Starting Up

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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Here’s the article in question: Warren Buffett Is A Punk

Pure drivel. I don’t understand why this was allowed past the editor’s desk, and it has nothing to do with the position Altucher is taking. Continue Reading »

…no, that’s the end of that statement [with two or three exceptional exceptions].

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Link to Article: “Gangbang Interviews” And “Bikini Shots”: Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem 

“‘Brogrammer’ isn’t an exclusionary term,” wrote a commenter identifying himself as “Toronto Brogrammer” on a recent Businessweek story. “The female equivalent is called a ‘hogrammer’ and I have big respect for women that wear that badge proudly.” “Proglamming” and “brogramette” have also been tossed out…

Mother Jones has published a nice exposé on specific instances of the rampant sexism in the tech industry. I’ve addressed it once on this blog here. I think what’s especially illuminating is that these male programmers frequently use the “You’d realize he’s not sexist at all if you just got to know him” defense. This is the best evidence that they don’t understand what sexism means.

I found this old post on a very old blog of mine (techie readers can probably find it through the image links). It brought back some wonderful memories of hardware hacking, so I thought I’d repost it for your enjoyment.

Also, this amp is a great example of an awesome product from the 50s. It had its flaws and it had a scheduled obsolescence, but it was still designed to do its job until the day its owner would want to get rid of it. The result of such thinking was an amplifier that lasted long beyond its assumed lifespan and became a treasure for many musicians, including me.

Today I took apart the guitar amp I bought last month.  It’s a 1951 Silvertone model 1342. I honestly believe it belongs in a museum.  But because I am who I am, I took it apart!

The neat (read: challenging) thing about this project is that there is no schematic of this amp online and no real information on it other than anecdotal stuff by old-timers and collectors.  This model has fallen through the cracks of musical history and into my hands via a very fun, very interesting older gentleman by the name of Dash. He lives in the East Village, still bikes around at the age of 60-something, and invited me to jam with him whenever I get a chance.  He’s a cool cat, for sure.
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Well, as is wont to happen every now and again, my hosting provider decided yesterday would be a great time to totally kill my performance.  After suffering 4-5 second page-load times (and after royally mussing up my DNS settings) I’ve re-launched the blog on a much more stable and powerful host.  Load times are down in the 200ms range, the new theme still has that new car smell, and we are back in business!

Well here you have it, folks.  Hagar The Harfowl has been updated and extended.  We’ve added two diverging story lines, hidden (and not so hidden) animations, a mini-game, and fully updated artwork.

Click here to download: Hagar The Harfowl

Dear OSX Lion,

I understand you want my documents to seem persistent in Preview, but when I open an image I really, really do not want you to open the 20-30 other documents, pdfs, and photos I had open prior to quitting the application 5 minutes ago. If you can do this for me I can perhaps forgive you for making all the finder icons grayscale. Maybe.

Sincerely,
Sam

I have a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience and a job in the startup scene.  This post is an introduction to the overlap between the two.  You can expect more about this in the future.

As a new product manager trying to develop my own style at a tech startup, I’ve noticed that the approach used by other product people is pretty specific: Find a problem or a point of friction in our lives, solve that problem in the simplest way possible, and then build it. Fill your team with designers and developers who can creatively overcome their own specific roadblocks, and iterate on your initial idea until users need and want what you’re selling.

What’s surprising about this process and the idea of iteration in particular is how purely intuitive it can be. A good product manager will always have UX (user experience) in mind, and it’s essential that the product’s intention be translated accurately into the feature set that is handed off to developers. This is frequently done with the knowledge that the first iteration will not be wildly successful, in which case you gather feedback and try again. “Getting it right” in this game is incredibly difficult, and this is reflected by the fact that over time, most startups fail.

Generally we chalk this success or failure up to bad timing, poor execution, lack of funding, bad marketing, bad design, and so on. Certainly these factors play large roles in the long-term success of a project, but the big picture is not that simple. Taking a look at the companies that have exploded over the last few years, you will notice that they suffer from many of these same issues. For instance, Facebook is poorly designed, has suffered from bad press for years, and has a bad record of forcing features on users that are initially decried as unacceptable. However, Facebook’s year-over-year user growth has remained one of the highest industry-wide and it boasts over 400 million unique log-ins per day. Clearly it’s doing enough stuff right to overcome its failings.

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