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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We Only Think We Know the Truth About Salt

We Only Think We Know the Truth About Salt:

This attitude that studies that go against prevailing beliefs should be ignored on the basis that, well, they go against prevailing beliefs, has been the norm for the anti-salt campaign for decades. Maybe now the prevailing beliefs should be changed. The British scientist and educator Thomas Huxley, known as Darwin’s bulldog for his advocacy of evolution, may have put it best back in 1860. “My business,” he wrote, “is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.”

[Another health care mess that needs cleaning up.]

The Wirecutter: Best Standing Desks

→ The Wirecutter: Best Standing Desks:

Today, there are more electric-lift options with programmable heights: the GeekDesk Max, the NewHeights, and the attractive NextDesk Terra. I’m glad Mark found these: now I don’t need to worry that I won’t be able to replace my desk when the AdjusTables’ unreliable lift mechanism inevitably breaks.

[Or you could spend way less money and not sweat the measurements by buying one of these, and dropping a piece of plywood on it as a top. (I had just the piece I needed in the garage. If you don’t have such stuff in your a garage, IKEA sells tops at reasonable prices) I don’t mind the minor effort.]

Source: Marco.org

Writing with Bitly

Writing with Bitly:

As an art and a practice, writing is no less a product of its instruments than are music and painting. We not only need pianos, drums and brushes, but Steinways, Ludwigs and Langnickels. Microsoft doesn’t cut it. (Word produces horrible html.) Adobe had a good early Web writing tool with GoLive, but killed it in favor of Dreamweaver, which is awful. There are plenty of fine text editors, including old standbys (e.g. vi and emacs) that work in command shells. Geeky wizards can do wonders with them, but there should be many other instruments for many other kinds of artists.

[Great insight.]

Source: Doc Searls Weblog

Old Farts Know How to Code

Old Farts Know How to Code:

Nick Bradbury:

“Old farts” are often excluded from that culture, not because we’re lousy coders but because we won’t put up with that shit. We have lives, we have families, we have other things that are important to us.

In addition to the sexism that has been discussed a lot recently, software engineering suffers from extreme ageism and workaholism.

I’m about to turn 30, I’m married, and we just had a baby. This will implicitly (and illegally, of course) disqualify me from working at almost any startup.

∞ Permalink

[Well it doesn’t preclude them all, but you do have to know how to pick ’em. And the classic startup does fall into the above criteria. More’s the pity, as I know lots of “older” folks with lots to share…]

Source: Marco.org

Here’s The Inside Story Of What Happened On The Facebook IPO

Here’s The Inside Story Of What Happened On The Facebook IPO:

The estimate cut, moreover, was followed by three additional pieces of information that were interpreted negatively by some institutional investors:
1) The price range for the deal was increased, which made the deal even less attractive in light of the estimate cut,
2) The size of the deal was increased, which meant that more stock would be sold, and
3) Many smart institutional Facebook shareholders like Goldman Sachs decided to sell more stock on the deal—the “smart money,” in other words, was cashing out.

[snip -ed]

In the meantime, it’s hard to conclude anything other than this:
In one of the biggest IPOs in history, in which a huge amount of stock was sold to small investors, privileged Wall Street insiders once again got top-notch information…and individuals got the shaft.

[Mote and more I think this company is infected with sleaze. If not, they have a lot of work to do to convince me otherwise.]

What Eduardo Saverin Owes America (Hint: Nearly Everything)

What Eduardo Saverin Owes America (Hint: Nearly Everything) | PandoDaily:

As an immigrant myself, I’ve got no patience for the argument that he should keep all of it. Pretty much everything in my life that I enjoy wouldn’t have happened without my being in the United States. My education, my job, my wife and family, the fact that I’m not persecuted for my race or religion (I was born in South Africa), the fact that I can sometimes forget to lock my doors at night and not end up killed by marauding bands—I hate paying taxes as much as the next guy, but when I think about all the ways that the United States has been integral to everything in my life, taxes seem like a tiny price.

Now, remember that the tax rate on long-term capital gains is only 15 percent. In other words, Saverin gets to keep 85 percent of everything he’s making from Facebook’s IPO. Given how much of his wealth depends on the government, that’s more than fair.

[Right on. The low level cheesiness surrounding Facebook and its founders is remarkably high. It may be time to toss my account.]

The Loop on Blogging

The Loop on Blogging:

Blogging is not a thing, it’s an attitude:

Blogging is not about being stiff and rigid in your writing, but being flexible and flowing with ideas. It doesn’t matter if everyone agrees with your thoughts. In fact, that would be really boring — but you write it anyway.

If large media companies want their writers to be bloggers, they need to let them go. Bloggers need to feel free to express themselves and their opinions. There are plenty of great bloggers on the Internet — many of them came from these large organizations, but weren’t allowed to post their thoughts.

Blogging is also about trust. If you’re readers know that you are writing from your heart, they will listen. They will engage you, and in the process you will learn something new. That, in turn, will help shape your opinions.

Blogging doesn’t have an agenda, other than expressing your true thoughts on a subject.

[The last point is, at the very least, poorly written. Of course blogging is about an agenda. It’s just a personal one, not a corporate one.]

Source: inessential.com

Uncle Glenn and The Choice of Buying Organic

Uncle Glenn and The Choice of Buying Organic:

To Glenn, a farmer’s job is to produce as much food as he possibly can, because people tend to need more food than they have. Developing and improving chemicals that increase yields is one way the farm industry keeps up with ever-increasing demand. We tend to look at the environmental damages caused by industrial farm runoff—not to be understated—and we associate the pollution with corporate greed. It’s easy to forget that without these chemicals, we’d perhaps have less food. The cost/benefit analysis here is tied inextricably to the ones that motivate our individual consumption, and it’s even harder to balance.

[Puff piece? You decide. But I think the answer is in distributed growing rather than in counting on “specialists” (farmers) for everything. There was a time when everyone was a “farmer” for themselves. What if stopped growing lawns (I don’t) and started vegetable gardens? Don’t you think that improve things for everyone? I do.]

Source: Simple Blog