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.
Daniel's avatar

Dear “Landlord”

Dear “Landlord” – raganwald’s:

I used to sell things for a living. One thing I remember is that there is a tremendous gulf between free and a dollar. In companies, you can’t spend a dollar without having to justify it to someone, to make a case for it. Everyone wants to know who the vendor is, how long they’ve been around, whether we can trust them, and whether what they’re selling is worth a dollar.
So, although your offices are crowded, that actually doesn’t provide me with any security that other people have thought things through and decided you are a good bet. For all I know, they could decamp tomorrow for some other hot, free thing. This feels like fashion, not business, and it’s going to keep feeling that way until you can show me some tenants who actually pay, not just squat.

[The irony here is that this was posted to posterous, which was just bought by Twitter, and which everyone suspects will disappear before too long. Twitter purchased them for their talent, not their product, and business dictates that they’ll shut it down at some point relatively soon. But @raganwald really makes an excellent point about all see services. If you’re getting something of value, and your not paying for it, you must ask who is and why. But never consider a service for which you don’t pay yourself reliable. It’s not.]

Rands In Repose: Hacking is Important

Rands In Repose: Hacking is Important:

It happens quietly, but the projects that could be the most disruptive to the company begin in silence. Someone, somewhere has a bright idea and a handful of talented engineers are whisked off to a different building behind a locked door. Their status is “elsewhere” and their project is “need to know.”

[Nice idea. Nothing I have to worry about at the moment, but filed for future use.]

Source: Daring Fireball

Sir Jonathan Ive: The iMan cometh

Sir Jonathan Ive: The iMan cometh:

Q: What makes a great designer?

A: It is so important to be light on your feet, inquisitive and interested in being wrong. You have that  wonderful fascination with the what if questions, but you also need absolute focus and a keen insight into the context and what is important – that is really terribly important. Its about contradictions you have to navigate.

[I loved this answer. Also… “Our goal is simple objects, objects that you can’t imagine any other way. Simplicity is not the absence of clutter. Get it right, and you become closer and more focused on the object. For instance, the iPhoto app we created for the new iPad, it completely consumes you and you forget you are using an iPad.” and this “One of the things we’ve really learnt over the last 20 years is that while people would often struggle to articulate why they like something – as consumers we are incredibly discerning, we sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed. It’s one of the thing we’ve found really encouraging.”]

I’m not a “curator”

I’m not a “curator”:

And that’s how I feel about links in general: the source author creates something worth linking to, and the rest of us can link as we see fit, regardless of how we found it.

The proper place for ethics and codes is in ensuring that a reasonable number of people go to the source instead of just reading your rehash.

Codifying “via” links with confusing symbols is solving the wrong problem.

[True true. Which is why I try to rarely quote so much of an article that you’re not interested in reading the original.]

Source: Marco.org

European vs American cooking habits and why it matters for programming

European vs American cooking habits and why it matters for programming:

It doesn’t matter if it’s cooking or programming or doing whatever, really—you can learn from other people and how they do things differently from you. Don’t dismiss them outright. Hear what they have to say. Here’s one concrete example for myself that I’ve stumbled upon: I dismissed the meaningful indentation in Python, but later I’ve come to like it in CoffeeScript.

However, if something doesn’t hold up to the claims, or is doing things objectively wrong—it’s OK to be dismissive. It’s good to be opinionated. Just think about it for a second first, and better yet try it out. You might be surprised about what you fall in love with that at first seemed outlandish or stupid to you.

[It feels like we all learn this lesson one at a time. Keep an open mind people, you never know what you might discover.]

Ultimate climbing guide, part 1: gearing

Ultimate climbing guide, part 1: gearing:

Interestingly, the next day, in the hill climb time trial to Chamrousse, Armstrong adjusted his gearing to suit the conditions, like Hampsten did in the example at the start of this post. According to John Wilcockson, Armstrong felt that the 23 on Alpe d’Huez had been too low (oh to have that feeling!) but the 21 a bit high. So for the time trial he fitted a 12-22 cassette so that his lowest gears were 22-21-20-19, thus keeping the ratio difference at around 5% between each gear. Whether it was this gear change, his high cadence style, or the familiarity he had with the course after scouting it out before the Tour, we won the stage and took another minute out of Ullrich. He would, of course, go on to win his third Tour in a row that year.

[I climbed like a lead weight today…. in a 34/32 combo. Sigh. I tell myself that next time will be better, I’ve been off the bike for a while, and other things to sooth my shattered cyclist soul. None of which will get me climbing in a 39×23…]

Source: le grimpeur

Balance Life and Cycling Training for the Bone Ride | Bike in Balance

Balance Life and Cycling Training for the Bone Ride | Bike in Balance:

From my place, I can be on a country road in about 15 pedal strokes. And in a few thousand pedals strokes, I can be cruising on fantastic, hilly dairy roads along the east side of Lake Winnebago. Flanders comes to mind hereabouts: flat roads passing farm fields, abrupt hills with taverns at the top, lots of wind. In other words, the riding is great. All I have to do is point my front wheel toward happiness.

Is it not that simple?

[Yes. And No. Maybe. Balance is core skill for a cyclist. It’s surprising that so many fail at it, and so badly. Mike, I’m rooting for ya. And me. I’m trying to pull off the same thing. And I have a ride to prepare for as well. Allez!]

Learning from competition

Learning from competition:

That would have just made me look stubborn and out of touch, failing to understand (in fact, trying very hard not to understand) why newer fonts could be attractive to customers, and failing to admit that I should have done it first.

Instead, I’m taking this misstep as a wake-up call: I missed an important opportunity that’s necessary for the long-term competitiveness of my product. So I’ve spent most of the last week testing tons of reading fonts, getting feedback from designers I respect, narrowing it down to a handful of great choices, and negotiating with their foundries for inclusion into the next version of Instapaper.1 And the results in testing so far are awesome. I wish someone had kicked my complacent ass about fonts sooner.

Reacting well to competition requires critical analysis of your own product and its shortcomings, and a complete, open-minded understanding of why people might choose your competitors.

[Always hard. Really important.]

Source: Marco.org