February 2012
8 posts
Technological Progress in Society
There’s an aspect of tech enthusiasm that leads to popular lament of wasted or misdirected skills. But I think the only real way to have an impact on overall industry trends, and thus the focus of collective productive energy, is to start businesses or movements and create cultures within the industry that provide new rallying points, examples and inspiration for other thinkers to riff off. It’s...
On Modern Relationships
During an email conversation with a friend, he remarks and I respond:
I’ve found it notable that friends who might entertain the idea of cheating find the notion of an explicitly open relationship difficult to weather.
I definitely find the same to be true. I think it can be explained with a basic theory of maturity or development in relationships: the naïve or undeveloped are...
An API Ontology →
“That’s what it means to become a leader.
It’s not supreme confidence, it’s not...”
– Bryce Roberts, On Becoming a Leader
1 tag
Faster Specs without Loading Rails
If you’re writing unit specs in a Rails project and you don’t need Rails and all of its machinery to load in your spec while you’re iterating (for instance, because Rails takes 15+ seconds to load), you can just require the class you’re concerned with.
#require 'spec_helper'
require 'rubygems'
require 'active_support/all'
require File.join(*[File.dirname(__FILE__)] +...
1 tag
Tip-toeing in Code
def maybe_activate_frob
frob.activate! if x && y && z || a && b || c
end
vs.
def activate_frob_if_possible
frob.activate! if frob.can_activate?
end
vs.
frob.activate! if frob.can_activate?
I think I prefer the last version.
“Conventional wisdom is, ultimately, found wanting on wise.”
– Jim Maiella, Impossible Happens
I really love that turn of phrase.
January 2012
1 post
“Indoctrination of children into religious belief systems is one of the great...”
– Morality and Persecution, Matt Gemmell
December 2011
5 posts
“NDAA and SOPA are both horrible laws…but they’re also perfectly predictable...”
– What Part of Your Oath Do You Not Understand?, Joel Grus
“I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you...”
– Horribly creepy, idiotic hatred from Newt Gingrich in 1995
What Does ‘Quality’ Mean?
First, Kyle Neath talked about Relentless Quality, which I loved, but wasn’t everything I would say about quality.
Then, Adam Keys talked about Relentless Shipping, which I appreciated, but again was telling a different story.
Then @soopa accused me of not adhering to the mantra of “Relentless Quality” at some point, which was fair, but somehow missed the point based on my personal...
“Quality is a state of mind and a state of work during every step of creation.”
– Quality in Craftsmanship
What’s Next for Brad?
As you may have heard, Gowalla is going to Facebook.
Several of the Gowalla team members will be moving to California to join the Facebook team; I chose to stay in Austin. I moved to Austin in 2010 not only for Gowalla, but for a change in lifestyle. The pace of life, wonderful people, myriad events and warm weather here have conspired to steal my heart. Austin is my home and will stay that way...
November 2011
1 post
Protect The Internet: Defeat SOPA →
October 2011
5 posts
“Remember how you had always thought that slavery was right and proper, and then...”
– Eliezer Yudkowsky, Making History Available – a compelling thought experiment.
“If what you believe doesn’t depend on what you see, you’ve been...”
– Eliezer Yudkowsky, What is Evidence?
“The U.S. President expressly claims the power to target anyone he wants,...”
– Glenn Greenwald on the Obama administration’s killing of the Awlakis.
State Abbreviations
I really dislike the US state abbreviations recommended by the AP Stylebook: “Wis.”, “Mich.”, “Del.”, “Calif.”.
My humble recommendation: use either the standard 2-letter postal abbreviations—WI, MI, DE, CA—or write out the whole state name. This intermediate abbreviation nonsense is messy, anti-formulaic and conveys no additional useful...
September 2011
2 posts
“An actual watchdog press is, first and foremost, eager to expose the corruption...”
– Glenn Greenwald, on media attention given to Iran’s release of American hikers
“The company prefers to announce new products simply when they’re ready, not when...”
– John Gruber, on Apple
August 2011
5 posts
“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
– Stanley Kubrick, 1968
Why I Switched Back to Chrome from Safari 5
I just spent a month using Safari 5.1 on OS X Lion as my default browser. This morning I decided to switch back to Chrome 14 beta. Here are the things in Safari that pushed me away:
The URL completion in the address bar is too aggressive, to the point that it completes URLs that I often don’t want, instead of just completing the next rational segment.
I have to run FastScripts to get...
“I think Mr Paul’s influence on the ideological cast of American...”
– Manufacturing irrelevance by Will Wilkinson
“…delusions are closed logical schemes, where reality is mangled into the service...”
– Venkatesh Rao, The Gervais Principle III
July 2011
6 posts
“For us, democracy is synonymous with elections, but in ancient times elections...”
– Roderick Long, “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class”
“A constitution is not some impersonal, miraculously self-enforcing robot....”
– Roderick Long, Anarchism as Constitutionalism
“Life, like the universe, rounds off to darkness where it runs out of time, and...”
– Timothy Ferris, Seeing in the Dark
“The mistake that [was] made was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men...”
– Dan Savage, quoted in Married, With Infidelities by Mark Oppenheimer
June 2011
2 posts
“There is no society which is so well-designed that it doesn’t require...”
– Bram Cohen on something involving BitCoins, which is less relevant than the quote alone.
“The formula is simple: more prisoners lead to more prisons; more prisons require...”
– Joan Petersilia, The Role of the Prison Guards Union in California’s Troubled Prison System
May 2011
2 posts
“The invader is not coming, though, and ours is not a nation of children. We need...”
– Amina, A Gay Girl in Damascus on the Syrian popular uprising.
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
– Clarence Darrow
April 2011
7 posts
“Because believing in something? Going after it by running as hard as you can?...”
– Frank Chimero, Running Towards
2 tags
Texas State Alcohol Laws Are Embarrassing and...
Dear Texas State Representatives,
As of today, April 24, 2011, it is illegal in the state of Texas to purchase beer from a grocery store before 12pm on a Sunday. Further, liquor cannot be sold in grocery stores, and liquor stores are legally prevented from opening on Sunday.1
Regardless of the historical machinations and opinions that led to this state of affairs, the fact that it persists...
A Better Approach for Creating Ruby Libraries as...
There are several tools out there meant to help you create and manage gems—Ruby packages—for your Ruby libraries. I take issue with most of them and I’ll explain why. These are the tools under consideration:
Jeweler
Hoe
New Gem
Bones
RakeGem
The aspect that I take issue with in all of these tools (except RakeGem) is an extension of Josh Peek’s thoughts on best...
Chris Bradford on Austin’s Bad Rail Plans →
“But when the thinking starts with the love of one technology, you’re in...”
– Jarrett Walker, a transit consultant, on the truth about streetcars
March 2011
5 posts
“Arguing with your co-workers isn’t a bad thing. It’s not creating a negative...”
– Kyle Neath on Product Design
“Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves, is all we will ever have – and...”
– Philip Appleman
“As recently as 1993, three kid-oriented genres—animated movies, movies based on...”
– The Day the Movies Died (via Give Me Something To Read)
February 2011
7 posts
“…the same forces and mechanics that slowly turned unions from a force of...”
– DHH on IT departments and labor unions