Lightbox Software as Craft and the Passion Project I firmly believe that creating software is a craft discipline. Like other craft disciplines it draws on scientific and engineering knowledge, but reaches its greatest heights when it marries that with details about human ergonomics or aesthetic flourishes intended purely to delight.
NBA China and the NBA In a global marketplace where Chinese profits and their future potential dwarf those from any other individual territory, firms will increasingly be driven to acquiesce to the Chinese central state authority.
Lightbox Software as Business and the Passion Project There has never been a better time to start a software business. At the same time, for certain types of software, there has never been a worse time to start a software business.
Lightbox Announcing Lightbox Lightbox is a mobile-first, full-featured, traditional (hand-drawn) animation production application/suite. It is what I am focused on building now. I am incredibly excited, and look forward to sharing this adventure with the world.
Diversity [Citation Needed] James Damore's citations do not support the conclusions he is drawing from them. This makes his findings and proposals for remedies worthless. He has some good ideas, but his presenting them amid so many simply wrong claims means they won't be valued as they should.
MLBAM ESPN NOW Live sports has been viewed as the final frontier in cord cutting. We may now be approaching the tipping point in VODs usurpation of broadcast television.
Spin the Cylinder? The cleverness of the 2013 Mac Pro's design (inadvertently?) became more important than performance headroom.
Apple Device as Sculpture Jony Ive's design aesthetic is fundamentally sculptural, not ergonomic: he makes objects to be beheld, not to be held. Following the passing of Steve Jobs in 2011, there really wasn't anyone at the company to rein him in.
Apple The Beginning of the End of "Apps" When Siri can replace much of an app's interface, and do so for the multiple apps a user may need to complete a complex task, it raises the question of whether we even need "apps" at all.
Tesla, Electric Vehicles, "Disruption" and Hype On Thursday, March 31, 2016, Tesla Motors unveiled its much awaited "more affordable" fully electric sedan, the Model 3. It began taking pre-orders, with a USD 1,000 deposit required, and
Skin Deep: Black Johnny Storm, White T'Challa and other Nerdery As I write this, the 2015 theatrical reboot of the Fantastic Four film adaptations is failing miserably at the box office. Naturally, in an environment where superhero films are the most reliable earners
I Kissed the Sky, and It Bit Back I was thirty-four years old the first time I got high. It wasn't the first time I'd tried marijuana, but it was the first time it had an effect on me—any effect.
Love in Stockholm Last week, the poor state of independent software sustainability on iOS moved noted developer Brent Simmons to write an essay urging indies to "do it for the love," a resignation of
Formula 1 Long Live Formula 1 You hear it almost everywhere in the Formula 1 community, from fans, from commentators, from bloggers, from former drivers: the rules are "ruining" Formula 1. You hear complaints about the lack
Oluseyi on Tech Tech is Dead There are no more tech companies, where by "tech" I mean information and computer technology. This statement is immediately, trivially disproven—except it is also essentially true. There are no more
Perspective Diversity In 2014 the US "tech" industry discovered a truth that I'd always known: it was staggeringly homogenous, basically a bunch of white dudes, a couple of South East Asians (also mostly
Animation A Bowlful of Nostalgia: the "Death" of Saturday Morning Cartoons On October 11, 2014 I saw a couple of people on my social networking feeds lament the "fact" that it was the first time in decades that there were "no
animation design On Animation Design and Production Methods It's interesting how the production method of an animated show—traditionally hand-drawn, Flash-style "paper" marionette, stop motion, or 3D CGI—can so deeply affect design. I've noticed some long-running shows switching
Robot Byline: Software Sportscasters and Other Stories Several months ago I was reading a fun piece by Kontra on the subject of sports previews written by software. Prolific Internet commenter Walt French (you'll find him writing detailed comments on several
Release Release Therapy I've been a professional software developer for over a decade, all told: 2006 to present, plus an earlier stint in 2000 and 2001. I've written a ton of software and released or contributed
Feet of Clay Our heroes are often fallible. How, then, should we react when—not if—they falter? I admire Ed Catmull. Yes, present tense, even after learning of his role in the anti-poaching, wage-fixing arrangements
The Responsibility of Audience A while back I casually stumbled into a metaphor war over "rape." An individual had described what he considered an aggressively, eye-searingly ugly web page design (ironically for an essay entitled,
The Sanctity of Focus: A Notifications Primer I rarely write about my personal habits, in any area of life. I share them liberally when asked, and post about them intermittently on App.net (the only "social network" I
Value, Price and Explosive Growth First, the most heartfelt thing about App.net I've read all week. Thank you, Pete. :-) Continuing with my examination of viable business models for App.net, I think it's worthwhile to examine
App.net Time to get SNAASty Apologies to Jamie Smyth for failing to credit him for the catchy portmanteau "SNAASty"! Thought-provoking essays on ADN from Jason Irwin—Alpha Needs an Owner—and Brianna Wu—Social Media is