I am Pedantic.

Technological Progress in Society

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:31:29 -0600

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 like one big organism where each tiny bit has its own agency, but as a whole the average tends to move toward the most compelling ideas of the time.

On Modern Relationships

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:26:56 -0600

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 jealously guarded about the status quo in their relationship, whatever it may be. This may just be a manifestation of loss anxiety applied to a high-value personal asset (the relationship or partner), where the person feels judged for their own ability to keep their mate. In this view, marriage is a sort of release valve, where they can end most of their anxiety by pledging monogamy (and receiving loyalty) forever. But the very naïvete or lack of development that led to their anxiety often leads to the destruction of their relationship (sometimes via cheating) because they never learn to grow the relationship with their partner.

This type of reflection often strikes me as tragic with my knowledge of US history, especially considering things like post-WWII soldiers coming back to claim their wives and start their families. They had no reason to believe that locking a wife down and not worrying about it anymore wasn’t the right course of action. As women’s liberation continued in the ensuing decades, American men had the same or similar expectations to their fathers, but the set of possible relationship dynamics was expanding beneath their feet and they were socially ill-equipped for the change. Hence the sharply increased divorce rates and romanticizing about the good old days, back when a man could rely on his wife-for-life to raise his kids and be quiet about it.

The standard narrative is that there’s something wrong with modern couples—that they are somehow morally corrupted or at least lazy, and thus can’t hold a relationship together. But under this alternate reading, it’s clear that people are just trying to navigate new relationship styles with an old set of rules, which are often insufficient and destructive to the goal of shared happiness, gender equality, fulfillment of desires, etc. that have come out of the movement for women’s liberation. I think divorce (and maybe marriage) rates will go down over the next couple decades as people come to grips with their new-found freedoms and figure out how to navigate their relationships successfully, whether with a permanent partner or not.

An API Ontology

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:03:03 -0600

An API Ontology

URL turds are the annoying hash (#) marks that get left on the...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:37:00 -0600

URL turds are the annoying hash (#) marks that get left on the end of a URL when a front-end developer didn’t do their job by suppressing the default event on JavaScript clicks.

When you are tempted to use , don’t. Add a click handler to an element that’s not a link—you’re not linking to anything!

URL turds are a pox upon humanity and must not be tolerated.

"That’s what it means to become a leader. It’s not supreme confidence, it’s not fire and it’s not..."

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:05:23 -0600

“

That’s what it means to become a leader.

It’s not supreme confidence, it’s not fire and it’s not swagger. It’s doggedly and unglamorously trying to improve day after day, year after year.

”

- Bryce Roberts, On Becoming a Leader

Faster Specs without Loading Rails

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:40:17 -0600

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__)] + %w[.. lib services mything])

I use this when I’m writing specs for an isolated service object or adapter class, for instance, and I need to re-run the specs constantly. When I’m done I can just remove the 3 extra requires and go back to requiring spec_helper.

It’s not a long-term fix or anything—just a quick hack to get specs running faster when you’re iterating quickly on an isolated piece of code.

Tip-toeing in Code

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:39:53 -0600


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."

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:59:39 -0600

“Conventional wisdom is, ultimately, found wanting on wise.”

- Jim Maiella, Impossible Happens

I really love that turn of phrase.

"Indoctrination of children into religious belief systems is one of the great unpunished intellectual..."

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:05:26 -0600

“Indoctrination of children into religious belief systems is one of the great unpunished intellectual and social crimes of human history, and it continues almost unabated to this day.”

- Morality and Persecution, Matt Gemmell

"NDAA and SOPA are both horrible laws…but they’re also perfectly predictable consequences of having..."

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:52:19 -0600

“NDAA and SOPA are both horrible laws…but they’re also perfectly predictable consequences of having the kind of busybody government that you’ve been loudly clamoring for your whole life.”

- 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 if you do this."

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:02:48 -0600

“I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this.”

- Horribly creepy, idiotic hatred from Newt Gingrich in 1995

What Does ‘Quality’ Mean?

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:02:54 -0600

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 conception of quality.

So I wrote something about Quality in Craftsmanship to try to convey the way I approach quality and what I think it means.

"Quality is a state of mind and a state of work during every step of creation."

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:38:56 -0600

“Quality is a state of mind and a state of work during every step of creation.”

- Quality in Craftsmanship

What’s Next for Brad?

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:43:58 -0600

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 for a long time to come.

It’s impossible to quantify the value of the time I spent with the Gowalla family. I feel I have made lifelong friends while working with some of the most talented people in the business. I will miss those who are moving to California, but I wish them the best and look forward to great things from all of them—this is a team that doesn’t compromise on vision or quality.

As for myself, I’ll be joining the team at OtherInbox for new adventures in software and product development. I’m quite happy to have found another high-caliber team with whom I am eager to work, while maintaining my home in this great city.

Protect The Internet: Defeat SOPA

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:40:37 -0600

Protect The Internet: Defeat SOPA

BMW 1-series M

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:25:45 -0500

BMW 1-series M

"Remember how you had always thought that slavery was right and proper, and then you changed your..."

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:29:27 -0500

“Remember how you had always thought that slavery was right and proper, and then you changed your mind.”

- Eliezer Yudkowsky, Making History Available – a compelling thought experiment.

"If what you believe doesn’t depend on what you see, you’ve been blinded as effectively..."

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:20:29 -0500

“If what you believe doesn’t depend on what you see, you’ve been blinded as effectively as by poking out your eyeballs.”

- Eliezer Yudkowsky, What is Evidence?

"The U.S. President expressly claims the power to target anyone he wants, anywhere in the world, for..."

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:46:02 -0500

“The U.S. President expressly claims the power to target anyone he wants, anywhere in the world, for death, including his own citizens; he does it in total secrecy and with no oversight; and this power is not just asserted but routinely exercised.”

- Glenn Greenwald on the Obama administration’s killing of the Awlakis.

State Abbreviations

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:09:55 -0500

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 information to the reader.