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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It wasn’t meant to Be

I was reminded by John Gruber that today was the day Apple acquired Next and with it the return of Steve Jobs started.

Back then I had kinda assumed that Apple was going to die and had already invested some amount of money buying a Be developer machine and started learning all that there was to this really neat OS. It had a lot of forward looking ideas built into it. Apple meanwhile was also failing to deliver any of its varied nextgen OS things (remember Pink?). The rumors swirled that Be, being built by former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée (who for a while there had Steve’s old position), was going to be purchased by Apple giving BeOS a home, and Apple a way forward. But at least from the outside, at the last second, Apple changed direction (all of this could have been rumors, I no longer remember) and bought Next instead. I was very disappointed. I thought the energy of the Be development community and Apple’s user base would jump start things. Of course, there’s no way to know if that’s true or not. I was not pleased.

Since then there’s been a lot of changes to Apple—now one of the largest companies in the world. Be is long gone. Little attention is afforded to operating systems by users. They’ve become a layer of services upon which we rely. Occasionally some bit of UI delights us. We have more devices hanging around but most folks don’t know what OS their phone runs, nor should they. It’s not relevant. The choices people make are based on what they wish to do with their phones, tablets, and laptops. If there’s something that they believe is crucial that runs on Windows, that’s what they’ll have, whether it’s true or not.

In fact, that’s kinda what all of this is about. It’s about what we believe, and what’s important to us. And someone believed that Steve could still do some good. What was appealing when I started using computers and then programming them was that Apple had menus when no one else did. Menu’s “remembered” things for me. Since I never had a good memory for trivia (and that’s what my brain considered all that command line stuff) I was more comfortable with Apple’s computers than the others. I could get menus to remember things for me. Also, being a musician full time back then, Apple had the best music software and the hearts and minds of the artistic community. I believed that they were better.

Some things aren’t meant to be. And in this case, who knows what the shape of the world would’ve been if Steve had continued to ply his trade elsewhere. Would he have given up on changing the world via technology? Would he have grown antsy with Pixar and meddled in the story creation process to the point of disaster? Would he have found a way, with a whole new company to create devices that so many love?

Pre digital

Pre digital:

School is pre-digital. Elections. Most of what you do in your job. Even shopping. The vestiges of a reliance on geography, lack of information, poor interpersonal connections and group connection (all hallmarks of the pre-digital age) are everywhere.

Perhaps the most critical thing you can say of a typical institution: “That place is pre-digital.”

All a way of saying that this is just the beginning, the very beginning, of the transformation of our lives.

[This is exactly right. It is what I wrote earlier today.]
Source: Seth’s Blog

Beth on Brushes (more education related ranting)

beth_art_ipad

Beth on Brushes:

I made this video of Beth lying in bed using Brushes on her iPad to trace a cartoon character. I was struck by the level of sophistication in her interaction with the app and made this quick video. All the voiceover was added in post, except for the part where I help her with the brush sizing.

Beth is four years old. Four.

[This is what art class ought to look like in 2011. I wish my son’s did. Go check out the video on Frasier’s page.]
Source: Fraser Speirs

Some of you have this all wrong. This isn’t whether I can afford to buy Noah an iPad. My complaint is that educators aren’t changing the way they teach fundamental skills for a world that already operates differently. Never mind how it will operate 20 years from now when my kid is finishing up his basic education.

Vegetarian mini-rant

Vegetarian mini-rant:

Somehow the moment you say you’re not eating meat people thrust a salad at you.  Not an eggplant or mushrooms or broccoli or pulses or grains or rice or pasta or rutabaga.  A salad.  A big pile of lettuce with some oil and vinegar on it.

[That is because most people only think of meat, fowl, and maybe fish as “eating”. There’s no belief that you could be satiated without it, and little thought given to whatever else is being served.]
Source: Sasha Dichter’s Blog

3 Misconceptions That Need to Die

3 Misconceptions That Need to Die (WMT, X):

At a conference in Philadelphia earlier this month, a Wharton professor noted that one of the country’s biggest economic problems is a tsunami of misinformation. You can’t have a rational debate when facts are so easily supplanted by overreaching statements, broad generalizations, and misconceptions. And if you can’t have a rational debate, how does anything important get done? As author William Feather once advised, “Beware of the person who can’t be bothered by details.” There seems to be no shortage of those people lately.

[1) Misconception: Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China. 2) Misconception: We owe most of our debt to China. 3)Misconception: We get most of our oil from the Middle East. Now tell me you weren’t surprised at, if nothing else, how pervasive things like this are without facts. Shoddy reporting and willful suspension of disbelief will take us far down this awful road.]

Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How the Internet Works

Here’s the official White House anti SOPA petition.

Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How the Internet Works:

Joshua Kopstein:

When the security issue was brought up, Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina seemed particularly comfortable about his own lack of understanding. Grinningly admitting “I’m not a nerd” before the committee, he nevertheless went on to dismiss without facts or justification the very evidence he didn’t understand and then downplay the need for a panel of experts. Rep. Maxine Waters of California followed up by saying that any discussion of security concerns is “wasting time” and that the bill should move forward without question, busted internets be damned.

Bipartisan willful ignorance.

[Well said. Here’s the link again: The official White House anti SOPA petition.]
Source: Daring Fireball