advocacy

The Background Noise Was Louder than I Realized

The Background Noise Was Louder than I Realized:

All of these things are noise. They’re below the threshold of what matters. Imagine you started hanging out with people who were all, legitimately, writing books. They each have their own work styles and organization methods and issues with finding time to write efficiently. As a software designer, you might see some ways to help them overcome small frustrations with their tools or maybe even find an opportunity for a new kind of writing app. But I can guarantee that GPU numbers and programming language missteps and the horrors of dynamic typing will have no relevance to any of what you observe.

[It is really important to pay attention to whatever is degrading the signal to voice ratio in your life. Speaking of which, this last week of almost no connectivity, even less television (I barely watch anything but news and sports) gave me reason to think about this very issue in my own life some more. But what I learned is that to great degree I have these under control. Nice to know.]

A bias for trust

A bias for trust:

Instead of seeking and amplifying the sharp edges, consider focusing on the dignity and goodwill of the people you’re working with.

Sure, there are people out there who will disappoint you. But expecting to be ripped off poisons all your interactions instead of saving you from a few dead ends.

An open mind and an open heart usually lead to precisely that in those that you are about to deal with. Perhaps we should give people a chance to live up to our trust instead of looking for the gotcha.

[Apply this outside of the context of business as well please.]

Source: Seth’s Blog

CURL: Crowley skews hard for Obama in disastrous presidential debate – Washington Times

CURL: Crowley skews hard for Obama in disastrous presidential debate – Washington Times:

Then Ms. Crowley jumped in to do her own fact-check, on the spot. “It — it — it — he did in fact, sir. … He did call it an act of terror.”

The truth is, he didn’t. The day after the attack, he said only this: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.” It took another two weeks before the White House would label the attack an act of terror.

[I thought it was tough job until I learned that she controlled the questions as well… what a mess these dabates are. So phony. How is it (according to CNN) that the Democrats have had more speaking time in each debate? 8% in the first Presidential debate, 11% in the this one. Biden got 3% more time. Just an edge given to anyone in office? I can’t find numbers… pathetic.]

Game Over (AntiRez leaves the twitterverse)

Game Over:

I also love open source, and guess what? It’s not a license. It’s a process of exchanging ideas, code, and information, freely. In short, I don’t want to be part of what I saw yesterday, ever. For me open source is a lot more than a job. For me the ability to express my ideas is more important than smiling to the community and accept the new rules I’m seeing in place.

As you guess, not everybody reacted like that. Actually most of my 10000+ followers either said nothing or encouraged me by private email or direct messages. Thank you, I don’t want to claim that everybody is like what I saw yesterday. However among the people that over reacted there were also well known figures of the programming community.

So what happens now? That I’m done with Twitter. I’m going to close my accounts, and I’ll use only the @redisfeed account to provide information to the Redis users about what happens about Redis. Releases, critical bugs, anticipations. It will be low traffic, and should be make more people able to be subscribed to that account.

I’ll still write about everything I do about Redis and about anything else I like or think and I want to share with the world, here in my blog. I’ll modify the blog code in the next days to make it better for short posts, that will be presented as short messages with a date directly in the front page. I’ll study a bit what is the best solution to have an easy to follow blog about development, with small continuous updates and bigger posts from time to time.

[So much for the twitterverse. One day people will see the incredible value of blogs. They’re not passé, done, dead, or over. They’re one of the single greatest things since Gutenberg. ]

Source: antirez weblog

No, he didn’t

Scripting News: He called the President ‘boy’.:

Just tuned into a little of the Sunday morning news discussion on various networks. The big issue seems to be whether or not VP Biden was disrespectful of Congressman Ryan in the Wednesday debate.

Yes he was. But I haven’t forgotten what Mitt Romney said to President Obama. He said the President is like a boy who doesn’t tell the truth.

“Look, I’ve got five boys. I’m used to people saying something that’s not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I’ll believe it.”

He called the President ‘boy’ — to his face.

[What a load. Dave, this is outrageous. I know how you react when people put words in your mouth, and he didn’t come close to saying what you’re claiming he said. I also disagree with your interpretation. And obviously, so do the people who would be most sensitive to your interpretation. Move along. There’s nothing here. Plenty of real stuff to be concerned about.]

Pandora and Artist Payments

Pandora and Artist Payments:

Pandora founder Tim Westergren:

For over two thousand artists Pandora will pay over $10,000
dollars each over the next 12 months (including one of my
favorites, the late jazz pianist Oscar Peterson), and for more
than 800 we’ll pay over $50,000, more than the income of the
average American household. For top earners like Coldplay, Adele,
Wiz Khalifa, Jason Aldean and others Pandora is already paying
over $1 million each. Drake and Lil Wayne are fast approaching a
$3 million annual rate each.

It’s hard to look at these numbers and not see that internet radio
presents an incredible opportunity to build a better future for
artists. Not only is it bringing tens of millions of listeners
back to music, across hundreds of genres, but it is also enabling
musicians to earn a living. Since Pandora accounts for just 6.53%
of all radio listening in the U.S., it seems fundamentally unfair
that other forms of radio that represent much larger shares of
U.S. radio listening pay substantially less to artists.

Hard to argue with that.

[I point to all the anti “new model” articles. Seemed like this ought to get some play as well.]

Source: Daring Fireball

Why We’ll Never Stop Talking About Steve Jobs

Why We’ll Never Stop Talking About Steve Jobs:

Jobs, like the titans of industry before him, realized that when we think about how the world works, we are actually thinking about the way people have made it to work. And that means that if you don’t like the way the world works, you are free to change it. Which is exactly what he did.

[Forgetting that in combination with Alice Walker’s “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” explains why so little is done about so much.]

Of federal taxes and such

Of federal taxes and such:

Because one spouse isn’t working, there is no child care tax credit. There could be up to $2,500 in education credits per child—but let’s say the kids are younger and go with the lower $1,000 child tax credit for both of them. So that’s a $2,000 credit. To owe taxes at this point, you’d need $19,000 in taxable income—or $45,400 in total income. This still a hair below the EIC phaseout in this case. So to hit zero exactly you would need a few more dollars to bring your annual income to $45,750.
In a given year, you have about 260 work days. Let’s say you work a full day on all of them. This means that any vacation, sick days, or holidays you want had better be paid. To make your $45,750, you need to bring in $174.62 a day. Let’s round that down to $174 to make the math work out more smoothly.
You’re earning the federal minimum wage: $7.25 an hour. To get to $174 a day, you’ll need to work for … 24 hours. Congratulations. You can sleep on the weekends. If you want to get down to an 8 hour day, you’ll need to earn at least $21.75. (You still have to work every day.) Good luck finding an early-career job that pays that well.

[Or if we maintain the current trend in government… ever finding a job. Period. But none of this is really the problem. This is just the Romney haters, hating. And sure, he gave them plenty of material to work with… But Obama’s no different. There’s no surprise that people who have little in the US sense of the word want redistribution. Surprise! Not.

Years ago there was no such thing as a telephone. If you wanted a doctor to see your ailing child, you hitched your horse to a wagon and you drove to the doctor’s house (if you were lucky). Then you woke the now annoyed doctor, and, assuming you could convince him of your need, drove him in your wagon back to your home. After he was done, and told you that your kid will be fine despite how dire things look at the moment, you got to drive him home. BTW, while you were waiting you unhitched your horse, watered the poor beast and fed him a bit and hooked everything back together for the return trip. So why do we no longer have house calls now that you can shepherd a doctor in the comfort of modern vehicle with hot and cold running air and a cushy ride instead of a way too hot, way too cold open air buckboard? Because the telephone was invented. And once you could *call* the doctor and convince him to hitch up his own horse, to his own wagon, and get his butt over to your place the house call was history. It was only a matter of time.

So stop waiting for bed time stories that some guy who we call president for a few handful of years is going to fix your life. None of them are. None of them can. I believe that none of them actually even want to. But believe me, sure as the doctor visit went away, the answer to anything you actually need lies in yourself and no place else. Allez!]

A quick bit of BS skewering

A quick bit of BS skewering:

Either own what you said, accept both the reaction and the consequences of what you say, or stop saying things that only an asshole would say. To paraphrase Randy Millholland, for someone who doesn’t thrive on controversy, you seem to say some shitty things about people a lot.

Either way, for the love of christ, stop crying that people are thinking unkind things about you when you say things about them that are kind of shitty. If being thought of as an asshole bothers you, stop being one.

Really.

[If nothing else, it’s to the point.]

Source: bynkii.com

New media, old sense of entitlement

New media, old sense of entitlement:

But here’s what I’d suggest you really not do, if you want to actually look like the professional: don’t rise up from your throne and bellow, “How dare you, you little insignificant blogger, question the credibility of someone who was the editor-in-chief of Engadget! Guards, off with their heads!” Because when you do that, then you’re not the professional. You’re the petty asshole. I know it’s a subtle difference—both words start with “p” and all—but it’s important, trust me.

By the way, neither Gruber nor Arment use WordPress. That’s a pretty trivial thing to note, but it just seems to me that a professional journalist would have taken the couple seconds necessary to check.

Just saying.

[The cycle of entitlement is infinite.]

Source: Coyote Tracks