Author: Daniel

Daniel https://turnings.phrasewise.com/ In the 4th grade Daniel was asked to step in into the hall because he was coaching fellow students on a similarity assignment he provided the class. Since then, Daniel’s passion for helping people has propelled him to be a creative developer of software and systems, and a team coach who excels at successfully delivering business value. Daniel founded QuietlyHelping in 2009 in order to have a direct hand in helping families with the struggles of debilitating disease. QuietlyHelping is an organization of compassion and empathy that brings ease, comfort, smiles, laughter, healing, and love to people battling cancer and other diseases. Spare time activities include cycling, occasional work as a musician, woodworking, photography, and reading books he never got around to in school. Unsurprisingly, Daniel is able to cook minute rice in just under thirty seconds.
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Abstraction is Expensive – Speculative Branches

Abstraction is Expensive – Speculative Branches:

Ideally, you would like all of the abstractions you use to have aligned goals with your system. If you can buy a dependency that aligns with your goals, that’s great. If not, you will likely have to “massage” your dependencies to be able to do what you want. This is the first time an abstraction costs you. If you use the wrong database schema (or the wrong technology), you may find yourself scanning database tables when a different schema would do a single lookup. For a non-database example, if you make an electron-based computer game, it will likely be unplayably slow (but you will be able to build it in record time!).

[Abstractions can be a complete drag…]

MarsEdit 5

MarsEdit 5:

MarsEdit 5 features a beautiful new icon, a “Microposting” feature for streamlined short-form blogging, enhanced plain-text editing with built-in Markdown syntax highlighting, a completely rebuilt rich text editor based on Apple’s latest WebKit2 technologies, and a variety of nuanced improvements to make your blogging workflow smoother, and more enjoyable than ever.

[Congrats to Daniel. I’ve been using MarsEdit since its inception (I didn’t want to continue to maintain my own editor “Archipelago” for reasons. MarsEdit was, and is, the solution I chose.)]

Apple announces biggest upgrade to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points – Apple

Apple announces biggest upgrade to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points – Apple:

Under the updated App Store pricing system, all developers will have the ability to select from 900 price points, which is nearly 10 times the number of price points previously available for most apps. This includes 600 new price points to choose from, with an additional 100 higher price points available upon request. To provide developers around the world with even more flexibility, price points — which will start as low as $0.29 and, upon request, go up to $10,000 — will offer an enhanced selection of price points, increasing incrementally across price ranges (for example, every $0.10 up to $10; every $0.50 between $10 and $50; etc.).

[Marketing people are a special group.]

‘Very Jewish Christmas’ salutes composers who gifted us with holiday hit parade

‘Very Jewish Christmas’ salutes composers who gifted us with holiday hit parade:

At a time when antisemitism has become unavoidable in the United States, the moment seems ripe for a reminder that Jews have profoundly shaped just about every aspect of American popular culture, including the celebration of Christmas.

More often than not, the songs that define the holiday hit parade were written by Jewish composers, from Irving Berlin’s sublimely nostalgic “White Christmas” to Joan Javits and Phil Springer’s gleefully mercenary “Santa Baby.” Celebrating this singularly American confluence of sincere sentiment and winking kitsch, the show “A Very Jewish Christmas Spectacular” tells the story of how Eastern European immigrants (and their offspring) came to create the Christmas soundtrack.

[All this by Lindsay Bonamassa and Michael Meyer. Yes *that* Bonamassa. Joe’s sister (and no, he’s not Jewish). In a year when there’s been so much hate aimed at the Jews, maybe this will remind a few people of the positive contributions. Maybe. I doubt it. Bah, humbug.]

As many times as it takes

Mastery often means doing something as many times as it takes to get it right.

Whenever possible I give people the opportunity to revise their work as many times as they want. Only the final outcome or product matters. It was the learning and the hard work that I want to reward, not getting it right the first time. One of the most important lessons is that the only thing you can control is how you react. When challenges arise what do you do? When you don’t have an answer? When your skills aren’t up to the task?

When you allow people to make their own decisions, they start to feel more engaged, confident and empowered. And once that happens, there’s no limit to what they can achieve.

The GigRig | G3 Software Updates v.512

The GigRig G3 Software Updates:

Link to Software version 512 (iOS). Also, the focus I set on my iPhone while updating.
Featuring:

  • FLIP/FLOP STOMP:  Group several StompBox mode presets together and flip/flop between them
  • SUBTRACTIVE STOMP:  StompBox mode presets now subtract as well as add
  • UP TO 20 MIDI MESSAGES:  We’ve increased the amount of MIDI messages available pre preset from 15 to 20
  • MIDI SEND ON PRESET OFF: When you turn a preset off in StompBox mode you can send a separate MIDI message
  • MIDI SEQUENCER:  Send a string of MIDI commands in sequence
  • BANK DOWN BUTTON:  Assign a button to act as ‘Bank Down’
  • G3 REMOTE/STAGE MIDI CODE:  Link 2 units together and remote access presets between them
  • NAME SONG TITLES WITHIN G3:  You can now name songs within G3 without need for the app

[I don’t know why I don’t find these easy to find, but it won’t hurt to spread them around. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Some of the features in this update are quite helpful. I dig stombox mode, and like the notion of “subtractive”, but I don’t like the notion of it being “different” from regular stomp. It should “toggle” the loop.]

The Perks of a High-Documentation, Low-Meeting Work Culture

The Perks of a High-Documentation, Low-Meeting Work Culture:

This is a culturally influential decision considering that we’re a remote-first company. We don’t see each other in passing in the office, and we don’t have lunch together. 

It may seem counterintuitive to cut down on face time if you rarely see your colleagues as it is. But it’s working for us, and there’s a few reasons why. 

Practicing meeting mindfulness allows us to free up time for other stuff that matters more. This isn’t to say that all meetings are useless — it’s just that the meetings we do have at Tremendous are meetings for a reason.

[ If you’re feeling a theme, I’m getting this right.]