So, you decided to build a real application. Not a toy. Not a hobby project. Something that’s supposed to last, supposed to scale, supposed to work and remain reliable.
It’s always tempting to try out new frameworks, technologies and toys when starting a new project just because. But over the years I’ve found that, for every minute of work you save when some framework does something magical for you, you’ll later spend 10 minutes going through the framework source code to figure out how to do something that works even slightly contrary to its design.
Whenever you work with someone else’s technology or framework, you ought to be prepared to own it entirely, i.e. to read & know most of its source code & documentation. Otherwise, don’t be surprised to find yourself working at 4AM on a Friday-night.
For five hair-thinning years I have attempted to infuse iconic graphic artistry in everything from printed brochures to online banner ads. I lead a crew of energetic but woefully trendy young designers who have never learned to set type by hand and never will. My account team is combative and seems to delight in miscommunicating with clients.
Before he was 25, he’d invented what is now one of the most ubiquitous iOS app features around. At 28, Loren Brichter is continuing to push the boundaries of what an app can do. We sat down and talked about his future and that of iOS.
I’ve always been a big fan of Loren’s apps. It still angers me that Tweetie has been so shoddily handled by Twitter.
Jason Kottke has a good analysis of Apple’s announcement to bring some of their manufacturing back to the US (whereas today everything is “Designed by Apple in California — Made in China”). But it’s not all good news:
So basically, energy in the US is cheap right now and will likely remain cheap for years to come because hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking aka that thing that people say makes their water taste bad, among other issues) has unlocked vast and previously unavailable reserves of oil and natural gas that will take years to fully exploit. A recent report by the International Energy Agency suggests that the US is on track to become the world’s biggest oil producer by 2020 (passing both Saudi Arabia and Russia) and could be “all but self-sufficient” in energy by 2030.
Spending money is very easy. Spending money effectively is very hard. There are lots of dodgy people & service providers out there who will promise the world, send the invoices, and deliver mediocrity six months late. Or worse.
It’s helpful if you can eliminate these chancers from your considerations early on, to make sure you’re only talking to people well equipped to solve the problem you have. This is where the Orange Juice Test comes in.
Good anecdote, and a good test to filter out the bullshit-artists.
Working as a webdesigner in the notoriously bi-lingual country of Belgium, I enjoyed this A List Apart article by Antoine Lefeuvre. Take it from me, designing & building sites to be language-independent takes a lot of hard work to get right.
However I won’t agree with his opinion that the french dubbed version of The Big Lebowski is somehow superior to the original, out of principle. Movies should always be enjoyed in the language they were shot in, with subtitles if necessary. I find dubbing over original actors’ performances disrespectful, and I think it ruins movies.
The Verge has a good exposé of Samsung’s history and “chaebol” style of management & succession:
But the company’s rise to the top has been tainted with controversy. Samsung is the quintessential example of a chaebol, that uniquely Korean brand of conglomerate that mixes Confucian values with family ties and government influence. Accusations of corruption and cozy establishment connections, conviction over an embezzlement scandal, strained family relationships that threaten the traditional chaebol structure, and a bruising patent battle with Apple have taken the polish off Samsung’s — and Lee’s — glittering business record. Who is Lee Kun-hee, and how has he managed to survive this delicate balance of stress and success? And where next for the company, which still yearns to be taken seriously as a force for innovation?
I honestly can’t understand people who claim to like Samsung, the company. I can understand someone not liking Apple, but liking Samsung? A billion dollar multi-national corporation run by a bunch of corrupt nepotists, which is guilty of all the same business practices Apple gets flak for (exploitative factory conditions, engaging in patent warfare, etc…), but all without a displaying a single shred of true innovation, or even originality?
A most excellent web experiment by the clever chaps & chap-ettes over at the BBC:
Explore the BBC sound of the 1960s with our 4 demos of Radiophonic equipment, built with the new Web Audio APIstandard. Each demo comes with commented code, so you can learn how to build your own audio applications.
Of course there’s Daleks & Cybermen.
Sound was really one of the last vestiges of “things you could only do with Flash”, so is this one of the final nails in its coffin?
