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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GoDaddy accused of thwarting domain transfers

GoDaddy accused of thwarting domain transfers:

after losing more than 72,000 in five days, things may have changed.

[Is it that ethics is the first thing to go, or where they not there to begin with? (For those of you who don’t know, GoDaddy was supporting SOPA until word got out and people reacted by moving domains away from GoDaddy’s services. Now it would seem that they’re trying to frustrate people into giving up.)]
Source: The Loop

Google and Facebook… they’re never free.

Pusher 2.0:

This also puts the “new business model” mantra in a new light. Remember that the classic business model is a simple monetary trade: the customer gets something of value and they pay money for it. It is fair and easy to understand. The further we go from it, the closer we come to a point where we are forced to choose between going out of business or throwing business ethics out of the window. In order to maintain the illusion that the customer can get something valuable for free, we may have to introduce the illusion that they are getting it for free (while in reality, we collect stuff from them that they may not be inclined to give away). Once you cross that moral event horizon, it becomes much easier to do other objectionable things. I mean, that’s how the new economy works, right?

I’m just thinking out loud and I have no ready-made conclusions to offer, but perhaps we should be a little more hesitant to sing praise of “revolutionary” new ways of doing business. Unless there’s a clear element of trade evident and the terms are set out, chances are that somebody’s getting cheated. Continue reading →

[This piece continues my theme that the more convoluted transactions become the more problems they create for our society—Stay close to the source. If I drive to a store and purchase something made by the individual selling it (or at least the person in the shop in the back) that has tremendous social value. And it doesn’t matter if that’s a kitchen knife or software or a bicycle. The longer the chain gets from “I did it” to “you bought it” the chances for negative social effects increases, and happily the positive social effects increase the closer you get to the source. In the case of Google most of us were happy users because of their great search results. That was a long time ago, and they started tracking me long before I paid any attention to them. Facebook’s “sale” takes place when you sign up, with no explanation of the game whatsoever. I recently saw a news program where individuals were asked about the GOP candidates by name. And while I realize it was a produced segment (edited for results) they had no problem finding people who didn’t even know the names of the candidates, never mind anything about them. Considering the barrage of coverage and the endless debates… imagine what people don’t know when it’s actively being hidden from them? ]
Source: The Cynical Musician

Samsung’s Lack of ICS Updates is an Android Problem

Samsung’s Lack of ICS Updates is an Android Problem:

Nobody in the Android ecosystem — not Google, not manufacturers of Android devices, and certainly not the gadget blogs that review and promote them — seems to care about long-term user satisfaction, even when “long-term” is as short as a two-year smartphone contract.

Rich people and gadget bloggers can upgrade their smartphones every 6 months, but what about everyone else? Will most of Android’s userbase feel much loyalty to the platform at their next contract renewal?

[How wasteful is this environmentally? Are these devices being built with recycling or up cycling in mind? They clearly aren’t being built to be useful in the long term (even for computers). I like to think about things that I build in centuries. Preferably 3 centuries. If it lasts 300 years, it’s probably worth investing resources. (For example, if it takes 100 years to produce the tree whose wood I’m using, isn’t 3 times that long feel like it balances out the time it’ll take to regrow that tree?) ]
Source: Marco.org

The Carbon Footprint of Carbon Bikes

The Carbon Footprint of Carbon Bikes:

“Right now, you can’t recycle the carbon back into a bike, but we’d love to see that happen someday,” says Bjorland. He says that completing the circle is still the holy grail, since obviously an aluminum or steel frame can, at least in theory, be turned back into another bike — and more to the point, can be repaired rather than junked post almost any crash. Carbon’s obviously never going to be as mendable as metal.

[At least people are paying attention… And all but one of my bikes are metal, and mostly have no paint. What little I can…]
Source: adventure journal

Who wants to break the Internet? (Companies that support SOPA)

Who wants to break the Internet?:

It’s not the struggling artists, it’s corporations, lawyers and boards who are in favor of such a shortsighted law . Here’s the list of companies behind one of the lobbying groups pushing for SOPA (here are three links about the law). Now you know who to call:

ABC
AFTRA – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
AFM – American Federation of Musicians
AAP – Association of American Publishers
ASCAP
BMG Chrysalis
BMI
CBS Corporation
Cengage Learning
DGA – Directors Guild of America
Disney Publishing Worldwide, Inc.
EMI Music Publishing
ESPN
Graphic Artists Guild
Hachette Book Group
HarperCollins Publishers L.L.C.
Hyperion
IATSE – International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, its Territories and Canada
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Kaufman Astoria Studios
Macmillan
Major League Baseball
Marvel Entertainment, LLC
McGraw-Hill Education
MPA – The Association of Magazine Media
NFL – National Football League
National Music Publishers’ Association
NBCUniversal
News Corporation
New York Production Alliance
New York State AFL-CIO
Pearson Education
Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
The Perseus Books Group
Producers Guild of America East
Random House
Reed Elsevier
SAG – Screen Actors Guild
Scholastic, Inc.
Silvercup Studios
Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony/ATV Music Publishing
Time Warner Inc.
United States Tennis Association
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Publishing Group
Viacom
Warner Music Group
W.W. Norton & Company
Wolters Kluwer

[Disclosure. I worked for or have been a member of various entities on this list over the course of my career.]
Source: the domino project

3D printing needs to be Apple’ized

Now imagine you had a good 3D printer, like a polished version of this: MakerBot.

Imagine a lost Lego piece… Now imagine that it could scan in 3D as well. If I have one, but need two, no problem. Scan the original I have, and churn out a new one. Or anyone in the world who has that piece could send me the data that would allow me to recreate it. Or Lego themselves could set this up with some nominal charge per replacement. Or sell whole kits. Or…

That would be cool.

Recently my parents broke a knob on their oven. You can only buy replacements as a set and the company wants an incredible $100 (Six plastic knobs. $100? Seriously). Or. They take a whole knob. They place it in their 3D printer. It scans it, and creates a replacement in an hour.

That would be cool.

3D Printing, Teleporters and Wishes:

And as just one parting example of why this stuff’s exciting, I loved this video from The Verge, showing how Microsoft’s hardware group (long one of the company’s undersung overperformers) makes smart use of 3D printing in their everyday work:

Related Reading

Source: Anil Dash