Why Jeremy Lin will be fine

Why Jeremy Lin will be fine:

Many in the media had written off Jeremy Lin after the Knicks hit the skid that ended with Mike D’Antoni’s resignation as head coach. But Jeremy has participated in the Knicks’ three straight wins since then, as a starter. I listened to the fourth quarter of this game, and he was the Main Man down the stretch, grabbing rebounds, getting steals, distributing the ball, drawing fouls, and hitting four straight free throws without a miss.

Not many people have visited the possibility that Jeremy Lin went undrafted because he wasn’t this good then. He got this good by playing against better competition, and learning every step of the way.

[And it continues to point out, that talent is not about how good you can get, but how quickly you get there. No reason not to just strap it on and get to work. Further, you’ll be more insightful (in my experience) about how “good” works. In many ways, it can be a better road…]

Source: Doc Searls Weblog

Twitter: The Modern Day Complaint Department – Shopify

Twitter: The Modern Day Complaint Department – Shopify:

Whether the complaints are justified or not, every online store can be a victim of public scorning on Twitter. As an ecommerce merchant you need to start thinking of Twitter as a public complaint department. The secret to running a successful Twitter complaint department is to give awesome customer service. Here’s where to start

[Nice way to think about it.]

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.]