OK, so...

No one reads this (good work, self!) so here goes...

Don't make shitty product.
Don't make shitty product then goad friends into telling you, shit-eating smiles on their faces, that it is a GOOD product.
Don't make shitty product then goad friends into telling you, shit-eating smiles on their faces, that it is a GOOD product and also prod them to share your shitty product as though it were good.
Don't make shitty product then goad friends into telling you, shit-eating smiles on their faces, that it is a GOOD product and also prod them to share your shitty product as though it were good and also tell people you are gonna charge them for the privilege of watching your clearly terrible product at some point.

Capisce? OK. This won't stop anything or anyone from continuing to do what I see them doing, but I thought it was important to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

Endings

Yesterday a friendship I thought would last ended. She and I once thought it would end a certain way. Now, in a way, it has. Not exactly, but close. It's a lot like the end of the His Dark Materials trilogy... Two universes, forever sealed off from one another. I remembered this while watching a bunch of Dr. Who today... and wound up watching the one where the Doctor says goodbye to Rose. Prophetic.

Infrastructure

Our infrastructure investments in the 1950's payed huge dividends. Unfortunately there's a lot of dummies in Congress now who don't feel like we should continue to invest in a strategic advantage. And our infrastructure is crumbling.

What's up with kids today?

My kids seemed different today. I keep wondering if it was something their mom did, or their age but... I'm hopeful it was the new structure and energy at my house. I've added a calendar, daily menu and several specific activity areas. Plus, I've managed to organize the house so I can keep it clean easily.

We had very few arguments, and spent about 30 minutes reading in the living room together. That was cool. Then my son said he was really relaxed at my place, and he liked it here. Cool.

Depression

It's going to be a long night. I've sat on my futon for a few hours and let the world slip by as I dove into social media, getting more misanthropic by the moment. What's interesting about when I have these down days:
- My "wit" -- particularly the acerbic side of it -- goes up exponentially
- My "fuck or fight" switch goes to FIGHT the entire time and I get combative
- They are often preceded by several great days where I feel wildly open and aware...

Dunno what any of that means. And I think I'm safe from hurting myself. I was never one to try suicide, although I've had those thoughts. Now I just think of my kids and how I can't leave them behind -- it would alter them in terrible ways and the world needs them.

Besides, why kill myself? The misanthrope in me wants to kill the world, Alderaan-style. At least then I wouldn't have to check Twitter incessantly for validation.

Why do I bother?

This has happened to me three times this year and I'm over it. Someone asks a question on Facebook, apparently unaware technologies like "Google" exist, and it happens to be something I know about. So I leave a comment with my knowledge. Can you guess what happens next? A cavalcade of morons show up, either contradicting my information or adding completely useless or incorrect info.

A lot of it has to do with poorly-formed queries. Asking "when do I plant?" doesn't provide enough information. Planting seasons are slightly variable and highly dependent on region and PLANT SPECIES. So of course the advice from my expert gardener friend was immediately countermanded by someone who had "planted from seeds as late as May"... Well, yes. If you are planting something that will do that. But if you are planting certain other things, you are now officially fucked. But who cares?

Maybe I'll go into Facebook and start posting the most ridiculous nonsense... Nah, I don't have time for that bullshit. It's better to remove my energy from the entire situation.

Steubenville

I can't believe the bullshit surrounding this. Pretty much all of the TV networks are acting like these guys were blameless somehow. I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where the judge keeps ruling "boys will be boys." We've utterly failed boys in this country.

But then there are the women. We've failed them, too. Crap like Limbaugh calling a woman seeking birth control a slut... We nurture these attitudes and then don't have the backs of the kids who are victimized.

Anyway, about CNN, who has been one of the worst offenders. Where's the call for the female employees to walk out the door? When Cnet got shit on by its parent companies, a lot of holier-than-thou folks said they should walk, and frankly reportage on consumer electronics is about a million times less important than the story of some football punks raping a 16 year-old girl.

We really have no perspective. Humanity's greatest curse.

Then there's this

I (to my somewhat dismay) left an arc that could have sailed me into the game world long ago, but I still keep the industry in the corner of my eye. Considering iOS games are a huge chunk of the App Store, I have to, don't I?

But I also fall into the trap of poking fun at Zynga, and, largely based on 2nd-hand info and circumspect stories online, I tend to vilify Mark Pincus. Apparently he's either a decent human or is as good a fraud as Rasputin.

I like to think his heart is in the right place, even if his company is determined to rip other designers off. This heartfelt story about his one-time technical assistant is an interesting perspective on the guy.

Another reminder not to judge.

A poorly-written, too-long screed on The Atlantic trying to justify terrible business practices

Via Kara Swisher, this way-too-long rant in response to a journalist who was asked to work for free for The Atlantic.

While I don't have a zero-tolerance policy against working for free, I do believe that if you are asked to work for free doing what you do for a living you should be paid. I think there are some gray areas -- comedians tend to make their livings via live performances and recordings. If I ask some little-known comics to help build something cool, I may ask them to briefly work for sweat equity...

In fact, early in Weblogs, Inc. contributors DID work for free. When I started the pay was at $4 a post. Crazy, right? But we knew Jason and Brian were building something cool. So we invested with our time.

The Atlantic isn't doing that. The Atlantic is saying "our business sucks, so our solution is to pay shit." Well, considering the quality of that online editor's screed, you are getting exactly what you are (not) paying for, Atlantic.

No concept of time

I've been using Pomodoros to help focus my attention on a myriad of projects I'm working on and it's been working well so far. Unfortunately I'm still seeking a happy medium between my brain and my ability to focus...

A lot of the time I have to sort of smack myself when I reach for something else to distract myself from a task that should be completed within 20 minutes or so.

Then, today, I set a timer for 8 minutes to bake some food. It felt like a second. Another 2 minute timer felt about the same.

Short and much longer timeframes seem to baffle my monkey brain. Around 15 minutes, however, and LOOK SQUIRREL!

Hey user, you're a fucking idiot

It was nice of Agile to point me to this article on why my app.net username, email, password and ALL registration efforts failed (completely failed -- there was no record at all in 1PW) to be captured by 1Password.

Except none of what is on that article is applicable. Let's take these one at a time (because I totally have time for this bullshit).

1. Ask to save logins isn't checked. Nope. It is, and works fine for lots of sites except when it doesn't. Guess it's my fault.

2. 1Password will only save once per site. Nope, it always prompts on AOL logins no matter what, and I've seen it pop up on several other sites which are logged in 1PW. Guess it's my fault.

3. and 5. are about Flash. There's no Flash on this page. I have yet to detect Flash on any app.net pages. Guess it's my fault.

4. Maybe. It's possible there was something on the page... but Agile says it "works for them" which is the douchebag's call of... you guessed it... "GUESS IT'S YOUR FAULT."

Sigh.

"Raising children is highly personal..."

Amen to that. Great article by working mom and editor-in-chief of PandoDaily, Sarah Lacy.

Why I'm bad at delegating

I've had bad experiences locally. I blame this on not surrounding myself with the best at all times. But that's also a factor of the shallow gene pool I've landed in. It's why I miss towns like Nashville, where a larger population often leads to more A team players. Oh well.

Sarah Lacy learned much from Michael Arrington

Like "How To Hate Yahoo Without Really Trying" and "How To Presume You Know How to Turn Around A Giant Company." These two hilarious skills (also two main arrows in the quiver of blogger "analysis" these days) are on full display in this pretty empty article on pandodaily.

First half of the article is basically explaining to another site that people in the Valley operate on another level than "most" Americans. You know, like how most Americans barely know how to use anything?

Yet in tech startup meccas like SF and NYC, people presume that all humans would simply rather be wearing a pair of glasses that allow you to "share" all your moments of glory: Like sitting on the couch eating an entire pint of ice cream whilst watching a COPS marathon. Riveting!

Anyway, then Lacy goes on to point out how hard it must have been to revamp the Yahoo main page. Yes, I bet it was. And then she goes on to prognosticate that "It's still not goin to save Yahoo."

Well, duh. A homepage makeover will not ignite the imagination and it won't convert former users. Hell, if anything it can (see Netscape) piss off the base and LOSE short-term traffic.

However, as one who also works at a once-mighty portal company, I would caution Lacy that it takes time to turn around such a massive ship. How long has Meyer been in place? This move is actually quite fast, as was the awesome redo of the Flickr app.

Look, first you have to bring a company up to the present. THEN you can focus on leaping ahead. Why is this so hard for "get it shipped to your door within seconds" Silicon Valley writers to grok?

Oh, right.

Fired over comments? I can relate.

Former TUAW blogger and all-around nice guy Chris Ullrich tweeted this story by Sprudge unmasking the Bitter Barista, who was subsequently fired from his City Coffee job.

As a fan of comedy and free speech, I think that sucks for the author of the blog, who was working on a book deal, etc. I'm not sure if Sprudge "got" the joke here.

Anyway, at my first "real" full-time working for the man job in the dot-com era, I was fired for private comments.

The company I worked for had hired some college kid to do a crappy job of our intro animation (yeah, remember Flash intro animations? I was not a fan of it back then either) and I emailed the owners of a design site and offhandedly mentioned, please don't go to our site www.blahblah.com because it sucks. The rest of my email was praising them for an aqua-style button tutorial for Photoshop they had posted. So my boss's boss does a search for our goofy, unique, dot-com era name on Yahoo (this was before Google was king) and guess what comes up? Derp.

 I learned a few lessons when I was fired and had to come home to tell my then 7-months pregnant wife about it that day.

1. If you have problems with management, TELL THEM ABOUT IT. Specifically, if you see dumb things happening, try to inject some sense into the conversation. That hasn't always been easy at AOL, but frankly in the past couple of years I have seen a complete turnaround. Awesome, smart, energetic people are working there and getting things done. 
2. Mark private conversations private, use a disclaimer when something is off the record. This should go without saying, but I'm still guilty of not doing it in some cases (rarely). Luckily I trust the people I work with and know that I can be open and honest with them. 
3. Dee Haslam taught me a trick to write up a huffy email, then save it. Come back to it later and see if you still want to use that same tone. I frequently do not.

Foursquare can merge location data, but not user data

I love that companies with millions and millions of bucks in VC can figure out how to combine complex location data, but when I screw up an email and have to create a new account I'm just fucked. When I got my iPhone 5 I incorrectly added @me instead of @mac (also kudos to Apple for forcing these stupid changes through the years). So now I have one, basically orphaned account, which has a bunch of family stuff and history, plus one new account with some awesome check-ins I'll never get back if I delete. OH and it is tied to a bunch of apps already. Unbelievable. There's "no way to fix" because I'm likely .00002% of their user base with this issue. Still, it's nonsense.

This is exactly what I was told as a child, and this is why I'm the black sheep of the family

At Macworld/iWorld last week I watched Josh Gad and Ashton Kutcher talk about making Jobs (or jOBS or JOBS, depending on what paper you write for). Ashton got a little emotional as he spoke about a key moment for him, hearing Jobs talk about how we all have the power to change the world. Well, maybe not all of us. He never says "we all have the power" because I think, like me, Steve realized that not everyone can be a great leader.

Anyway, I think this is powerful stuff. I was always told to just go to school, don't make waves, get good grades, and you will graduate and find a nice happy cog in the machine to fall into and your life will be "nice" and "safe."

My life has been awesome and I was a C-student who changed majors 3 times, took 5 years to graduate then graduated with a B average in film school. We had our second kid when I had no job. Another favorite quote is from Auntie Mame: "Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving!"

Here's the video:

Why is everyone hating on Vine?

Not everything they make in Silicon Valley is useful. Not everything they make is beautiful, or even functional. But sometimes you have to drop your cynicism and think like a "normal" person when you cover tech. In fact, you should do it often if you find yourself getting burnt out.

Vine launched today, and I thought it was pretty cool. Short clips, a clean UI, and a clear purpose. But some tech folks really hated it. Granted, the service had some hiccups (I didn't encounter any), but I like just tapping the screen to record video. I like that you are limited. I even like that you can't use the front-facing camera -- which sent some people in a nano-rage, apparently.

Maybe these limitations were on purpose? Like a director films scenes a certain way, edits a certain way, perhaps the developers and designers are deliberately corralling you into a behavior pattern.

Granted, I can see how some people would hate this. If you are used to tweaking the kerning on your menu bar using Terminal, maybe this "lack of power features" is pissing you off.

Hey, people complain about that same stuff when they talk about Apple vs. Android.

Circle complete.

Update: Mashable has a hit piece on Vine. It's terrible. You have to be kidding me. This is the level of snark we've descended to?
1. Bugs and glitches. Uh, so you switched away from the app and it didn't magically pick up where you left off recording? WHAT APP DOES THIS NOW? None. That's idiotic. IRC drops when I switch away from Colloquy on iOS, because that's how that shit works. Dummy, video recording ALWAYS ends when you drop out of ANY video app. Jeebus, where do they find these n00bs to write words at Mashable?
2. "Hardware limitations"... again with the damn front-facing camera. Guys, those videos are shit. Also, I shot a video today of myself where (SHOCK) I turned the fucking camera around. Here's hoping NYC hipsters figure this magical method of shooting themselves ASAP. The world depends on it.
3. Sharing on completion ONLY. Well yeah, I wish this was enabled. But Instagram (despite the writer's claim) did NOT have this initially. Even now it's not really evident. Besides, that's sort of not the fucking point of Vine, which is still eluding the technorati.
4. No Tumblr support. Are you kidding me? What the shit? OMG I CAN'T MAKE GIFS! Somehow the universe will continue.

I'm perfectly happy with what Vine is. Imagine this sort of bullshit when Path came out. There are lots of limitations in Path, and they are there on purpose. But because the developer is a beloved member of the technorati, Path gets a pass. And because Vine was acquired by Twitter, the technorati are loving to hate on it.

Sad, really.

De-cluttering

Another life change this year: Stop hoarding. I'm probably a 3 on the hoarding scale, but I am sentimental about "stuff"... and I always see the potential in junk. I like to think when I'm retired (at 102), I'll make junk sculptures on my floating junk island. Not sure if my girlfriend is on board for that.

Anyway, this year I'm getting rid of half my stuff. Not giving away, but selling and/or parting with it. Admittedly, about 10% of that 50% might go into cold storage -- I have some geeky artifacts I'd like to keep around for a sort of museum thing I'm planning down the road.

But in my house itself I find I have way, way too much stuff. I'm simplifying my tools, trashing the loose bits and focusing on making new things, not collecting old ones.

"Fuck you, your memories and your daughter" -- Instagram's response to a father's request for his daughter's images

I'd hate to think what would happen were my daughter to die and I asked for this, but here's Instagram's robo-response when I asked to have the pics my daughter took and uploaded to Instagram (she can't hold hundreds of photos on her iPod touch because it is only 8 GB).

Note that they won't even respond if they find your account is in violation. All your data is just gone.

There is ZERO recourse here. Instagram will no doubt delete all of her data, even if I were to try to challenge this in court (as her father, do I not get a say?).

So a year of journaling, a year of me missing events, but I could see on Instagram, are about to be deleted. No judge, no jury, no appeal.

Just a fuck you. Fuck you right back, Instagram. I'm done with the service and will soon be deleting everything I've ever added. Going back to Flickr.

Update: Account deleted.

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JAN 21, 2013  |  06:51PM UTC

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