{ "items" : [ { "published" : "2013-05-20T02:53:56Z", "object" : { "published" : "2013-05-20T01:34:26Z", "summary" : "All of these questions are variations on \"Why did Yahoo! spend one-third of their cash on hand to buy a company that by all accounts is about to run out of money?\" Read this post, and hopefully these questions will...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://hello.typepad.com/hello/2013/05/frequently-asked-questions-about-yahoos-acquisition-of-tumblr.html", "content" : "

All of these questions are variations on \"Why did Yahoo! spend one-third of their cash on hand to buy a company that by all accounts is about to run out of money?\" Read this post, and hopefully these questions will not need to be asked again!

\n\n

Why did Yahoo! make this acquisition?

\n

We know very little about Marissa Mayer's big goals for Yahoo!, but we know one. She wants Yahoo! to own users' daily habits. At an analysts conference recently, she classified these as \"searches on the Internet, checking finance, doing your email.\" Yahoo! is skating to where the puck is going to be when it comes to \"daily habits.\" The Tumblr daily dashboard is a daily habit, and by some accounts, moreso than even Facebook or Twitter among teens.

\n\n

Why is this so expensive? 1.1 Billion dollars is outrageous!

\n

Yes it is! But per user, it's actually cheaper than, for instance, what AOL paid for the Huffington Post (AOL paid $13/user, Yahoo! is paying $5-$11, depending on what numbers you believe). Tumblr's users are much more engaged than HuffPo users were even at it's peak. Flip this around: if you were given 1.1 billion dollars, would you be able to build a service used by more than ten million people for more than an hour a month? You could not. That's a bigger audience than American Idol, or for that matter anything else (except Facebook or Twitter). Even if you had the perfect product idea and a billion dollars to build it, time is a zero sum game, and it's very hard to get people to unlearn their habits.

\n\n

Isn't Yahoo! going to ruin Tumblr?

\n

Anecdotally, I have lots of friends who have worked at Yahoo! and have some really terrible stories to tell. Just awful, unbelievable stuff. But you know what? That's true at every tech company of any scale. (BTW - EVEN TUMBLR!) Acquisitions usually don't work out, and I think that Y! probably has an unfair rep as being tough on it's acquisitions. It's not like many of the web 1.0 era of startups were successful on their own, and some (in)famously have flamed out without being acquired by Yahoo! (Dodgeball, Six Apart, etc.). I actually think that some kind of Messenger or Flickr integration with Tumblr would be awesome. Many of my smartest friends say that the fungible identities on Tumblr are part of what's most valuable about it. That's true! I doubt Marissa will mess with that. So breathe easy.

\n\n

Native advertising hasn't ever been successful at scale on the web, isn't this a risk?

\n

No. Every YouTube video is native advertising. And Yahoo! doesn't have to monetize all those crummy/porny/incoherent blogs, they only have to monetize the dashboard. And I think the basic idea that Tumblr has is the right one, they just didn't have a competent sales organization. Now they do.

\n\n

How can you measure the value of a social network?

\n

Jason Goldman suggested (perhaps jokingly) that the number of faves was a valuable metric, and unsurprisingly, I agree. Anil notes a bunch of reasons that positivity is important on the Internet, and I agree with all of them, but beyond that, a like, heart or fave (or a reblog or retweet) are the documentation of the essence of blogging. You wrote something, I liked it, and this is my way of letting you know. We're all working for free on these networks, with the exception of the currency of social approval and public appreciation. Whether by accident or design, Tumblr's system of likes and reblogs is one of the most elegant there is, and I think that's a huge part of the network's success.

\n\n

Why should I care what you say?

\n

I'm one of the few people who have been involved in the business of blogging full-time for over a decade. I have been a blogger since 1999, and tumblr user since 2007, and I actually worked with David Karp and Marco Arment on their first iteration on what would become tumblr. At the time, the engine powered Serious Eats and a handful of David's other consulting clients. These guys were not easy to work with (and, in fact, their presence on other web projects was ultimately short-lived) but they had a laser focus on what they cared about — making blogging simpler and better. I also sold my own blogging company, Apperceptive, to another blogging company, Six Apart, and participated in the sale of Six Apart to SAY media. At Six Apart's peak, our software was powering a billion (or more) pageviews a month. And if you look hard enough at what we're doing over at 29th Street Publishing, you'll see that it's basically blogging with a business model. So this is more or less what I do.

\n\n

There you go!

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d8341e3ac753ef01901c5cbead970b", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/david", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d8341e3ac753ef", "displayName" : "David Jacobs", "image" : "http://up7.typepad.com/6a00d8341e3ac753ef0120a644b895970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "Frequently Asked Questions about Yahoo's Acquisition of Tumblr" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2013-03-22T16:39:27Z", "object" : { "published" : "2013-03-22T15:26:45Z", "summary" : "I can't call myself a buddhist, but we are the sum of what our peers are. My dad used to say that even if you think you aren't a bad person, if who you call your friends are bad people...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://nataliepo.typepad.com/nataliepo/2013/03/these-two-should-ride-the-same-breath.html", "content" : "

I can't call myself a buddhist, but we are the sum of what our peers are.  My dad used to say that even if you think you aren't a bad person, if who you call your friends are bad people or break the rules, then you're one of them too.  Replace "bad" with the adjective of your choice and the rule sticks.  Therefore, I'm a friendship-transitive buddhist.

\r\n

One of my friend-of-a-buddhist's just emailed me (lojongmindtraining.com): 

\r\n

 

\r\n
Sending and taking is a very important practice of the Boddhisattva path. It is called tonglen in Tibetan: 'tong' means 'sending out' or 'letting go' and 'len' means 'receiving' or 'accepting'. 'Tonglen' is a very important term; you should remember it. It is the main practice in the development of relative Bodhicitta.
...
The practice of tonglen is actually quite straightforward ; it is an actual sitting meditation practice. You give away your happiness, your pleasure, anything that feels good. All of that goes out with the outbreath. As you breathe in, you breathe in any resentments and problems, anything that feels bad. The whole point is to remove territoriality altogether.\r\n

Sometimes we feel terrible that we are breathing in poison which might kill us and at the same time breathing out whatever little goodness we have. It seems to be completely impractical. But once we begin to break through, we realize that we have even more goodness and we also have more things to breathe in. So the whole process becomes somewhat balanced...But tonglen should not be used as any kind of antidote. You do not do it and then wait for the effect - you just do it and drop it. It doesn't matter whether it works or not: if it works, you breathe that out; if it does not work, you breathe that in. So you do not possess anything. That is the point.

\r\n

Usually you would like to hold on to your goodness. you would like to make a fence around yourself and put everything bad outside it: foreigners, your neighbors, or what have you. You don't want them to come in. You don't even want your neighbors to walk their dogs on your property because they might make a mess on your lawn. So in ordinary samsaric life. you don't send and receive at all. You try as much as possible to guard those pleasant little situations you have created for yourself. You try to put them in a vacuum, like fruit in a tin, completely purified and clean. You try to hold on to as much as you can, and anything outside of your territory is regarded as altogether problematic. You don't want to catch the local influenza or the local diarrhea attack that is going around. You are constantly trying to ward off as much as you can.

\r\n

...

\r\n

Just relate to the technique: the discursiveness of it doesn't matter. when you are out, you are out; when you come in, you are in. When you are hot, you are hot; when you are cool, you are cool... Make it very literal and simple. 

\r\n

 

\r\n
\r\n

This came after a time when I asked those around me to be more "zen" about the challenges we can't change.  Avoid the "local diarrhea attack" (the metaphorical shitstorm of one's day to day as an entrepreneur) is the part that I hear loud and clear.  Walling yourself off from the reality of everything else is a luxury we don't have: you have to accept that it's all happening.  The best you can do is put on your goggles and keep walking towards your goal.

\r\n

In more direct news, we were featured in The Wall Street Journal  and appeared on Bloomberg TV.  Things are going really, really well.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e5539faa3b8833017ee9a6bc18970d", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/nataliepo", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00e5539faa3b8833", "displayName" : "nataliepo", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00e5539faa3b88330120a614d07f970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "\"These Two Should Ride The Same Breath\"" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2013-02-26T20:35:06Z", "object" : { "published" : "2013-02-26T19:52:06Z", "summary" : "At my work, Say Media, we have a group shepherding tasks and plans in the 'devops' style. Franck and myself are this group, with input and assistance from others. As a starting point we’re assuming that tools must already exist,...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://hachi.typepad.com/fork/2013/02/the-too.html", "content" : "

At my work, Say Media, we have a group shepherding tasks and plans in the 'devops' style. Franck and myself are this group, with input and assistance from others.

\r\n

As a starting point we’re assuming that tools must already exist, and that we should only rebuild them from scratch if the barrier to entry is too high. Reuse, contribute, and participate in the Open Source landscape. That said, we will build tools to glue things together. My intention in this and the coming posts is to share our research, decisions, and rationale for tools we are looking at.

\r\n

We started off this year by rolling out a replacement for system and application metric collection. We didn't perform any sort of experiment to test systems and see what worked the best. Instead we dove right in and started replacing Ganglia with a more discrete system comprised of Collectd, Carbon, Whisper, and Graphite (the latter three which are often considered a single item.) Statsd got added to collect counters, and much of this setup has been tweaked, tuned, and twisted to do what we expect. Finally we looked at riemann for analysis and triggering alerts.

\r\n

Starting now I’ll be writing posts to document our  Collectd, Graphite, Statsd, and Riemann experience. There will certainly be more, but stay tuned and ask me to share more if you want.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83424729053ef017ee8bf6efe970d", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/hachi", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83424729053ef", "displayName" : "hachi", "image" : "http://up0.typepad.com/6a00d83424729053ef01287649e041970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "The tools that we choose" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2013-02-17T19:56:44Z", "object" : { "published" : "2013-02-17T19:48:18Z", "summary" : "\"Lady Grantham, your skeleton is looking especially bleached today. How do you do it?\"", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://oofblamargh.typepad.com/blog/2013/02/i-tell-you-dame-maggie-smith-is-a-treasure.html", "content" : "

"Lady Grantham, your skeleton is looking especially bleached today. How do you do it?"

\r\n

\"Ghosts

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a0120a6b84d21970b017d411ee908970c", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/oofblamargh", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p0120a6b84d21970b", "displayName" : "oof! blam! argh!", "image" : "http://up1.typepad.com/6a0120a6b84d21970b012876a32bf0970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "I tell you, Dame Maggie Smith is a treasure!" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2013-01-30T19:56:59Z", "object" : { "published" : "2013-01-30T18:15:00Z", "summary" : "Back when I worked at LiveJournal, Brad Fitzpatrick commented: Our standards are continually being raised, so by definition any old code is ugly because new best practices have emerged in the meantime. This has always stuck with me in the...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://if.andonlyif.net/blog/2013/01/technical-debt-vs-technical-depreciation.html", "content" : "

Back when I worked at LiveJournal, Brad Fitzpatrick commented:

\r\n
\r\n

Our standards are continually being raised, so by definition any old code is ugly because new best practices have emerged in the meantime.

\r\n
\r\n

\r\nThis has always stuck with me in the back of my mind, but it came up again in a conversation earlier this week. In trying to find the right way to manage a backlog of technical debt -- a whole topic in itself -- I pointed out that the discussion conflated two issues: one was technical debt, and I called the other "technical depreciation".

\r\n

Your code may have been great when you wrote it two years ago. It epitomized every best practice of the time and is completely bug free. Unfortunately, two years later, and without doing anything to it at all, that's no longer the case. It might not compile against a newer version of libc, some security vulnerabilities have been discovered, a required dependency is no longer in the repository, its logic may not have kept up with changes to the business, and so on.

\r\n

(Some of my favorites: a blog engine that worked when you had 1,000 entries posted to a blog, but four years later, it slows to a crawl when it's got 1,000,000 entries. Or, scrambling to find a bunch of old machines laying around because you require an ancient OS that doesn't have driver support for newer server components. Or, being stuck writing for an obsolete version of perl's Catalyst framework because you're so far behind that it's near-impossible to catch up.)

\r\n

In the case of technical debt, you (usually) decided to take shortcuts, so you hopefully know where they are. But spending time managing your software's depreciation is equally important, but far more nebulous. I think this is the baseline cost of running any piece of software: managing dependency upgrades, managing security upgrades, maintaining build and release scripts, updating documentation, revising configuration for a changing environment, and so on.

\r\n

People often think that Newton's Third Law ("an object in motion stays in motion") applies to software. But the world is in a constant state of change, and assumptions -- from hardware choice to business logic -- will eventually no longer hold. And just like technical debt, the longer you put off addressing depreciation, the more disproportionate the effort will be to address it.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451d65f69e2017c36688caa970b", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/burr86", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451d65f69e2", "displayName" : "Abe Hassan", "image" : "http://up7.typepad.com/6a00d83451d65f69e2010536f34ce1970b-pi" }, "displayName" : "technical debt vs technical depreciation" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2013-01-22T21:17:36Z", "object" : { "published" : "2013-01-22T19:55:00Z", "summary" : "I spent many, many years caring about and caring for LiveJournal. One of our biggest challenges was figuring out how the site should evolve. Its age almost guaranteed that we had some sizable portion of the userbase using any given...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://if.andonlyif.net/blog/2013/01/google-plus-is-what-i-wanted-livejournal-to-be.html", "content" : "

I spent many, many years caring about and caring for LiveJournal. One of our biggest challenges was figuring out how the site should evolve. Its age almost guaranteed that we had some sizable portion of the userbase using any given feature, which made it harder to retire features; our extraordinary ability to botch major announcements made us even more scared to do it. And the new stuff we were shipping didn't generally have a cohesive vision behind it. If it did, we'd be able to establish momentum behind that vision, and a better way of talking about it.

\r\n

Anyway.

\r\n

That chapter of my life has been over for a while now. Fast forward a bit.

\r\n

Google+ isn't a great social network -- not many of my friends are on it -- but it's a fantastic service. But it's what I wished LiveJournal would have become. It's streamlined, but powerful. Think about it for a moment. Streams are like the friends page; circles are custom friend groups; photos are like a Scrapbook that worked; communities are like communities; +1s are memories; and so on. But it also eliminates a lot of the additional bells and whistles (like custom mood themes) that I think distracted us from our mission of connecting people. I'm not even counting the types of things that work because of Google's muscle -- better search, suggested friends, calendar integration, hangouts, etc.

\r\n

Now, there is one or two things that Google+ is missing. Arguably, threaded comments is one of them, but I think the most important thing is personalization: owning your URL, customizing your theme/style, and selecting userpics for different posts or comments. Google+ is very clearly owned by Google, and the layout isn't very friendly to use. With that exception, though, Google+ provides exactly the set of features I think LiveJournal should. No more, no less.

\r\n

The sense of community that LiveJournal created is what made it our home on the web, and Google+ is the first service I've seen that has the raw features to do the same thing. Tumblr doesn't do it, Twitter doesn't do it, Facebook comes close but it's not really emphasizing the written word as much, Wordpress doesn't do it, Typepad doesn't do it. Making the site easier to use would helped keep LiveJournal relevant instead of being relegated to being the great-grandfather of social media.

\r\n

It makes me sad that we couldn't -- and that LiveJournal still can't -- evolve the site fast enough to keep up with the world. But that's why I'm hopeful for Google+, because I think something needs to pick up where LiveJournal left off.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451d65f69e2017ee7c424e3970d", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/burr86", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451d65f69e2", "displayName" : "Abe Hassan", "image" : "http://up7.typepad.com/6a00d83451d65f69e2010536f34ce1970b-pi" }, "displayName" : "google plus is what i wanted livejournal to be" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2013-01-11T15:34:32Z", "object" : { "published" : "2013-01-11T02:34:23Z", "summary" : "statsd to carbon, flushInterval 10s, data is fine. carbon writes the value then overwrites with zeros. what the what?— Abe Hassan (@burr86) January 10, 2013 I'm so mad at myself right now. We're getting statsd and graphite deployed, and we've...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://if.andonlyif.net/blog/2013/01/the-case-of-the-disappearing-metrics.html", "content" : "

statsd to carbon, flushInterval 10s, data is fine. carbon writes the value then overwrites with zeros. what the what?

— Abe Hassan (@burr86) January 10, 2013
\r\n\r\n\r\n

I'm so mad at myself right now.

\r\n

We're getting statsd and graphite deployed, and we've been feeding some counters into statsd. We've generally found this to be fairly straightforward, except that one of our counters has been a bit schizophrenic. Sometimes it reports correctly, and sometimes it reports zero (rather than null). In fact, watching the whisper files directly, I sometimes see the timestamp and the value written to the file, and then immediately overwritten with a zero in the next run.

\r\n

Hachi, Franck, and I pored over every configuration file, we pored over the source code to carbon and whisper. We set up the manhole in carbon so we could ssh in and see what it thinks the world is. We ran tcpdumps every which way. We turned off various daemons under a hunch that it might be something else writing to carbon and we wanted to track it down. We twiddled frequencies, retention policies, everything. Nothing, no dice, everything looks like it should.

\r\n

We've been digging into this for about two days now. Franck and I were banging our heads against it today when we saw something unusual:

\r\n
$ echo counters | nc statsd 8126 | grep metric.name
metric.name 18342
metric.name. 0
\r\n

Huh. Interesting. ... oh, no, those actually become the same metric in graphite. So even though statsd thinks it's two different metrics, carbon ends up coalescing them down into one. One of them wins, depending on how statsd flushes them and carbon sorts them, causing the flip-flopping. What's worst is that the second one is actually a bug in code that I had written. It's supposed to emit statistics for \"metric.name.subcategory\", but there's a subtle case where the subcategory could be empty.

\r\n

(As an aside, we did find an issue with how we had statsd and graphite talking to each other. In particular, statsd's flushInterval needed to be configured to be the same as one of the archive intervals in graphite, or else some of the stats get discarded.)

\r\n

For the record, I was pretty sure something else was overwriting the values.

— Franck Cuny (@franckcuny) January 11, 2013
\r\n", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451d65f69e2017c3591bbf4970b", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/burr86", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451d65f69e2", "displayName" : "Abe Hassan", "image" : "http://up7.typepad.com/6a00d83451d65f69e2010536f34ce1970b-pi" }, "displayName" : "the case of the disappearing metrics" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-11-30T21:47:10Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-11-30T21:29:05Z", "summary" : "The hottest new app is The Awl: Weekend Companion. It's got voting machines by Maria Bustillos, cooking for Sandy refugees by Emily Gould, original artwork, the guy who wrote the OTHER Cloud Atlas, the Y2K bug, the backstory of the...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://hello.typepad.com/hello/2012/11/its-the-weekend.html", "content" : "

The hottest new app is The Awl: Weekend Companion. It's got voting machines by Maria Bustillos, cooking for Sandy refugees by Emily Gould, original artwork, the guy who wrote the OTHER Cloud Atlas, the Y2K bug, the backstory of the \"gerbilling\" myth, video game characters publicly shaming Mike Tyson, bold covers and an actual awl at the bottom of every page. And actually there are already EIGHT issues like that. Yesterday Dan Frommer mentioned that it was more expensive than Newsweek. Well you know, it's also better than Newsweek! You can hear/read more from the Awl's own mouth/blog.

\n\n

It's made by my company, the hottest new company, 29th Street Publishing. We make publishing paid, serial iPad & iPhone apps as simple as blogging. We have Natalie Podrazik, Blake Eskin, Timothy Moore, myself, a monthly case of rice cakes delivered from Amazon, a ThingM device(*) that blinks whenever someone subscribes to a magazine, a little printer(*) that summarizes the daily issues for us, a blinking coffee sign and a blog. Patric wrote about us this week (thanks!) and Natalie wrote a nice post this morning.

\n\n* We don't actually have a BlinkM or a Little Printer yet, but we will soon.\n\n", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d8341e3ac753ef017ee5c7a05e970d", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/david", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d8341e3ac753ef", "displayName" : "David Jacobs", "image" : "http://up7.typepad.com/6a00d8341e3ac753ef0120a644b895970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "It's the Weekend" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-11-01T16:03:19Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-11-01T14:48:40Z", "summary" : "Are New Yorkers entirely disconnected from nature as Via Media suggested? My vote is a hearty Ain't No Way, Hon. Couldn't we argue that New Yorkers are more in touch with nature than folks who never put a foot outside...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://nataliepo.typepad.com/nataliepo/2012/11/new-york-vs-nature.html", "content" : "

Are New Yorkers entirely disconnected from nature as Via Media suggested?  My vote is a hearty Ain't No Way, Hon.

\r\n

Couldn't we argue that New Yorkers are more in touch with nature than folks who never put a foot outside their home, office, cars, or garages? We live in a place where waste, or even roominess, is a luxury few can afford. We know what it takes for our human selves to make it under conditions the rest of the country would find suffocating. Besides, what's the difference in difficulty getting a taxi in the rain than a rural interstate's congestion during a rainfall? Natural disasters hit everyone and we're hardly ever prepared physically or emotionally.  

\r\n

Besides, take a New Yorker outside and you'll get an instant tour guide in love with her surroundings. We observe the changing of leaves, their romantic translucence under streetlights. The drop in temperatures that affects not just our outerwear choices but the loud kick of our old homes' radiators awakening from its seasonal slumber. The crisp smell of an autumn night that invigorates after a long day in the office. People go weak in the knee at the beauty of Central Park and I am not exaggerating.

\r\n

Sure, there are New Yorkers who don't care about the sunshine. Some that don't enjoy tall rubber boots in the rain, and some detest the taste and smell of the month of August in the city (me, on both accounts).

\r\n

\r\nAnd what about the nature that New Yorkers genuinely care for -- human nature? The brave fire fighters, the countless volunteers, the generosity of supporting the arts -- these things happen in New York even when there isn't a natural disaster threatening our city's stability. And when the worst hits us, we aren't sipping our lattes, questioning our personal destinies: we're checking on our neighbors and family and friends; we're traveling great distances on foot to carry or retrieve supplies.

\r\n

\r\nThe worst thing about this storm is that I keep reading and rereading sites for better news and it still has not come. Our subway (our PULSE) is not running to full capacity, and 'heartbreaking' is too selfish a phrase to describe it. Sure, I want to go into work, I want to see what's happening in Manhattan with my own eyes, but, really, let people run their errands, visit their doctors, check on their family members, go back to their lives! Have you ever seen the morning in Manhattan, where all kinds of people are streaming out of the subway, carrying their bagged lunch or wearing their work clothes (uniform, casual, or ultra-fashionable), all driven by the same sense of purpose? Maybe some hate their job, and maybe some aren't challenged, but they all know that there is a job out there that they can do and do it well, and if their current gig isn't it, then the next one will get them closer -- it's some whiff of an American Dream that keeps us waking up earlier and working harder each and every day.

\r\n

\r\nSo in the man-vs-nature debate, it's ridiculous to call New Yorkers more disconnected with nature than the rest of the country. New Yorkers aren't a different kind of human: we're people like everyone else. And we have huge dreams, huge ambitions, and, yes, huge egos and huge mouths. Humans are fragile, but together, we're less so. Natural disasters are hard to plan for and even more challenging to recover from. Give us a break instead of heaping another helping of name-calling, eye-rolling, or an implied sense of an unfounded or directionless life.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nI'm on my fifth day at home in Brooklyn, with power, internet, and provisions, and I'm very grateful. But, like everyone else, I'm more than ready for New York to get back on its feet and win the day. I <3 NY.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e5539faa3b8833017c32fe5ad5970b", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/nataliepo", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00e5539faa3b8833", "displayName" : "nataliepo", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00e5539faa3b88330120a614d07f970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "New York vs Nature" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-07-04T16:08:45Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-07-04T05:56:24Z", "summary" : "**Don't use it**. I mean it. Do not use auto-reply vacation email setting because there is no effective way to use it. Getting \"OOO I'm on vacation\" email from a guy who has a desk next to me is just...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://sekimura.typepad.com/blog/2012/07/how-to-effectively-use-auto-reply-vacation-email.html", "content" : "\"Beach
\r\n\r\n**Don't use it**.\r\n\r\nI mean it. Do not use auto-reply vacation email setting because there is no effective way to use it.\r\n\r\nGetting \"OOO I'm on vacation\" email from a guy who has a desk next to me is just ridiculous. I can visually see his empty desk now and he told me he will be on vacation before he left. Vacation auto-reply email function is not smart enough to determine if recipient knows sender's vacation schedule or not because there is no such a technology to look into my brain from any mail exchange servers delivering the shit. What is even worse is that I'm getting the same auto-reply message every single day! I'm getting old and have a short memory but I not that old to forget you're out or not each day. I DID send an email to you to let you read it later and I knew you're off. (oh wait, are you using vacation mail to prevent getting more email in your inbox? smart ass).\r\n\r\nEmail (technically its delivery protocol SMTP and client access protocol IMAP and POP) is designed in a way to allow us **asynchronous** communication unlike the usual telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Your recipient might see your email or might not. There is no guarantee to have your recipients read your email. Conversely it is totally fine that a sender doesn't get any reply from recipients during his or her two-week vacation. Getting no reply clearly tells me you did not read (or you did not pay attention) my email. I'll find another way around if I need to get your reply like making a telephone call or trying to reach via IM, whatever. It is a absolutely sender's responsibility to complete a task communicating with recipients.\r\n\r\nI'm telling this now because I think you never noticed how annoying the auto-reply is.\r\n\r\nPhoto Credit: Beach Umbrella by Timothy Valentine http://www.flickr.com/photos/el_ramon/4686431861/", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d8341d3fee53ef01774300de50970d", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/sekimura", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d8341d3fee53ef", "displayName" : "Masayoshi Sekimura", "image" : "http://up6.typepad.com/6a00d8341d3fee53ef013487da9745970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "How to effectively use auto-reply vacation email" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-06-10T03:15:33Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-06-10T01:53:48Z", "summary" : "Here are a subset of thoughts that happened as my flight was delayed, until the current moment, where I have about four remaining hours until we touch down in San Francisco. Bring back the Live Blog, I say! Can't keep...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://nataliepo.typepad.com/nataliepo/2012/06/bring-back-the-live-blog.html", "content" : "

Here are a subset of thoughts that happened as my flight was delayed, until the current moment, where I have about four remaining hours until we touch down in San Francisco. Bring back the Live Blog, I say!

\r\n\r\n

The End.  I'm sorry I don't have any WWDC predictions.  Just that everyone will be excited, and there's a chance I'll become a convert to the fandom.  I just hope I fill my newly purchased lime-green spiral notebook with lots of things I didn't know before.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e5539faa3b883301630652391b970d", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/nataliepo", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00e5539faa3b8833", "displayName" : "nataliepo", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00e5539faa3b88330120a614d07f970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "Notes from Flight VX29" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-06-08T16:44:37Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-06-08T12:41:27Z", "summary" : "Apple bloggers are all atwitter over the apparently significant amount of unannounced (\"TBA)\" conference sessions at Apple's annual dorkapalooza (WWDC) next week. I am attending this year1 and so I too have wondered, what is TBA? I have some ideas....", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://hello.typepad.com/hello/2012/06/crazy-apple-predictions.html", "content" : "

Apple bloggers are all atwitter over the apparently significant amount of unannounced (\"TBA)\" conference sessions at Apple's annual dorkapalooza (WWDC) next week. I am attending this year1 and so I too have wondered, what is TBA? I have some ideas.

\n\n\n\n

Like my NBA conference Finals predictions (Thunder in 6, Celtics in 6), I predict that my predictions will be half right. Thanks for reading.

\n\n

1 I am attending for the first time since 2006! Apple announced that an RSS server was going to be built into every desktop that year, and I was thrilled.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d8341e3ac753ef016306402dc4970d", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/david", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d8341e3ac753ef", "displayName" : "David Jacobs", "image" : "http://up7.typepad.com/6a00d8341e3ac753ef0120a644b895970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "Forehead Time" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-05-24T15:35:44Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-05-24T02:13:52Z", "summary" : "On the one hand, Facebook is mired in the same relentless downward pressure of falling per-user revenues as the rest of Web-based media. The company makes a pitiful and shrinking $5 per customer per year, which puts it somewhat ahead...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://fozboot.typepad.com/micro_blog/2012/05/dire-wolff.html", "content" : "

On the one hand, Facebook is mired in the same relentless downward pressure of falling per-user revenues as the rest of Web-based media. The company makes a pitiful and shrinking $5 per customer per year, which puts it somewhat ahead of the Huffington Post and somewhat behind the New York Times' digital business. (Here's the heartbreaking truth about the difference between new media and old: even in the New York Times' declining traditional business, a subscriber is still worth more than $1,000 a year.)

\r\n\r\n

via www.technologyreview.com

\n\n

That's a pretty amazing number. A big difference, of course, is that home delivery of the printed NY Times is much more expensive than any online option. (Full price is $800/year in Berkeley, though I'm sure you can get that discounted in many ways.)

\n\n

Is the rest of the difference advertising? Why is advertising so much more valuable in the print edition? There are a lot of reasons. One I can think of is that the NY Times seems to get a lot of prestige advertising. It is, after all, the "newspaper of record." During the fall, the Sunday Arts section has a full-page ad for seemingly every movie that comes out. Every time a big corporation kills innocent people or wrecks the environment, there goto PR plan is to post an apology in the form of a full-page ad in the editorial section. It's hard to think of an online ad with similar gravitas.

\n\n

The real problem with online advertising is that it's completely metrics/ROI driven, not a cultural institution.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d8345565f069e20168ebbd1d8f970c", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/fozboot", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d8345565f069e2", "displayName" : "Xris Ernest Hall", "image" : "http://up0.typepad.com/6a00d8345565f069e201310ff9618b970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "Dire Wolff " }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-05-18T20:59:35Z", "target" : { "objectType" : "collection", "url" : "http://www.bestendtimesever.com/", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451ce6b69e20120a5054942970b" }, "object" : { "published" : "2012-05-18T20:59:35Z", "summary" : "I groused about Go packages on Twitter and got some helpful replies from some people somehow. As someone new to it, it still seems like a rough spot in the workflow, though. Since Badgerr's TCP chat server is almost exactly...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://www.bestendtimesever.com/2012/05/go-packages-are-for-later.html", "content" : "

I groused about Go packages on Twitter and got some helpful replies from some people somehow. As someone new to it, it still seems like a rough spot in the workflow, though.

Since Badgerr's TCP chat server is almost exactly the low level of what I want to build, I started working from their program. The problem came when I wanted to use the existing code as a sort of “text client” layer and build message passing behavior on top of it. It seemed to me that I needed to split the source code into multiple files.

Unfortunately I can't find where anybody actually explains how you're supposed to do that in Go. That seems exactly what the How to Write Go Code guide should be for, but rather than describe the development lifecycle that you the writer of programs might encounter, it immediately congratulates itself on how easy life will be once you adopt the workspace, an arbitrary place on disk with a made-up mini-hierarchy for your stuff to live.

I already have a workspace for my program. It's a directory on disk. It's fine to have a system in place for deployment and more complicated scenarios, although it would be nice to be like Python and Perl and Ruby and toolify it instead of cluttering my home directory, environment variables and dotfiles like the lump of arbitrary demand it is.

On this theory I ignored workspaces for later. However, I wrongly assumed Go might act like Perl, Python, Ruby, Java or C where you compose your program out of modules, different namespaced units that map roughly to files. Given that, and that the only packaging facility Go seems to have is packages, I then wrongly assumed packages were that modularization system. (Maybe that's partly because Badgerr's program starts in package main, implying your program will have other, less main modules that you'll still write.)

So what I did was move everything but main() into a client.go file, add change main.go to import \"client\". This, of course, did not work at all. Instead you get:

$ go build
can't load package: package .: found packages client (client.go) and main (main.go) in path

I had figured package main was a convention, or at least that go would be smart enough to see which package had a main() function, but seems like it's not.

To really make client.go a package, I have to:

  1. Make a workspace with mkdir -p env/bin env/src env/pkg.
  2. Activate the workspace with export GOPATH=`pwd`/env since relative paths GOPATH don't seem to work, and either worry about it forever or let my environment be fucked up.
  3. mkdir env/src/client && mv client.go env/src/client.
  4. Add env/pkg to .gitignore because it's intermediate build products or third-party downloaded packages or whatever (right?).

But really it comes to the assumption in my original grousing, which is that people do make programs out of multiple packages. It works just as well to have all the program split into files that all build into one package. I expect a complicated enough program will find differently, as this still mashes all the types and functions of all the files into the one package's namespace, but for me, for now, it's fine to go simple.

I thought workspaces were for later and from what I can tell that's right, because you don't even need multiple packages until you want to build a reusable component.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d83451ce6b69e20168eb98c921970c", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "displayName" : "Go packages are for later" }, "verb" : "post", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-05-16T22:53:07Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-05-16T14:00:01Z", "summary" : "Friends and colleagues have asked me my opinion about the coming Facebook IPO. Here it is, as the first post in Hello, TypePad's new series, \"If you tell a story or have a conversation twice you should have blogged it.\"...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://hello.typepad.com/hello/2012/05/the-facebook-ipo.html", "content" : "

Friends and colleagues have asked me my opinion about the coming Facebook IPO. Here it is, as the first post in Hello, TypePad's new series, \"If you tell a story or have a conversation twice you should have blogged it.\" Allow me to start with this insightful post by Chris Dixon about Facebook’s business model:

\n\n

The key question when trying to value Facebook’s stock is: can they find another business model that generates significantly more revenue per user without hurting the user experience? (And can they do that in an increasingly mobile world where display ads have been even less effective.) Perhaps that business model is sponsored feed entries, as Facebook seems to be hoping (along with Twitter and perhaps Tumblr). The jury is still out on that model. Personally, I have trouble seeing how insertions into the feeds aren’t just more prominent display ads. You still have to stoke demand and convert people from non-purchasing to purchasing intents. A more likely outcome is that Facebook uses their assets – a vast number of extremely engaged users, it’s social graph, Facebook Connect – to monetize through another business model. If they do that, the company is probably worth a lot more than the expected $100B IPO valuation. If they don’t, it’s probably worth a lot less.

\n\n

I wonder if it's not too late for Facebook \"to monetize through another business model.\" Sheryl Sandberg shows a graph during Facebook's IPO roadshow video (which is fun and exciting to watch, I hope it comes back on youtube), in which she shows how small a percentage of ad dollars have come on-line, positing that eventually all of these \"off-line\" dollars will migrate on-line. A pessimist might point out that this is exactly what we were hearing from Yahoo! in 1996, and a lot of other companies since then.

\n\n

Facebook may make the best run of it yet, but it feels a little like betting on Duke or Kentucky to win the NCAA's every year. Sure, they have great programs, people and culture, but it is bad business to bet against the field. One of Facebook's genius moves was to use the Facebook Connect API to get a piece of the field by lending their infrastructure to others, but that is still an evolving landscape. If indeed Facebook's revenue model comes from their exploitation of the social graph to serve more relevant ads, I believe other app companies, not to mention news and magazine companies, are very quickly going to stop participating in that social graph. If you think this is unlikely, consider that Facebook has already fired the first shot in this battle by discouraging users from leaving facebook.com, even to other sites that send data back to Facebook about their audience. Anil's post is a few months old, but they are still doing this (it happened to me yesterday).

\n\n

Does this sound crazy to you? Google Plus, while still a punchline, is actually getting better quickly. And Google has already done a good job of creating a good user experience around ads and watching youtube videos (although, sadly, not much else). The good news for Google is that watching youtube videos may turn out to be what a lot of people spend most of their time doing, and a \"second screen\" experience on a mobile device which watching videos or sports on TV or a computer is a nascent, but extremely promising product model.

\n\n

So the short answer is, I do not recommend buying Facebook stock. I think they will build a profitable, successful company, but i don't think it will be at the scale they're advertising. Techcrunch put together a list of things that could \"kill\" Facebook. It's a good list with three caveats:

    \n
  1. Nothing's going to kill Facebook. AOL and Yahoo! are still around and probably will be forever. Facebook will be too.
    2. \n
  2. I don't think hiring young or rising talent will be a huge problem for Facebook going forward. In addition to the salaries they can offer, Facebook has a legendary culture which talented engineers will want to participate in.
    3. \n
  3. And now the much more boring thing that Techcrunch left out: People will think it's creepy that Facebook is sharing so much of their stuff, and they won't be able to build an ad model that is more fun or lucrative than watching YouTube while tweeting.

\n\n

I should also note I'm looking forward to reading PandoDaily's Facebook IPO guide. I think it's a good time to be a geek.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d8341e3ac753ef0168eb8b300a970c", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/david", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d8341e3ac753ef", "displayName" : "David Jacobs", "image" : "http://up7.typepad.com/6a00d8341e3ac753ef0120a644b895970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "The Facebook IPO" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-05-08T23:16:14Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-05-08T18:15:21Z", "summary" : "I saw The Avengers yesterday since everyone I know has been raving about it for weeks saying it was better than every other big budget comic book summer blockbuster (because it had a good script and good cinematography). I thought...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2012/05/transformersavengers-rated-ptsd.html", "content" : "

I saw The Avengers yesterday since everyone I know has been raving about it for weeks saying it was better than every other big budget comic book summer blockbuster (because it had a good script and good cinematography). I thought it was very good for a comic book movie, pretty good overall. It was entertaining, but at the same time disturbing. It took several hours after viewing to figure out what I found unsettling about it, and I'd have to say (slight spoilers) it was the battles that took place in NYC between giant metal evil snake things and the heroes.

\r\n

\"Screen

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Of course it's all computer generated and this is a movie, but it was distracting to see aliens and their ships constantly brushing up against buildings supposedly filled with office workers, knocking down buildings in some cases. While the comic book hero team was trying to save one or two buildings full of people, you'd see a dozen more get damaged. In the end the world gets saved but there's no mention of all the damage and lives lost in the final scenes. It felt weird, like a minor side plot point that was previously mentioned was never mentioned again.

\r\n

I hadn't felt conflicted with entertainment since last summer's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The movie was tough to get through and a total assault of the senses in the battle sequences. It was like watching a difficult war movie (think: Platoon or Thin Red Line) and I couldn't wait for it to be over (I nearly walked out halfway through).

\r\n

\"Screen

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\r\n

With Transformers, the influence was more obvious as the director used constant visual references to 9/11. There was a burning city with smoking skyscrapers, buildings went down after collisions with robots, and there were people diving out of planes (in wingsuits) shown in vertical poses next to buildings like iconic horrifying photos from September 11, 2001.

\r\n

I never thought I was all that affected by the events of 9/11. I was on the West Coast, slept through the first crash and only got to see the second building collapse live on TV after reading everyone's reactions on MetaFilter. I never experienced it in person with my own eyes, just through media from thousands of miles away.

\r\n

Seeing these movies and remembering the horrifying events of that day, I can't sit and watch a movie with CGI monsters battling in a city full of people and not think about the substantial collateral damage happening. Part of my mind knows this is all done on a computer and it's fake robots in fake fights with a few extras running around on the ground and no one was hurt and this is all fiction, but a larger part of my brain remembers the horrifying images from TV that are permanently burned into my brain and I can't really enjoy movies that mimic them in any way.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a010535892f3a970b016766508a74970b", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/matthaughey", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p010535892f3a970b", "displayName" : "Matt Haughey", "image" : "http://up2.typepad.com/6a010535892f3a970b015390e14bb6970b-pi" }, "displayName" : "Transformers/Avengers rated: PTSD" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-05-03T15:58:15Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-05-03T15:43:40Z", "summary" : "I’ve been very fortunate in my career. In 1999 I got to intern at Macromedia on a product that introduced a lot of early designers to the web. At the height of the first bubble I had the opportunity to...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://walt.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/whats-next.html", "content" : "I’ve been very fortunate in my career. In 1999 I got to intern at Macromedia on a product that introduced a lot of early designers to the web. At the height of the first bubble I had the opportunity to work for a company that was pushing the boundaries of digital music, pre-iTunes. Straight out-of-college I became a web designer for a recruitment advertising company, working with huge brands on their employment sites.\r\n\r\nThen I joined Six Apart, a tiny company with huge ambition that was sitting squarely in a space I was immensely interested in. It was an incredible experience that I’ll always be grateful for. I learned a ton about building great web apps, got to design one of the first third-party native apps for the iPhone, and had the pleasure for several years of working alongside my wife.\r\n\r\nSix Apart became SAY Media, where I was able to contribute to nearly a dozen applications and services, both internal and customer-facing. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some incredibly talented people, and I expect they will continue to do great things, both in publishing and advertising.\r\n\r\nI’ve enjoyed these experiences immensely, but there’s a new opportunity that I really don’t want to miss. And with Tabitha returning to work full-time, this is my chance. So, starting next week, I’ll be spending more time at home looking after my daughter, working part-time as a consultant, and developing some other fun little projects.\r\n\r\nI’m pretty excited, a little freaked out, but mostly just looking forward to discovering what’s next. I’ll keep you posted. :)", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d834558d7c69e20168eb149a32970c", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/walt", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d834558d7c69e2", "displayName" : "Walt Grayson", "image" : "http://up4.typepad.com/6a00d834558d7c69e2014e8bf93a92970d-pi" }, "displayName" : "What’s Next" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-05-02T17:21:44Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-05-02T17:06:40Z", "summary" : "[Chris Dixon](http://cdixon.org/) tweeted something the other day I liked. We need someone to standardize privacy policies and terms of service a la Creative Commons.— chris dixon (@cdixon) May 1, 2012 It received a lot of retweets and favorites but I...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://notes.torrez.org/2012/05/frictionless-privacy.html", "content" : "[Chris Dixon](http://cdixon.org/) tweeted something the other day I liked.\n\n

We need someone to standardize privacy policies and terms of service a la Creative Commons.

— chris dixon (@cdixon) May 1, 2012
\n\n\nIt received a lot of retweets and favorites but I didn’t see any more about it. I suspect it’s a bit related to my tweet from a few weeks ago:\n\n

One piece of advice given to me last year that helps me understand why startups sometimes do what they do: “Don’t be thoughtful.”

— Andre Torrez (@torrez) April 10, 2012
\n\n\nWhen we were getting our privacy policy together we spent a few days talking to our lawyer to get something drafted that was fair and reasonable. We posted it and asked for feedback. While nothing changed in text from the date we posted it, we had conversations with users to help them understand what it all meant. I think it was good for our early users to be comfortable, but I really wish I had a toolset like Chris described to make it easier for us and our users to understand.\n\nI discovered [Aza Raskin already had Chris’ idea](http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/privacy-icons/) and took it much further, but since he doesn’t have dates on his posts I can’t tell if it’s a recent or old post. \n\nIt will be a shame if this doesn’t happen.", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d8341bfc1653ef0168eb086de6970c", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/torrez", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d8341bfc1653ef", "displayName" : "torrez", "image" : "http://up6.typepad.com/6a00d8341bfc1653ef012877925de2970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "Frictionless Privacy" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-05-02T03:10:34Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-05-02T02:59:30Z", "summary" : "Surveymonkey: Password rejected Me: Password! Surveymonkey: Password rejected Me: Password! Surveymonkey: Password rejected Me: Hmm....nothing in the LastPass vault....tried all my go-tos....Oh, wait! MailChimp: Password accepted! THERE ARE TOO MANY MONKEY BASED MARKETING PLATFORMS", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://www.dshack.net/2012/05/so-this-happened.html", "content" : "

Surveymonkey: Password rejected

\r\n

Me: Password!

\r\n

Surveymonkey: Password rejected

\r\n

Me: Password!

\r\n

Surveymonkey: Password rejected

\r\n

Me: Hmm....nothing in the LastPass vault....tried all my go-tos....Oh, wait!

\r\n

MailChimp: Password accepted!

\r\n

THERE ARE TOO MANY MONKEY BASED MARKETING PLATFORMS

\r\n

 

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00e5523d9daf88330168eb00e048970c", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/dshackelford", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00e5523d9daf8833", "displayName" : "David", "image" : "http://up7.typepad.com/6a00e5523d9daf8833015435c9cb0b970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "So this happened...." }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-04-17T23:08:25Z", "target" : { "objectType" : "collection", "url" : "http://choon.thegestalt.org/", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a010535d296d4970b012875dab638970c" }, "object" : { "published" : "2012-04-17T23:08:25Z", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://choon.thegestalt.org/2012/04/dirty-ghosts-ropes-that-way.html", "content" : "", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a010535d296d4970b01676544c84e970b", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "displayName" : "Dirty Ghosts – Ropes That Way" }, "verb" : "post", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-04-04T17:39:02Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-04-04T17:31:25Z", "summary" : "Our goal is to get back to our core purpose – putting our users and advertisers first via techcrunch.com Since users and advertisers are distinct groups whose needs and desires are not completely aligned, this statement is invalid.", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://fozboot.typepad.com/micro_blog/2012/04/putting-our-users-and-advertisers-first.html", "content" : "

Our goal is to get back to our core purpose – putting our users and advertisers first

\r\n\r\n

via techcrunch.com

\n\n

Since users and advertisers are distinct groups whose needs and desires are not completely aligned, this statement is invalid.

", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6a00d8345565f069e2016764a39c69970b", "author" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/fozboot", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d8345565f069e2", "displayName" : "Xris Ernest Hall", "image" : "http://up0.typepad.com/6a00d8345565f069e201310ff9618b970c-pi" }, "displayName" : "\"putting our users and advertisers first\"" }, "verb" : "favorite", "actor" : { "objectType" : "person", "url" : "http://profile.typepad.com/markpasc", "id" : "tag:api.typepad.com,2009:6p00d83451ce6b69e2", "displayName" : "markpasc", "image" : "http://up3.typepad.com/6a00d83451ce6b69e2017c371c88b1970b-pi" }, "generator" : "TypePad" }, { "published" : "2012-04-03T15:45:41Z", "object" : { "published" : "2012-04-03T14:40:55Z", "summary" : "I've had this conversation several times, so I will blog it and hopefully never have it again, or have it go on forever, or both! Here are my iPad 3 thoughts: The screen is as fantastic as advertised, and considering...", "objectType" : "article", "url" : "http://hello.typepad.com/hello/2012/04/ipad-3-review.html", "content" : "

I've had this conversation several times, so I will blog it and hopefully never have it again, or have it go on forever, or both! Here are my iPad 3 thoughts:

\n\n