Starting Up

Source link here.

Infuriatingly inane, trivial, and reeking of bullshit. I’m ashamed I deigned to link to it.

Maureen Dowd on the Todd Akin-is-a-horrible-person scandal: link

I’m not generally a follower of the election year news cycle, because it’s almost entirely 8 months of [expensive] hot air. However, being a strong believer in equal rights for all and an advocate against violence against women, this article struck a chord with me.

What concerns me is the desperation evident in Dowd’s writing. She tries to communicate that the awful ideas these hateful people have voiced aren’t just untrue, but are so ludicrous that a rebuttal shouldn’t have been required at all. It begs the question: why are we backsliding so horrendously as a nation that this rhetoric can be voiced and people actually listen and believe it to be true?

Techcrunch reported yesterday that evidence shows real-name commenting systems (as in, not anonymous) don’t make a difference.

I’m not sure the article was necessary. If you’ve ever read the real-name comments on Techcrunch, you know what I’m talking about. Commenters on the site still sling huge amounts of shit at each other, despite the fact that it all shows up on their facebook pages.

So: stop commenting. React from your own space. You give yourself a chance to re-frame any topic and determine the context without being included with the trolls and neckbeards. Most importantly, you’re forced to think about your response. That in itself is good enough reason to dismantle all commenting systems worldwide.

TechCrunch article here: Women In Tech, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

TL;DR: The remedy to the exclusionary sexism rampant in the tech world is for women to spend more money!

Tl;DR;WTF? Sexism isn’t the problem, you lazy women! If we were only more classist, things would be better!

My favorite reaction so far: from The Awl

It’s been a time of great upheaval and change for me in the last few weeks. Without going into details, I’m moving on. I’ve had plenty of time to think about what I want to do with my time, and so now I’m going for it.

For those who know me, you know that I’m a Product person with a QA background and just enough programming knowledge to be dangerous. For those who don’t, I’m also a highly motivated individual who is tuned into the tech scene with a laser focus, so that’s where I plan to spend my time.

The most important fact I learned about myself is that I don’t want to take a job that I have to force myself to fit into. Like in a good relationship, there should be some give-and-take, but the job and I should be intrinsically interested in each other.

So, here’s what I’m looking for:

• Contract QA work for small startups: Most early-stage startups don’t have the resources to hire QA engineers full-time. That doesn’t exempt them from needing to release a product with a high level of quality, though, so I would love to help. I have experience with manual testing, UI automation, API automation, and building full regression test suites. I am also a usability/UI/UX guru, so you can expect quite a bit of extra peace of mind. You need to focus on coding, and I’d love to help. Email me at blog@samgimbel.com with inquiries.
• Product Management: This is second-nature to me. I’ve been a Product person at Hashable for over a year now, and I’ve released Hagar as a side-project. I know how to write a good user story and get the whole team on the same page. You can also expect me to say “no” to new features almost obsessively until the right feature comes along. Even then, expect iteration and refinement before implementing the darn thing. You have a product you care about, and I know how to maintain it and help it grow. Email me at blog@samgimbel.com with inquiries.
• QA-to-Live-Code: I’m a great QA Engineer. I’m also a budding programmer. I have experience writing Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and Objective C (iOS). I’d love to start by automating your QA process and diving into your codebase in the process. By the end of that cycle you can expect me to be able to write live code for your product, and I won’t let you down. You need QA people who can code, and I can be one of them. Email me at blog@samgimbel.com with inquiries.

It feels good to be making moves. Have a great idea you’d like to collaborate on? Definitely email me at blog@samgimbel.com. I’d love to help.

Here’s an interesting article from Read Write Web, posted yesterday: Millennials: they aren’t so tech savvy anymore.

TL;DR: kids aren’t living up to the expectation that being immersed in technology from a young age should prepare them for college and the professional world.

I’m sure it’s true. The assertion that kids really only have mastery of social media by the time they graduate high school is believable. But it’s also pretty silly to assume that a largely broken education system is going to prepare students more in the realm of technology than in any other way.

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These are free ideas. On the off-chance you sell your company based on my idea for billions of dollars you can take me out for coffee. Really, really good coffee:

1. An API that tells you if someone is reachable on any device. Takes Skype, Gchat, Facebook, AIM, Google Talk, etc. and returns “YES” or “NO.”
2. A box for landlords/owners with a switch for every apartment they own/manage. Each switch has two positions: “rented” and “free.” Has a wireless connection to write to an online database with contact information.
3. A mobile app that pings you as you near a crowded subway station. You can curate a list of stations you care about.

Simple ideas are great. Simple ideas that fulfill a real physical need are better. Simple ideas that fulfill a real physical need AND can be easily prototyped and demonstrated are better. Owning an existing product based on one of these ideas is best.

The Next Web has an interesting article about a German woman named Alice Zappe who spent 3 months building a pretty cool web project. She seems to be a smart and passionate self-motivated hacker who really knows how to get shit built.

But what’s with the tone of this article? The title is “See what this guy’s girlfriend built 3 months after learning how to code.” Why do the authors think he’s important? Continue Reading »

Today’s XKCD comic is absolutely on point.

I agree one thousand percent. Klout is useless.

Here’s an awesome post by opensignalmaps on their experience as developers with Android fragmentation: http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/fragmentation.php.

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