory of agencies to Advertisers.io. Are there any in Atlanta that I'm missing? advertisers.io

Kuwayama's Trade Marks and Symbols book was $99 before the Aaron Draplin video went viral, now it's $2,400... amazon.com

The funny thing is both signaltower.co and advertisers.io are attention consuming. I'm clearly on the wrong side of the fence.

People have a finite amount of attention. It's smarter to build tools that save time whether than content that takes it.

It is ridiculous that there are only 1,500 redditors in this town.

I don't know how many 'final' renewal chances I'm going to get on my car. Telemarketers have been calling me for a year.

That moment when a YouTube video has been marked as spam, but has enough upvotes to avoid flagging. A wonderful thing, the Internet.

Wild Card! After fighting all year with Amazon, Hachette partners with Gumroad to sell books directly to readers

In the age of the Internet, knowledge isn't scarce, but attention is.

Someone has a giant QR code bumper sticker. Not only is it idiotic, but it is dangerous and should be illegal.

Oh you know, people who know nothing about the internet regulating the internet.

Whoa, honeycombs on Georgia Tech's helmets are awesome.

Do does the playoff trophy replace the crystal ball? If so that's unfortunate. It's a terrible looking one.

So @AdblockPlus is blocking stylesheets for Advertisers.io because "advertise" is in the path. I hope changing the theme name will fix it.

Not that it can change things in the past, but I wonder how many police issues would be solved if bad laws weren't enforced.

Cool product a friend of mine has been working on the last few years—Nugget: The Easiest Couch Ever buff.ly

"There aren’t many advertisers who want their ads to be seen by atheist, libertarian, porn-loving Ron Paul fans." mashable.com

The government has never met a problem it couldn't solve with a PDF.

Nov 2014

The UGA v GT game has been nuts. Feels like an Auburn game.

I am not camping out at Best Buy to get a magsafe converter.

If there was one party I was born to attend it's 80s prom.

Here's the thing—Arkansas is probably the best team with the worst record. Nearly every loss they've had was a toss-up. #olemissvsarkansas

Anual reports and spreadsheets—How ISIS Corpratized terror

As a former StarCraft player, I find this article intruiging. Will it eclipse chess as a marker of cognitive ability? newyorker.com

Say what you want about the Falcons, but they're leading the NFC South. #ATLvsCAR

Facebook has had a great time making fools of marketers—Facebook Will Curtail Unpaid Ads by Brands buff.ly

Amari Cooper is just an incredible athlete. #AlabamaVSMissState

In this course you'll learn how to make money selling courses.

Thanks Obama, no really. Obama just did the right thing for the internet—and made life hell for the FCC theverge.com

Bier Garten puts fried chicken tenders in their bloody marys. I've seen everything.

So strange, because many use Twitter favorites as a bookmark, or acknowledgement. What good is making it same as a retweet?

So this is it. People's favorites now are regularly in my Twitter feed.

Echo is just a ploy, behind the scenes I suspect a FedEx, UPS competitor is in the works.

A lot of people are bashing Amazon, but I believe the company is in a better position than Apple or Google.

Uh oh, "dumb and goofy but entertaining" was not what I was looking for from Interstellar.

I will never understand the market for high-end T-shirts.

I'm no fanboy, but this should make it into Apple's next commercials—CNN Hides iPads Behind Microsoft Tablets nymag.com

Sketch is quickly replacing Omnigraffle. I seriously love this tool.

Less is more applies to restaurants as well. Great fast food chains only have a few menu items. SeeChipotle, In-N-Out, and Jimmy Johns.

The Recipe For Building A Startup Scene In Any City—Attracting developers to the city is another thing. buff.ly

Great companies don't outsource core competencies. That includes design—Silicon Valley Killed the Design Agency zurb.com

Oct 2014

Also, not giving Taco Bell permissions for contacts, calendar, location, phone, photos, Wi-Fi connection info, device ID or call info.

Interesting 247sports.com only allows paying members to create and view comments. Curious the percentage of monthly/paying users.

Also, prompts the question—is it too late for reddit to have the same fate as digg?

I wish reddit wouldn't have taken all that money. The product was fantastic when it was supported by a small scrappy team.

So I spent this weekend working on an unofficial redesign of The Pandora One desktop player. What do you think?
dribbble.com

Who decided that all these SEC Network commercials need to use "Furnished?"

This is too bad. Ownership or not Nokia is a legendary brand—Microsoft is finally dropping the 'Nokia' from Lumia. engadget.com

The Enterprise "We hire more college graduates than anyone else" commercials are odd. Is that supposed to be a selling point?

Source Sans Pro is such a fantastic font. Quickly replacing Open Sans as my favorites sans serif.

This thing is straight out of a video game. Remember stealth tanks in Command and Conquer? buff.ly

I wanted to see CitizenFour. Unfortunately, there aren't any showtimes in Mobile.

Deceptive design as a business model—Congratulations! We successfully did not give you any discount! buff.ly

A $500 mil series B? Magic Leap must either be the next Apple or the next Segway.

Interface design has three facets: Visual, UX and Conversion. Too much of one, and you neglect the others. It's a careful balancing act.

Yep, I think Apple made a wrong step with their watch. It isn't about the interface, it's about the personalized health data. Time will tell

I don't understand why printers never seem to work. The more features they get, the worse they end up being.

Beautiful redesign of U.S. currency, but it doesn't feel very American. It should be green and have serif fonts. buff.ly

GM’s hit and run: How a lawyer, mechanic, and engineer blew open the worst auto scandal in history

Looking for a Sunday read? Take a look a look back at one of my all-yime favoraite games—SimCity That I Used to Know buff.ly

Why can't I unsubscribe from spam mailers like I unsubscribe from spam emails?

If you took all of the cars that GM has recalled this year and lined them up it would wrap around the earth four times—30 million cars.

Apple isn't interested in building a touchscreen laptop, nor should they be. It's a terrible idea. Remember Con10uum? vimeo.com

It's too bad there isn't commenting on this post, because the accompanying tweet has thousands of Don't do it replies buff.ly

I was afraid the new Nexus would be a 6" phone. It's too bad. I would have purchased one otherwise.

I just saw an "Xfiniti Wifi is Better than 3G" animation appear while on my site. @Comcast are you injecting your own code into my browser?

Curious about my past jobs and what I've learned from them? If so, I've got a post for you—Bussing Tables solomon.io

The only thing it is missing is a Taser for all those assholes driving on the connector.

The car apparently will also go park itself—like get out in your driveway and go park in your garage.

So Tesla's new Model S P85D is as fast as a McLaran F1 and at 4,600 lbs is about twice as heavy. Incredible.

I might be addicted to real-time analytics. The funny thing is it is a completely unhelpful tool. Nothing actionable comes from it.

Guide to winning on Shark Tank:
1. Make a fuss.
2. Turn down Mark Cuban's offer.
3. Create a Kickstarter campaign.
4. Profit.

Whoa, this is big, if true—Adobe Spyware Reveals the Price of DRM: Your Privacy and Security eff.org

I just realized Wikiwand changes the URL. I thought the extension just updated the stylesheet. Wonder how much this has played into growth?

Freight Text is such an awesome font family. I have a difficult time getting away from it.

This is cool. Imagine a world where you can manipulate real life objects using augmented reality. youtube.com

Well, the Egg Bowl is going to be interesting this year.

Ole Miss' defensive line is man handling Alabama's offensive line—and with a three-man front.

Sure unemployment rates are falling, but I'm skeptical. How many want jobs, but have stopped looking?

I just saw someone wearing my American flag Easy Rider shirt in Vegas. It's not even Halloween yet!

Sep 2014

This is an awesomely weird video from Dropbox. Did they tell these people they would be replaced with puppets? youtube.com

I see it took Australia only a couple of days to pass laws allowing mass surveillance. Unfortunate that was allowed to pass.

I places where reason is ineffective, hope and desire are on sale.

Since when did the Facebook app submission process become such a pain in the ass?

It's interesting that some of the most successful people I know found their way in spite of school, not because of it.

It's in the upper 60s right now. It feels like fall on the gulf coast.

A Frenchman, Englishman and an American walk into a few bars...

When it comes to agricultures, I've long thought that monocultures were much more dangerous than GMOs. buff.ly

I'm just going to upvote everything that doesn't have to do with Apple. I'm not a hater, but Apple-only design commentary is boring.

I may be in the minority, but I don't have much interest in native mobile apps. Huge negatives from the consumer, business and dev side.

The bottom quarter of earners with a college degree don't make more money than the average high school graduate. fortune.com

Why are automatic transmissions dominant in the USA, while manual transmission is dominant in Europe? reddit.com

If the FBI used parallel construction to reveal the Silk Road IP (scary), does that mean the case is dropped? nikcub.com

This site is among the best media sites, I've seen. The attention to detail is incredible—Warsaw Rising 1944 warsawrising.eu

60,000 Americans dropped out of the work force last month. Productivity is up.

I'm not sure about the future of Twitter. I feel like a tech non-profit needs to come in and rebuild—at least a company not taking VC money

I always hate turning people down. Sometimes it's the right decision though.

You might know in theory what can go wrong, but avoiding those mistakes is quite a different matter in itself.

Prediction—smart watches as presented are going the way of Google Glass. The future of tech wrist wear is FitBit and similar vital trackers.

Don't feed the trolls, don't feed the trolls, don't feed the trolls.

What does login look like without the password?—Urgent security warning that may affect all internet users Sehttp:/ buff.ly

Great quote from my most recent interview—"Nobody ever got fired for turning down something risky."

Not sure that this is a good idea. On the other hand it could help non-technical designers prototype—uilang github.com

OK, CentOS is installed and secure. MySQL, PHP and nginx to go.

Aug 2014

All of this server config stuff makes me feel like I'm in Edge of Tomorrow. Each time I get a little farther, then I screw up and restart.

Your call is important to us. You are currently number one-five-seven in line. A customer account representative will be with you shortly.

It’s more profitable to lobby and spread misinformation than it is to put money into R&D, and that is a shame. vice.com

Haha! Commit Logs From Last Night—Because real hackers pivot two hours before their demo. abe.is

Yes, yes. Google has been working on a secret delivery program manned by drones, but I ask you this—will it blend? buff.ly

Anybody have an online subscription to a magazine—Slate, NYT, AdAge or others?

Google Authorship was a pain in the ass in the first place. Plus added an odd UX. Good thing it's dead.

I once held the world record for being the youngest person on earth.

Warning, pinning things on Pinterest and I have no idea what I'm doing.

Although Civilization:Beyond Earth is likely just a reskin of Civ V, it is the kind of TBS crack I can't stay away from.

Charging for support when your product sucks isn't good business.

I see the bucket is going to keep getting kicked until an IPO—Snapchat Raising A New Round At A $10B Valuation techcrunch.com

I'm sure Boeing would be pleased after a startup beat them out—Congressmen Are Red-Taping SpaceX to the Ground slate.com

Google's Ads target based on what we search, Facebook's on what we like. Amazon's new ads on what we buy. Wild card!

Just as scary as it is profound—Google's fact-checking bots build a vast knowledge bank. buff.ly

I thought this was a hilarious joke, but it is a real product—Hipster-as-fuck perspectives for your designs vexus.digital

I am not emotionally prepared for Twitter to suck—true words, and I am afraid its days are numbered. theverge.com

I don't play Minecraft, but things like this are absolutely incredible—A Fully Funcitonal 1KB Hard Drive in Minecraft imgur.com

Consistently getting the spinning wheel of death while autosaving in Outlook for Mac. Talk about bugs labeled as features.

This troll going after podcasters is bullshit—a patent on distributing media content in sequence is rediculous. eff.org

Remove fluff from your writing. Cut your copy in half, then revise and cut in half again.

Legos are awesome. Deep down, everybody just likes building things—physical or on a computer. That is the magic. buff.ly

Spammers built a tool called XRumer to spam sites. With negative SEO, it has become a weapon for blackmail. dejan.ai

—As in more value would be gained by having a robot do a humans labor.

What happens when it no longer becomes economically viable to create new jobs?

The need for physical labor in the economy is gone and the need for mental labor is on its way out. youtube.com

Requiring a customer to email support to cancel a subscription is not good business.

They don't call him the barbecue guy, they call him the Meat Boss.

Brilliant! Law students get real-world experience, startups get free legal defense, and patent trolls get nothing. buff.ly

Oh dear, if the Comcast/TWC deal goes through there will be riots—Comcast Spends $110k On Dinner For FCC Commissioner consumerist.com

As a former Counter Strike player, this guy is either the worlds most or least skilled player. imgur.com

Like a BuzzFeed post on Facebook, and you'll be served link bait ad nauseam. Welcome to the future. wired.com

Before you can understand the joke, you must lower your expectations of what constitutes as a joke.

This is either the most religious or sac religious place I've been.

On a scale of 6 to 18 how many PBRs should I purchase tonight?

Consumer goods companies fighting for shelf space is silly. The internet has added unlimited shelves. Focus should be on search, social.

I suppose other car companies will be having their Oh Shit moment soon—BMW Launches Answer to Tesla Charging Network buff.ly

I am a 19-year-old Russian Peasant in 1941. I will find myself in the ranks of the Red Army. How will that happen?
reddit.com

Wow, the Undertaker is still wrestling? He was old when I watched WWF in middle school.

And for the first time in months, the TV is on for the start of Football season!

It would be interesting if Law School wasn't a requirement—How to Learn the Law Without Law School buff.ly

South Korea's high test scores come at the determent, happiness of its children. buff.ly

You may now put on your 3D glasses. You may now take off your 3D glasses.

Interesting, coke freestyle interface changes and back / forward arrows illuminate on the bottom when the handicapped button is pressed.

Jul 2014

66F and Sunny. I live on the gulf coast. What month is it?

@iEdwardKim Hey Edward, as someone who has done plenty of interviews, Our Composition looks promising. Looking forward to more!

If something can be gamed it will be gamed. School is no different—To Stop Cheating, Nuclear Officers Ditch Grades. npr.org

I suppose I ordered the wrong beer. Someone just asked if I was drinking grapefruit champagne.

I just discovered paste in plain text, and it is a life changer—cmd + option + shift + v

So the time has come. The New York Times calls for the legalization of marijuana–Repeal Prohibition, Again buff.ly

Stories from Nightrider—You had to see the line around that block that people would get into just to talk to the car. buff.ly

And disappointed that I've broken a key rule—"the fact that" should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs.

I take tremendous pride in the fact that I have the best 80s workout attire ever.

I don't exactly understand the Foursquare rebrand. They pivoted away from social to be a Yelp competitor, but I thought the brand was solid.

Great information about launching and app in here—if you have or work at a startup, do yourself a favor and read this buff.ly

Be careful when naming your company. Sociali.st and PayWithIsis are the Experts Exchange of today.

When it comes down to it, cable television is an incredibly poor way to consume content.

With over 1 million comments, of which I assume are all in favor of net neutrality, it would be a huge scandal for the FCC to side with ISPs

Then we will be left with one option, Uber. And while great now, with out competitors it may look more like Comcast in the future.

The taxi will be the loser in the end, because the company leveraging technology nearly always wins.

If cab companies focused improving their service instead the consumer would be a winner.

The Uber v. Taxi fight is a problem, because Taxi's are leveraging their power to lobby against Uber instead of improving their service.

The ribs happening in my kitchen right now are incredible.

—Join hundreds of good-looking people and get Signal Tower interviews right when they're published.

eepurl.com

How a healthy disrespect for authority led Travis Truett to becoming an entrepreneur.

It's ridiculous that the original 'Rick Roll' video has been pulled from YouTube—here's an explaination youtube.com

I see Facebook has tweaked its algorithm to show more videos. I find them incredibly annoying.

Few things make more of a difference than impactful copy.

Talk about impactful copy. I'm throwing money at my screen but nothing is happening.

Haha, They Might Be Giants on Ask Me Another this morning. What year did the war of 1812 begin?

There are an exceptional amount of fedoras out tonight. I don't know what the correlation is.

Dear valued customer, we value you enough to add an extra adjective, but not enough to use your actual name.

This is clever. Site gives you guidance on ordering custom PC that works together, makes money via affiliate revenue. buff.ly

Now, I'm going to be up all night working on a new project.

I am rather amused at the trouble Popcorn Time has caused the MPAA. Their game plan says people will still be purchasing DVDs in 5 years.

Interesting, Mailchimp checks for bot signups by placing a form field 5,000px offscreen. If it is submitted, then a bot filled it out.

There are few services better than the wash dry fold laundry near my house.

The glamorous world of competitive bubblesports. Games last 3 minutes.

Discovered a cool new Creative Cloud feature today. It doesn't let you open pictures of money.

What would a school shaped from scratch look like? A Peruvian businessmen charges Ideo with the task. buff.ly

More silly rules that do nothing but make travel more complicated. The TSA may confiscate your phone, if it is dead tsa.gov

Many MOOCs are failing because they repackage lectures as videos. They've taken the part of school that sucks and put it on the internet.

After much contemplation, I've decided the Edge of Tomorrow plot was conceived to cut production costs by reusing footage.

Adobe CC has such a horrific user experience click a button that should work in-app, sends me to a webpage.

Wow, after 20 hours of work my HTC One is is finally rooted and updated with CM KitKat. Seriously thought I was going to end up with a brick

Jun 2014

Hey @Quora, I've already logged in via email. I don't want to connect my Facebook account.

Well, if I do end up turning my phone into an expensive paper weight, I've learned a ton about how androids work this weekend.

Saturday afternoon experiments. Trying to unlock my old HTC One. Hope I don't brick this thing.

Incredible @nprfreshair segment this morning about ISIS attempting to undo WWI borders and create an Islamic state.

A sign of specialty schools eating away at the edges of traditional universities—Kaplan to buy Dev Bootcamp buff.ly

Also, if someone purchases your book via an affiliate link, do you get less money? (because Amazon has to pay the affiliate)

Author friends—if you've published a book on Amazon and link to it via a referral id, do you get money from the sale plus affiliate money?

How did I not know about CSS font-feature-settings? This is incredible!

So this is hexadecimal clock is extremely clever. Additionally you can add transition: background 1s linear; to fade jacopocolo.com

Browsing Shopify themes for a client makes me want to open my own ecommerce store. Now I just need something to sell...

I'm supposed to be working from home today. What an inconvenient time for my router to die.

Oh, and another surprise--MTV actually plays music videos in Italy.

Just eating breakfast in the terminal, and this pigeon decided to join me.

waiting at the terminal for our flight, and I hear "Plane butts are gross" from my sister.

There is a special place in Hell for people that play phone games in public with the sound on.

Google Fiber is forcing healthy competition in the cities it has entered.

I'd love to see Netflix and Amazon enter the market as an ISP with Google.

"I'm going to write a prequel to Roadhouse. Dalton at NYU studying philosophy and training to be a bouncer—Road to Roadhouse" @Jay_D_Schmidt

OK Twitter designers, favorite paragraph font to pair with a Proxima Nova Extrabold heading? I'm thinking something with a large x-height.

Rule one of internet comments is don't feed the trolls. Good advice, but they are still fun to watch.

fcc.gov site won't load when trying to view filing 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet.

I don't know what the deal is. The internet seems to be slow wherever I go.

Oh, I'm on the front page of Hacker News again—Website crashes.

May 2014

The scariest chart in Mary Meeker’s slide deck for newspapers has gotten a little scarier. buff.ly

And this is exactly why you should canibalize your own product. If you don't, someone else will. buff.ly

People seem to love this article, so I'll share again—required reading for anyone working on E-commerce businesses. buff.ly

Bring back Reading Rainbow project on Kickstarter. It's amazing to watch how fast the donations are going up. buff.ly

That thing where you have an idea right before you fall asleep, and won't be able to sleep for several hours.

It's a good day when you get to use "lambasted" in a blog post.

Companies that control the entire line from mfg to consumer are going to be the winners—E-commerce is a Bear buff.ly

I'd rather sit in the dark than under fluorescent lights. It reminds me of school, prison and the DMV—places I avoid at all costs.

Name idea for the guy with the hotdog cart on the corner--Mobile Wiener Mobile

Never seen this pattern before. Share or take a survey to continue reading.

You can buy a nice apartment in Atlanta for the same price as renting one in SF for four years.

Curious what type of clientele free crawfish attract on a Sunday afternoon.

Ivy grads aren't going to Wall St because they love risk and money. It's because they hate risk and are terrified vox.com

It is funny how some people result to personal attacks when a logical assertion is made, which doesn't match their perspective.

The YC investment in Quora is interesting considering how much the company is loathed on HN.

OH: "How are you going to drink all day if you don't you start in the morning?"

May edition of RSG Insights—The value of Facebook as organic reaches zero, anatomy of a casino website, and more eepurl.com

Remember when ISPs were given $200 Billion in taxpayer dollars for broadband? Now they want to end net neutrality. pbs.org

"The American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk mailers are our customers," said the US Postmaster General buff.ly

It is difficult to tell if the FCC is corrupt or just spineless.

Ah, the beauty of competition for ISPs—Google’s fiber effect: Fuel for a broadband explosion cnet.com

Just in case you missed it, my architectural rendering next to Mama's downtown.

You must be fun at parties—yeah, LAN parties... And I'll see myself out.

Probably going to start a little Rails App this weekend. It's been months since I've seen a hash rocket.

It's too bad school ruined the chance of any designer ever using Times New Roman again. It's not a bad font.

The fear of drones crashing into people—that is as first world as problems get.

Apr 2014

Looking for a freelance Frontend/WordPress developer to work with us on a new casino site. Anybody interested, or know anybody who would be?

The American citizens aren’t our customers—about 400 junk mailers are. Your service hurts our ability to serve them. buff.ly

It is too bad that "Doesn't quite work" is the default status for most government agencies.

Damnit, government misprints my passport. I try and get it corrected. Get a letter back saying they can't because, my passport is wrong...

Wow, this is a fantastic interview with Joe Satriani, the legendary guitarist and unexpected entrepreneur. buff.ly

As in most things, the rule-of-thumb is "Don't be a Jackass."

Damn, some people get really up tight about unsolicited redesigns. As long as it isn't mean-spirited, I don't see the issue.

Oh. My. God. The meta level of Flappy Bird and 2048 clones have reached critical mass, now they've merged—Flappy48 cnet.com

Submitted my email for an inquiry about a product API, proceeded to receive marketing emails every morning...

The three types of interface design: Visual, Experience and Conversion. Now I need a venn diagram.

Building ugly software is no sin, but building unusable software is.

Design fails when simple things need labels or instructions.

Good piece, but I'm skeptical of generalizations. The entire population of 18 to 29-year-olds is quite a sample size. aeon.co

Interesting, workers are ditching Microsoft for software that is more consumer-friendly.

You know what's going to happen when @Uber starts using Google's self-driving car? You get Goober.

Nobody loves their wireless carrier. They love their iPhone—The flawed logic behind the failure of Better Place buff.ly?

At a $50 price tag, I might have to pull the trigger on Sketch 3.

How did enlightenment thinkers distinguish between 'drugs' and 'medicines'?

Real-life Tron minus the cool bikes, and the death frisbees and Daft Punk.

Interesting—sponsorships pay for events, profits come from ticket sales.

Tonight's mission is to set up the next series of interviews for @SignalTower Is there someone you want me to interview? Let me know.

Big news, Chrome 34 is stable, which now means serving retina images through srcset in HTML is viable. webkit.org

It's ironic that in the pursuit of cheap robotic labor, capitalism will suffocate itself and pave the way for socialism.

Monument Valley is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. It's like an interactive MC Esher piece.

Deregulation did not create the "Job" problem, technology and globalization did.

I think most mobile ads are accidentally clicked. Interesting nonetheless—Pissing Away Our Money With Google Ads blog.aha.io

This study by Oglvy is a must read for anyone with a Facebook page—Life After the Demise of Organic Reach slideshare.net

I've thought it was over months ago. I suppose it's now official—The Free-Marketing Gravy Train Is Over on Facebook buff.ly

The last bit of cable news I watch is on the decline—60 Minutes”admits it manipulated the sound in its Tesla segment salon.com

Last years post on April Fools pranks for developers

Pretty sure fight club is taking place behind my apartment right now--only with cats instead of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.

Rethink incarceration and how to build a better safety net for society. Too many people are falling through the cracks.

Mar 2014

Adobe has pulled off something quite profound. They found a way to make their software worse and charge more for it with Creative Cloud.

Phones have made watches functionally obsolete. They are just pieces of jewelry that happen to show the time.

I still don't get the appeal of a smart watch beyond quantified-self initiatives. I think it is all media hype.

All of recorded history happens in the last
14 seconds of the cosmic calendar.

My friends are getting really tired of my Lincoln Park references, but in the end it doesn't really matter.

Facebook's new News Feed was too good. It got canned in favor of ad impressions—Facebook's Predicament dcurt.is

The scariest thing to car dealers isn't that Tesla can sell it's cars directly, but that Ford will realize that it can sell cars directly.

Every paragraph I've written this morning ends with an orphan—and I thought I was on a roll.

There are few moments in time when a brilliant game like Def Jam Vendetta can come to life.

This was my first computer—the Power Macintosh G3. What a fantastic machine it was!

Mobile, the only city with a regional airport and an international speedway.

I regret to report that my local Wal-Mart does not carry American flag clothing.

My Easy Rider American Flag shirt must be back in Atlanta. Damn, would have been perfect for NASCAR today.

I love this playground concept. Kids should be out exploring and using their imagination. buff.ly

There aren't many places where you can use your work email to signup for online casinos.

Be on the lookout for the next issue at the beginning of the month—four prepositional phrases.

I applaud this man's appreciation for web typography and dedication to the craft of frontend development, but wow. buff.ly

America Has a Black-Market Problem, Not a Drug Problem—and an incarceration problem, and an education problem... buff.ly

My policy: Every piece of direct mail I receive leaves my mailbox and goes directly into the trash.

Microsoft Outlook crashes, then the error report crashes. Seems legit.

Interesting thought, but I don't think this is true in most cases—Notifications are a UX Anti-Pattern buff.ly

The hypocrisy here is sickening. You can spy on everyone but me-Feinstein Publicly Accuses CIA of Spying on Congress buff.ly

Also look closely at the logo on that newsletter. The king is watching.

We just launched a pretty cool newsletter if you're looking for a read about technology advertising and casinos. eepurl.com

.@i_am_grant I'd love to have you on to talk about Poolside.fm, or "how to build something fuck*** awesome using the Internet."

Cutting art programs is dangerous. Artists and entrepreneurs are the last jobs machines will take. salon.com

Convienience is the answer to piracy, but Popcorn Time will give that theory a run for its money. buff.ly

Piracy is almost always a convenience problem, not a pricing problem.

Good UX, Wells Fargo ATMs wish you a happy birthday when using them within a week of your birthday.

Ha, mixing famous people and food items on ask me another--Edgar Allen Poeboy

I don't care how much you've used the internet, you're not a designer.

Little things in the UI make the biggest differences in UX—A Look at The Magnifying-Glass Icon in Search Design nngroup.com

Now I can read the interwebs twice as fast! OpenSpritz, A Free Speed Reading Bookmarklet. gun.io

Can someone work on this to bypass ISPs in the US? FB drones could bring internet to the developing world buff.ly

There is nothing cheesier than corporate stock photography.

Leaving this here for later—Casino Tycoon: Build your casino up from a bingo house to a vegas mega-casino.

I wonder what extent the internet has played a role in the decline of cable news? Now they compete with newspapers, magazines and radio.

Intel's new font, Clear Sans, looks like a cross between Open Sans and Exo. Great to see more open source fonts intel.com

Fellow writers, bloggers and authors—do you start with a headline, or end with one?

A startup culture renaissance in Atlanta is birthing several tech hubs.

We called these Residential Learning Centers at SigEp.

The future of college probably looks closer to a fraternity than modern college—small groups living, studying and working together.

What will happen then? People will still find ways to organize and have fun—that is human nature.

I've seen many anti-greek articles lately. I wonder if these authors have considered that college as we know it might not exist in a decade.

Interesting expiriment in crowdfunded journalism—The Great TechCrunch Flappy Bird Hunt buff.ly

Just like Tesla needs to sell $100k cars to bring affordable ones to market, Buzzfeed leverage listicles to fund quality journalism.

Weekend longform on Monday. Self-esteem is a social vaccine, or is it? The man who destroyed America’s ego buff.ly

Losing keys may be the most inconvenient thing on the planet.

Bitcoin gaming has arrived—Gamblers wager billions on unregulated Bitcoin betting sites pbs.org

I don't know what happened last night, but I must have been charming.

Feb 2014

There is some interesting stuff in the 2014-2017 MtGox Business Plan: Pasword Cards, Distribution, Litecoin scribd.com

BroApp - Automatically message your girlfriend sweet things so you an spend more time with the Bros. koitoto.la

We need to reconsider why and how we incarcerate people—Half the successful suicides in prison happen in solitary. aeon.co

Elon Musk is going to shake up a lot of industries with this move—$5 Billion Tesla Gigafactory May Start Bidding War bloomberg.com

Does anyone else feel the whole smartwatch thing is a dud? Sure it works for FitBit and quantified self, but these things with screens...

Good design - a parking deck that shows how many spaces are left on each floor.

These FB ad issues are going to be trouble—This Man's $600,000 Facebook Disaster Is A Warning For All SMB sfgate.com

Surveillance isn't going away. However, the USA Freedom Act does provide steps toward much needed transparency.

Basically, we know our surveillance techniques are illegal, which is why we need to pass this law.

Wow, just got an email from Senator Saxby Chambliss basically saying "Thanks, but I'm still in favor of the FISA Improvement Act."

Advantage continues to be the worst piece of software I've had the pleasure of using. Someone please build a usable SaaS to take them down.

So there is only one guy running Viral Nova? Pretty incredible considering the site has 65m monthly uniques.

If people love your content, they'll share it—with or without social media buttons.

Very cool to see the discussion my post about UX and social media buttons has caused over the last week. x.com

I'm already through this weeks bacon rations. Not good.

If somebody scans a QR code, and nobody is around to see, is the marketer still wrong?

Someone is writing about how Snap Chat can make money on Medium. Surely that is a sign the company is completely f'd buff.ly

That moment when 600 words mysteriously vanish from a WordPress post. Nothing in the revisions files. Anybody have a similar issue?

I don't understand the trend of Free-to-Play games, where paying alters gameplay. TF2 shows that an economy based on hats can work.

It isn't 7am yet, and it has already been an odd morning.

Browser caching seems to be helping. My site hasn't crashed under reddit's load.

An education system born in the enlightenment, and modeled after industry, is not relevant in the internet age. buff.ly

I fully expect Google Fiber to kick their ass in every market. I just wish it wasn't Google leading the charge.

This Comcast, Time Warner deal makes me question legal monopolies. Internet speeds won't improve until there is more competition.

Of all the journalism (or content) startups out there, Pando is by far the most interesting.

Tests, SEO and App Store rankings—If something can be gamed, it will.

OK, now I know there is a PR firm behind all this—Flappy Bird iPhone on eBay selling for thousands of dollars bgr.com

All aboard the Flappy Bird train! If you're looking to get into mobile game dev Flappy Bird clones are in. buff.ly

Am I the only one that has a difficult time finding the appeal of Flappy Bird?

I should have added browser caching to my site earlier.

Anyone looking for an invite to Designer News? I've got about 30 of them.

The most intersting part of the 37signals announcement—We will be launching an online publication called THE DISTANCE 37signals.com

B2B businesses help people save time, B2C businesses help people waste time. Considering there is a finite amount of time, B2B is appealing.

"Why does our system kill future heroes, while the US helps raise even ordinary Indians to iconic levels?" firstpost.com

I can't wait to read this book—What would a modern-day evil genius have to do in order to take over the world? buff.ly

The only one that can take on telecoms is Google, which doesn't make me feel much better about Net Neutrality and the internet's future.

A move that is absolutely detrimental to the one growing part of the economy, internet technology.

Looking for a Groupon/Appsumo specifically for self-published books. Anybody have recommendations?

37signals is now Basecamp. I feel like everything I know is wrong...

Check out how A List Apart shows ads. It appears to be a modal, but is actually part of the page. I bet this converts

Are you the type of person that checks to see if a every website is responsive ? Then wanker.js might be for you mig.io

I'm all for spending on infrastructure. Remember 3/4 of bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolite. buff.ly

AdWords to burry his name? Despicable—After one scientist said that a chemical was harmful, its maker pursued him. newyorker.com

There is no natural, physical, economic or legal law which states that economic growth creates more jobs.

In other news I just figured out how to write an em dash on my iPad.

I don't want to support touchscreen desktops or laptops because I think the design is inherently flawed. Thoughts?

A Study in Brand Minimalism—I'm a big fan of the second and third-level versions. A ton of noise on most packaging. thedieline.com

There aren't enough DJs doing EDM remixes of 80s hits.

I thought the commercials were supposed to be entertaining during the Super Bowl? These brands are trying too hard.

Unfortunately, this game is going exactly as expected.

Jan 2014

Feels like Adobe broke their products to make more money. CS6 works fine on my computer at home CC at work is terrible.

An in-depth growth case study—How Huckberry is transforming the future of e-commerce. buff.ly

The government does not need a monopoly on learning—California regulator seeks to shut down 'learn to code' bootcamps buff.ly

Why does Microsoft stick with IE's name? They'll never get developers to support anything called Internet Explorer.

One of the most interesting articles on Jason Calacanis I've seen.

In the process of moving old essays to the new site. Lookin good.

Initial reactions to Facebook's new product Paper—Solid interaction design, looks like a FB only Flipboard, interesting for about two days.

Anyone tried starting a blog without sharing buttons? I'm working on my new site, and I'm thinking I'll leave them off.

Cable news is so tough to watch. Everything is dumbed down. What happened to you CNN?

Svbtle opens up to everyone, Medium raises $25 million and it is snowing on the Gulf coast. Interesting day.

Looking for something to read on this snowy day? Take a look at my latest interview with Filmmaker Jacob Hinmon.
signaltower.co

Winning Isn't Normal by Jason Shen is $0.99 for the next hour on Amazon. The book is worth every penny.
amazon.com

Shot of Coke delivery trucks parked on the I-75/I-85 connector in 1950. Great comparison of Atlanta then and now. buff.ly

Picked Seahawks and Broncos for the Super Bowl at the beginning of the season. First time that has happened.

I was waiting for Marshawn Lynch to go into beast mode.

What a play by Aldon Smith. I fully expect this game to live up to the hype.

When football season is over, I won't miss commercials.

You know what? If this kid gets kicked out of Yale, I don't think he'll have any issues finding a job. haufler.org

Frere-Jones is suing Hoefler for half of the world’s preeminent digital type foundry—who's the winner? Typekit buff.ly

While we're talking about news publications, I'm fascinated by the fact that readwrite.com doesn't have a nav, just a topics page.

Honeywell, good luck fighting Google's lawyers with your ridiculous patent claims. They've been battling Apple for the last five years.

On another note, Honeywell execs should be freaking out that they are now competitors with Google.

So, Nest sells to Google for almost the same price SnapChat would have sold to Facebook.

Twitter bot @SamBot6 tweets about design and entrepreneurship. All the single lady bots are attracted to him.

Do this if you want to scare away readers. This is the reason why banner ads are a race to the bottom.

I still can't believe someone stole my damn laundry. Those monogramed shirts have my initials on them...

Talking with eight people about TV at the bar last week, none had cable. Time Warner Loses 215,000 Cable Customers. bloomberg.com

Anecdotally, I think the Facebook Pages platform has turned to garbage in the last year. Don't waste money on them. vpj.svbtle.com

Gawker has some serious SEO. It outranks the Ad Age articles that it is summarizing.

So this is what happened to Inspector Gadget's messages. On another note, this seems much more useful than SnapChat.
gigaom.com

While most cities offer shelter without jobs, San Francisco offers jobs without shelter

Trying to push new code to my site and the internet keeps going down. Live dangerously.

Railway + Freight Text Pro. Transportation flavored fonts.

The problem with paywalls—Search and social are primary sources of traffic, but paywalls interfere with both.

Railway and Freight Text Pro--Transportation font names FTW.

Older notes from 2013