Now Let Us Try Earnestness

Essays on animation, cars, life, software and storytelling

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Management

Remote Work Requires a Trust-Based Management Philosophy

Classical management philosophy is preoccupied with productivity, not just output, all under the watchful eye of the supervisor. Instead, what work needs—and remote work in particular—is trust.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
5 min read
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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
9 min read
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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
4 min read
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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
6 min read
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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
4 min read
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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
10 min read
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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
2 min read

Spin the Cylinder?

The cleverness of the 2013 Mac Pro's design (inadvertently?) became more important than performance headroom.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
1 min read
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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
5 min read
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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
3 min read

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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
7 min read

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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
4 min read

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.

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
4 min read

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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
3 min read
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 Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
3 min read
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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
3 min read

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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
1 min read
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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
1 min read
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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
2 min read

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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
3 min read
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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
1 min read

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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
2 min read

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,

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
3 min read

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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
3 min read

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

  • Oluseyi Sonaiya
    Oluseyi Sonaiya
4 min read
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