Month: May 2014

Four Million to One. How Brian Cervino handles support for Trello. What stood out most to me was that 4 million users generate just 300 support threads a week.

What Is the Business of Literature?

the book is a technology so pervasive, so frequently iterated and innovated upon, so worn and polished by centuries of human contact, that it reaches the status of Nature.

Sex Work and the Limits of American Libertarianism:

When one’s commitment to markets takes precedence over one’s commitment to challenging discrimination, it’s almost inevitable that fair treatment for marginalized groups falls by the wayside.

Apple’s cloud

Around 11:30 today I dropped my iPhone from about six inches off the floor. It somehow landed in the one spot of the corner where the screen doesn’t crack or shatter but also isn’t quite whole. It looked as if the adhesive bonding screen and glass loosened.

By 12:10 I had a Genius Bar appointment. After talking with a wonderfully helpful employee I had a new phone in my hand for free. 40 minutes later it was as if I never dropped my phone in the first place.

iCloud made restoring that easy. Every application, every photo, every setting was right where I left it. I had to re-enter my password in a handful of apps and that was it.

Apple may have weaknesses in their web services, but the safety net iCloud provides feels truly magical.

The Rumpus Interview with Astra Taylor:

It wasn’t that people wanted things for free and asked for advertising to fund it—it’s that these companies wanted to amass an audience whose “eyeballs” they could sell, and they gave people things for free to do that. Free services and content has been foisted upon us because there wasn’t the will power to explore other options.

Her new book sounds fascinating as well.

Documenting Conferences

Last week I attended Write the Docs. As with previous events I took real-time notes of the talks. Over the last two years that resulted in 32,515 words of notes. It seems fitting to spend so much time documenting a documentation conference.

The ephemerality of conferences frustrates me. Events bring a knowledgeable group of people together. During the conference energy and ideas are palpable but when attendees go home that all fades in to the ether. The occasional slide deck makes it online, but we lose so much. The context, references, and verbiage of a speaker are lost. Scrawled notes on paper are rarely, if ever, shared with those who couldn’t make the conference.

Freely available, web-based, text notes persist across time. Those not able to attend can still learn. Those who do attend can reflect and remember. Ultimately, when the conference ends the learning continues. When multiple people publish notes you learn what parts of a talk resonate with whom. You are able to collectively document a shared experience.

In the future I would love to see more people actively documenting conferences. Notes help us move our respective communities forward. With notes speakers can build upon the talks of others rather than reinventing the wheel with each event. Notes help us spread knowledge beyond the few hundred people fortunate enough to attend. With notes we assert control over the ephemerality of conference knowledge.

The logic of Buddhist philosophy. Modern logic and Western philosophy’s struggle to understand contradictions.

Capital Flows:

Rap is both a ladder up economic strata and what you play on your headphones while you climb. If rap could listen to music, it would listen to rap.

No New Tools:

So, now I come to the part where I make my plea: no new tools, please. If you are interested in improving how people work, you should devise methods for work, manners of behavior, and methods of decision making. Document your ideology and apply it with existing tools, so nearly anyone can follow along.

Working from home. Matt Gemmell’s tips, tricks, and advice for working from home. The tip on buying a nice chair is key. Ensuring that you’re happy with the physical environment goes a long way.