New design factors for Robot Cars. Absolutely fascinating. My current Prius will likely be the last car I ever own. The sooner ideas like those in this post see reality, the better.
Month: October 2012
Status
Had a great day at UserConf and am taking a late-night flight back to Portland. Long two days but so worth it.
Status
Three talks in to UserConf and I am super impressed. One of the better conferences I’ve been to in a long while.
Thomas Brand, writing about the importance of setting the right expectations:
The most valuable part of setting expectations is telling the truth, even if the truth means you don’t know, but are willing to find out. I am much more likely to remain a customer of companies that treat me with respect by setting expectations, and sticking to their word.
So true. Trying to set a false expectation or trying to cover up that you don’t actually know the answer may have short-term benefits, but in the end the customer will find out the truth. If you’re up front and honest with them from the start things work out much better.
…on the web, it’s impossible to maintain the fiction that you can gather a single public together in one place. There’s always going to be one link further that you never explored, or one site that is totally different from you. And I think one of the things that the web does to journalism is that it gives lie to the notion that journalism can ever represent “the public.” And that makes us cynical about news.
Table Mountain
Great hike today with Daniel. Killer incline in the hike up but handily we came down a more gradual route.
Topped it off with a delicious milkshake after.
Sometimes to do a job well takes time, and that’s cool, but that time needs balance; I don’t care how much you love your work, if you neglect other things and you’ll likely burnout eventually. You can’t thrive without balance, it’s simply not sustainable.
Status
One month in and I’m back up to my regular distance running in my barefoot shoes. Took a while to get comfortable but I can feel a huge difference in my legs.
On newspapers, over-branding and “blogs”
But the one and only brand that matters, no matter the medium? The Seattle Times.
There’s a lot to be said for simplicity.
PIE Demo Day
Getting started in just a few.