Someone designed the framework like a big game of Jenga. Every time someone went into fix something they pulled it out of the core and put it on top. Now the whole thing is unstable.
—Mark Jen, talking about building code on top of bad OO architecture
Category: web development
All about building a website but the administrative/business stuff: that goes in “business and economics.”
Slick ad
Very impressive flash Ad from Apple.
The ad is just a regular until you click for sound and then the ad really starts up. The reason: Two independent SWF files that sync actions across themselves. Both ads have to be delivered at the same time. Clever use of shape and placement of those ads to tell a funny story.
im n ur feed, posting ur fotos
Another Friday afternoon ego boost, this time from Mashable and ValleyWag.
Thanks, Owen! 🙂
[newsfeed stuff after the jump]Continue reading
Thoughts on graphic design: colors
Ironing my clothing is always always a reminder that I have an obsession with the color blue that borders on unhealthy. And not just any blue: really dark navy blue. Good thing dyes are synthetic because all of India would still be under colonial rule to keep up with my need for blue clothing.
Blue and me seem to always be brought together. In evangelical summer camp, I was assigned to the Galatians—if I told you that the other team was the Romans who were red, you can guess what color the Galatians were. My high school colors: Blue and gold. My house colors: Page blue. Heck, even that running joke that is the “south bay uniform” wasn’t my choice: my entire wardrobe of blue oxford button downs are actually hand-me-downs from my brother.
I’ve known this for a while now. That’s why when I made my resume five years ago, I chose… red and yellow. The resume is littered with other little design jokes (like the use of rules instead of white space, or the css “resume” garden markup.)
[Favorite colors in design after the jump.]Continue reading
Web n point Oh!
Long before Jason Calacanis’s prank, Web 3.0 was supposed to be “the semantic web.” So when I received an invite to this talk, I had to forward it on to Dave, especially in light of this post. The inside joke is, Dave or I have been doing vertical search professionally since 2000. And if there is one thing we’ve learned:
“[The semantic web] may list Brittney Spears ringtones in the description, but the page offers viagra.”
—David Kellogg, “Semantic web, please go away”
(The only exception I take with the above is that what isn’t attributable to malice can be attributable to incompetence.)
Dave loved the invite, and then started to nail the world wide history of the once and future web in order to improve the discussion at the Stanford/MIT VLAB panel:
[Web 1.0 through Web 7.0. after the jump.]Continue reading
The Dutch
“Please tell me you guys aren’t getting in bed with Google. I actually find myself rooting for annoying-ass Fuckerberg because of this Open Syphilis shit.”
—e-mail from a friend
I’ve had a number of people who know what I do as a day job ask me what I think about Google’s OpenSocial initiative. Maybe it’s because they know I’m so opinionated and they just want to hear me go off.
What’s strange is how few of those actually involved with the project have asked me what I thought (Answer: none of them). They know that I’m not a photographer, or a socialite, or “they guy who does Lunch 2.0” and yet they’ve been strangely silent before, during, and after the announcement. It turned out I only found out about this at all, because of people who know me only as a photographer, socialite (laugh!), and “the guy who does Lunch 2.0.”
Now I won’t go out to state my opinion about OpenSocial beyond the question: You parlayed my friendship for this? I guess you can guess what I think about OpenSocial from that.
Chalk this up to another incessant reminder of why I hate the high school antics of the Valley. Had any of them bothered to ask me about this, here is a tip I could have given them: when you make a list, there are much bigger companies in the Valley than Facebook that are going to be disappointed they weren’t invited to the party.
Slick move, ace!
I alluded to this bitterly in a previous post, but to further highlight the absurdity of the who was and wasn’t invited to the “Open”(laugh!)Social, I was talking to another friend:
“They leaked this well in advance to the ‘largest social network in Holland.’ In Holland??? Can you believe?”
D—: “Haha. I sort of like the Dutch. They sort of sound like Germans but act nicer.”
“The only thing I know about the Dutch is that they’re awfully tall.”
D—: “Maybe it’s to keep their heads above sea level.”
Ahh, trust my friends to put everything in perspective.
(After that conversation he sent me this to cheer me up.)
Spontaneous Drinking
They say a great idea comes from seeing a need and satisfying it.
In the Web 2.0 world, most of the ideas come from taking what people have been doing and putting an “Un—” in front of it.
So you have BarCamp an un-conference. Then you have Lunch 2.0, the un-power lunch. Heck you’d think this whole Web 2.0 bubble would be powered by 7 Up, the un-cola, but really it’s something more like Red Bull, which as near as I can figure is the un-un-cola.
In case this turns out big, I’m blogging the newest thing in the Web 2.0 social: Spontaneous Drinking Night in SF (join the Facebook group).
It’s an un-event.
After all, what ever happened to kicking it back for a few beers with friends after work and talking about the latest viral video—in this case, the kissy anus face?
Do the kissy-anus-face
Eddie Rickenbacker’s, SoMa, San Francisco, California
Eddie Rickenbacker’s, SoMa, San Francisco, California
Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
3 exposures @ 1/30sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)
Here’s the idea: Need an excuse to drink mid-week? Someone sends out a Facebook message with the deets: some bar in SF, most likely with a bunch of geeks, and no set agenda other than to have a few beers after work.
Oh yeah, you’re thinking: Damn that client was a moron, but I’m not in the capital of geekdom and alcoholism (San Francisco) where they have yet to have a first official event but somehow managed to get 269 members.
That’s okay, “like an STD in the 70’s,” we’ve spread virally to Silicon Valley and Vienna. And if there isn’t a chapter near you, what’s preventing you from setting one up and telling us about it?
Hope to catch you at the next event.
[The ur-un-event and the Long Tail after the jump.]Continue reading
At ZendCon tomorrow – see my talk, drink their drink
I love teasing Zend and right now their conference, the largest PHP conference in the world, is going on.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be giving my talk on “The Internet is an Ogre” tomorrow at 10 AM. It’s a fun talk so you better go see it! (Besides, if everyone goes to this, I’ll have satisfied my life-long dream of rasmussing Coogle’s talk. :-D)
As a teaser, I might point out that Keith Casey finally gave me and my talk the proper billing it deserves, in front of BoingBoing, the Foo fighters, Joel on Software, and digg!
The presenter list is once again extensive and includes Terry Chay, Cory Doctorow, Chris Shiflett, Joel Spolsky, and Eli White.. with sponsors ranging from Microsoft to Oracle to Zend.
This ordering has everything to do with talent and relevance and nothing to do with something as arbitrary as alphab… (Why yes, I haven’t seen Andrei’s talk on ICU collation keys, why do you ask?)
If you aren’t attending ZendCon, then stop by to H2.O- a free Happy Hour 2.0 at ZendCon. I’m told the exhibit hall will have lots of space so you can meet all these cool people of the PHP world—I guarantee, they’re “nerd-orable.”
Oh yeah, stop by and say hi to me. I’ll be the drunk photographer mooching all the free food and drink:
Moving forward…
[Terry Chay, Terry Chay, Terry Chay after the jump]Continue reading
Job: PHP Application Engineer
Received this a couple days ago. It involves a project of combining two codebases, updating the Ajax, and building out the scalability in each. Might be interesting to some of you:
Abby is working with a client owned by one of the nation’s largest, innovative, billion dollar companies. My client provides an online product that is the leading destination of its kind, targeting the audience of expecting parents. Millions of users use their product. They have received a lot of attention from the media, having been featured on CNN and CBS and in hundreds of articles, including in Fortune Magazine and The New York Times. They have 4 million registered users and recently acquired a very successful smaller start up and are looking PHP people with core PHP experience.
Their executive team have strong track records of success, with leading companies such as AOL, Time Inc., Neiman Marcus and Smith & Hawken.
[Job description after the jump.]Continue reading
Adobe’s AIR MAX
Ever since Ed Finkler found out I use twitter a few months ago, he has been bugging me to install Spaz. Then, when Spaz became Spaz.AIR, he did it again.
But so far I’ve been able to resist his sexy advances.
Then one day, Adobe hosted a Lunch 2.0 with an Adobe AIR contest. I suggested to Ed that he submit that app of his that is so good that I don’t use it.
He did.
The problem was Ed and I were going to be at php|works. Whoops!
What to do if he won?
So I checked the RSVP and sent an e-mail to the two people who most remind me of Ed: Morgan and Karen asking if one of them would be West-Coast Ed.
2007-0097 57
CNET Headquarters, SOMA, San Francisco, California
CNET Headquarters, SOMA, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Tokina 16-50mm AT-X PRO f/2.8 DX, SB-800
1/60sec @ f/2.8, iso 100, 16mm (24mm)
Morgan (center) introduced me to Karen (right). Those of you who know Ed, can already see the similarity.
Karen was up to the challenge.
The strange thing is, he did win. Andrew Mager was on hand to record Ed accepting his prize:
Ed, it’s her stripey socks that does it for me. Consider getting a few pairs.
All I have to say is, Ed you’re looking a lot hotter. (Maybe I should install Spaz.)
[AIR, Funkatron, Karenism, etc. after the jump]Continue reading