Where Twitter the company may be going

This piece: Startups and Shit, Twitter’s Product is F—– Fine by @startupljackson on Twitter, is the best analysis I have seen of what twitter can and should be doing over the next time.

Read the piece, but in a nutshell, Twitter should not look to grow Twitter the Service so much as Twitter the company, that company being a collection of services, from Twitter to Vine to Periscope to…well, we will see. The Twitter service itself provides a foundation for the company to grow on. Over time, if Twitter the service shrinks, Twitter the company could still grow based on the other services.

Smart take on the company.

What programming language should you learn? (2015 edition)

It depends on a number of factors, but if you want to decide solely on popularity, then you need to see this: The Most Popular Programming Languages of 2015 | ProgrammableWeb.

 

At the top you have some consistency, with Java at the top, and C, C++ and C# in the top five. Python, a language that I am becoming fond of and using to replace Perl, is up there at #4.

Following that are what you’d expect: PHP, Ruby, and Javascript, as well as some data oriented languages.

What is interesting, and not shown, are new and up and coming languages, such as Swift. I expect that to inch into the top 10 in the next few years.

If you want to focus on learning a programming language, and you have no other criteria, pick something from this list.

On the beautiful weight that holds you under

Before you take hold of the beautiful weight, you read the stories written and listen to the tales told of holding on to it. But life is short, and when you are offered it, you are  more afraid of refusing it than you are of accepting it. You fear you will never get the chance again in your life, long or short, of having the beautiful weight. You see so many others, weightless and unbearably light and that seems worse than the load.

You step forward and shift the heavy beauty onto your back, and as you stumble forward, you experience the pride and panic of such a possession. The days and months and years will pass, and through each of them you will rise up and shoulder the weight throughout each hour, retiring it briefly each night.  If you are lucky, you will have a string of Hercules who will shift it onto their shoulders, however briefly, giving you a moment’s rest. Many unfortunately know no such solace, and the sublime burden falls solely on their backs.

The truly unfortunate are unable to walk steadily forward and eventually lose their footing, stumbling off the path, into the waters. Unable to let go, they go deeper and deeper down into the water, struggling to keep their head above the surface as the weight submerges them. 

Only those unworthy of the beautiful weight are able to slip out from under it. The rest get stronger from their struggle, or drown.

They say out loud that the beautiful weight makes life worth living. Afterwards they whisper something else. 

There is an art to carrying the beautiful weight, and though it is the most important of the arts, it is rarely taught. They will learn as they go, they mutter, and either sink or make do. And many make do, while some struggle terribly and then float quietly beneath the surface. 

Sadly, this one trick will allow you to connect iTunes when you are on Windows and suffering from connectivity problems

If you are trying to use iTunes on Windows and you can’t, you may have to disable your firewall. Seriously! I tried a number of things, and I finally came across this, Resolve issues between iTunes and third-party security software – Apple Support, as well as some other sites, and once I did that, I was able to get it to work.

If you are unhappy with that, your next best option is to methodically follow this and poke enough holes in your firewall to work. That’s the safer route, by far.

 

 

This may just be the stupidest defense of Amazon’s workplace practices

This piece may be the stupidest defence of Amazon’s workplace practices: Replace Just 2 Words in the New York Times Amazon Article and Something Amazing Happens | Inc.com.

Amazon employees are not entrepreneurs. There is nothing in the NYTimes.com article that gives any inkling that they are. If anything, they have all the downside of being an entrepreneurs with little if any of the upside.  If someone can point out an article showing how Amazon consistently rewards employees as if they are true entrepreneurs, I’d love to read it.

There’s nothing wrong with being an entrepreneur. In fact, for some people, being an entrepreneur is the best type of work there is. Everything about it appeals to them, and working for a large corporation would kill them.

The Amazon employees are not entrepreneurs.  If you want to be an entrepreneur, be one. Don’t try to be one working at a large corporation. That is antithetical to what being an entrepreneur is.

You like food! I like food! Here’s some food links to chew on. :)

The web and food are made for each other. There are countless links to recipes, essays, reviews and photos of food. Out of all that, here is a small handful I found interesting over the last few months of surfing around. I hope you find one or two or even all of them interesting. Enjoy!

Here’s what Vox and others miss when it comes to multitasking

Over at Vox is your typical article critiquing multitasking: Multitasking is inefficient. Here are 6 tips for a more productive workday. – Vox.

If you do a search on the word multitasking, you will find similar articles. Like the Vox piece, they are all reasonable, and they all offer good advice.

What they all miss is why we multitask.  I think there are three key reasons why we do, and they go hand in hand:

  1. We have too much to do in the little time you have.
  2. The tools we use are not responsive and/or support multitasking.
  3. You will be penalized for not appearing busy.

To give you an example of what I mean, consider your day. You likely have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Now let’s look at the tool you have at hand in an office. First, you have a computer and you use software like email and your browser. With email, you can start a number of tasks, but you cannot complete them. With your browser, you ask for information, then you wait for a response. If you are using a mobile device, a similar lag in request and response occurs. Now, you could just sit there and wait for a response to complete your task, but remember, you have too much to do and not enough time. As a result, you start other tasks. You are ….multitasking. You are maximizing your idle time while you wait for tasks to complete. Now you could just sit there, look out the window or go for a walk, but that would be ignoring the third point, which is that you will be penalized for not appearing busy.

If you are fortunate, you can focus on one task, complete it, and then move on to the next one. If you are like most of us, you have to multitask for the reasons above.

 

Forget self driving cars – the first big thing will be self driving trucks

While there is lots of discussion about self driving cars, it’s much more likely that self driving trucks will become standard and accepted first. Here are two stories that support that. First this: How Canada’s oilsands are paving the way for driverless trucks — and the threat of big layoffs. Second, over at Vox, is:  This is the first licensed self-driving truck. There will be many more. Key quote from Vox:

Last night at the Hoover Dam, the Freightliner company unveiled its Inspiration Truck: the first semi-autonomous truck to get a license to operate on public roads.

The Inspiration is now licensed to drive autonomously on highways in Nevada. It works a bit like a plane’s autopilot system: a driver will get the rig on the highway, and can take control at any time once it’s there. But the truck will be able to drive itself at high speeds, using cameras to make sure it stays within its lane and doesn’t get too close to the vehicle in front of it.

Self driving trucks are already up and operational. Additionally, the business case and the hurdles to overcome with self driving trucks will be easier to achieve than that of self driving cars in urban areas. Sooner than you think, you will commonly see self driving trucks on highways, especially during the hours when most highways are 80-90% trucks.

Transportation is changing. Self driving trucks are going to be leading that change. Self driving cars will be a distant second.

 

This is my 3000th post on this blog. Some thoughts.

Hard to believe, but this is my 3000th post on this blog, smartPeopleIKnow. I’ve been writing to this blog since April 2007 – over 8 years! – and have over 860,000 views.  It’s along way from the 10-12 views a day I used to get.

I never thought I would have so many people read my thoughts. Before blogging, the only way to get people to read your writing broadly was to publish a book, or appear in a magazine or newspaper.

While I write on pretty much any topic, the three top posts have had to do with fashion: Why I buy suits from Zara, How to wear brown and blue together, and
How to Set the time on a Phillipe Starck Watch. I can’t say for sure whay that is. I know that posts on how to do things get more views. Makes sense: people are always searching for how to do things.

It’s been alot of fun. And I still hope to achieve my goal of reaching a million views. Maybe in a year or so.

 

 

ICYMI: What is code, by Paul Ford

Happy Monday! Are you affected by code at work? Of course you are! Do you code at work yourself? Very likely, even if it is to use formulae in a spreadsheet program like Excel (which, years ago, would have required been considered coding). However code affects you, I highly recommend you read this:
Code. It’s a very rich piece on code (i.e. software) and what it means to you (and everyone else).

Among other things, it is brilliantly designed. Lots of hard work went into this piece. If you can’t get started yet this week at work, read this as a research project.

Two initiatives IBM is promoting for women of all ages

On this page IBM & Open Source for the Enterprise Developer, there is alot happening, but I want to highlight two things that IBM is doing.

First, IBM is

…partnering with Girls Who Code to promote gender diversity in software development. This summer, we’re hosting a seven-week immersion program for dozens of female high school students in New York City. In 2016, we’re taking it across the country.

And second:

We’re also working with GSVlabs to help women return to work in greater numbers than ever before by offering mentorship and placement programs after multi-year sabbaticals. In focusing on cloud development, IBM hopes to attract women back to the workforce with a new set of skills.

Two worthwhile initiatives, I believe.

Serious about your music? You might want to avoid Apple Music then

If you are serious about your music and you already have alot of digital music, you must read this before getting started with Apple Music: Apple Music is a nightmare and I’m done with it. If you don’t read it and proceed, you may find your music collection in shambles.

Maybe it will be better in a year from now. Based on iTunes, though, I seriously doubt it.

How to spend a day of your vacation/staycation in a Toronto neighborhood

One way to enjoy a staycation is to visit neighborhoods you normally don’t go to and treat them like you would any neighborhood in a city you are visiting. If you are from Toronto and think this is a good idea, then BlogTO has a number of pages devoted to what you can do in many of this city’s neighborhoods . Here’s a list of some of them I put together:

This list is also great if you are a tourist and want to see what the various neighborhoods of Toronto offer. Toronto has more great neighborhoods not on this list, ones you have likely heard of, like West / Queen West, the Beach/Beaches, and Harbourfront. Add some of these neighborhoods listed above to round out your trip to this city.

 

Obama’s moneyball approach to diplomacy

This Vox piece on how Obama does diplomacy is good. While it focuses on Iran, it’s a much broader and more thoughtful analysis of how Obama approaches foreign affairs. Key quote:

Obama’s “undoctrine” starts from the position that there is no need to find a universal foreign policy framework. It’s enough to find specific wins, he believes, and minimize losses.

In his view, foreign policy isn’t a matter of showing strength or trying to make sure that every US action furthers its interests around the entire world. It’s a moneyball approach to foreign affairs: Don’t focus on playing a beautiful game, focus on racking up points at the lowest possible cost. To Obama, that’s how you win.

Obama plays to win, so this shouldn’t surprise people.

A good Vox piece.

An astounding interview of Yanis Varoufakis

This New Statesman interview of Yanis Varoufakis is astounding. The way he describes negotiations between Greece and other members of the Troika should not surprise me, and yet it does.

You might think: that can’t be right….he’s exaggerating for his own benefit. But many of the things Varoufakis states I have read referenced elsewhere, but in snippets.

Well worth the time spent reading it.

P.S. He has some interesting things to say about Piketty, as well. The link to his critique of Piketty is here.

BBQ 101: three good tips from Bon Appétit

I find it easy to forget to how to barbeque, since months go by without doing any of it. I am trying to get back into it and get better. If you are in the same position, Bon Appétit has some good advice for both of us, including

 

Why aren’t we becoming more productive with all this new technology?

Vox raises that question here: All this digital technology isn’t making us more productive – Vox, and it implies that because people are slacking off on the Internet. I think that is incorrect, and here’s why.

The chart that Vox piece has shows big producitivity gains from 1998-2003 and smaller gains after that.

From 1998-2003 was the peak adoption of the Internet by companies. In the early 1990s, companies started to adopt email. In the later 1990s companies started adopting the Web. To me it is not surprising that companies would become more productive and they shifted away from snail mail and faxes to email. And then companies shifted further and started offering services over the Web, I imagine they became much more productive.

Slacking off on the Internet has been a problem since the Web came along. I know, because I used to monitor web server traffic.  I don’t think that is the issue.

I think it is more likely that companies grabbed the big productivity gains from the Internet at the beginning, and then those gains slowed down after.

So what about smartphones? Have they made people more productive? I think they have, but I also think that the gains in being able to access information remotely may have been overtaken by the sheer amount of information to deal with. Being able to deal with email remotely makes you productive. Having to deal with way more email than you ever had to in the 1990s because now everyone has it makes you unproductive.

Furthermore, many of the features on smartphones are aimed at personal use, not professional use. I think smartphones make us more productive personally,  but less so professionall.y

 

On the unnecessary preciousness of architecture

From this, New TD Centre signage reflects a time when brands trump architectural vision – The Globe and Mail, comes this:

Up against that, TD Centre still retains the purity of a temple. And you don’t put billboards on a temple, unless you want to anger the gods.

It’s worth reading that article to get a viewpoint of someone who thinks of architecture as something pure and museum-like.

To me, the owners of the TD buildings are doing reasonable things with a building that functions as a work environment. You can make the argument that the building should never vary from the original intent of the architect. You can also make a good if not better counter argument that the building should be able to adapt to changes over time, and that the building should allow for the people in it to make adaptions to suit them.

The author seems to be arguing that building should remain fixed and never change, never learn. If that seems like an odd idea — that building should learn — I recommend this book: How Buildings Learn, by Stewart Brand. You can get it here. Also, if you search for it on Google, you will see alot of material derived from it.

 

Some good IT links on cloud, software development, github, python, IoT and more

As I go through my day, I often find IT links that are of interest to work I am doing. This is my latest set of links. As you can see, I am keen on cloud, software development, github, python, and IoT, to say the least.

.

Two quick reads on Greece: one good, one glib.

Here’s two views on Greece: one good, one glib.

I’m a fan of Michael Lewis, but this piece of his, Greece Saunters Across the Autobahn – Bloomberg View, is glib at best. It feels like he had to bang out a few hundred words on Greece or he had this Berkeley story he’s been itching to use and finally found a place.

It’s still worth reading, because he is a good writer and his thinking is likely what many people are reading. But don’t read it thinking you will get a better understanding of why Greece is in the state it is in.

After skimming that, read this: Europe’s Attack on Greek Democracy by Joseph E. Stiglitz – Project Syndicate. 

It sums up what I’ve been reading by people who are more aware of what is happening in Greece. You will come away shaking your head, as you should. For what is happening makes no sense from an economic viewpoint. But then, much of Europe has been making poor choices with their economies since the Great Recession started., mainly for ideological reasons.

 

 

 

Reasons to be optimistic (and pessimistic) about climate change


As this article shows, The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change Forever – Bloomberg Business, there are a number of reasons to be optimistic about the way we use energy. Improvements in solar power and energy efficiency are just two reasons to be optimistic.

However, we are still emitting too much CO2 and that is going to cause the temperature of the earth to rise far too high, according to experts. In the long run, we may be ok, but in the next century there are going to be significant consequences.

Read the piece and get a sense of where things are heading.

Thinking of getting fit this summer? You need my fitness link pack

Are you thinking of getting fit this summer? Or do you like to read about people getting fit while you drink your favorite cocktail and sit under the shade? Either way, here’s a bunch of interesting links you’ll want to read

Runner’s World | What Will It Take to Run A 2-Hour Marathon: fascinating. Right now men are closing in on this number, but this article shows how hard it will be to achieve that time. Even people who don’t run marathons will find this worth a look.
Weight loss and habit forming — Let’s not pretend we have it all figured out — Medium. For those of you struggling with their weight, this will be of some comfort.
Your Body is All You Need: The World’s Oldest Training Method (and a 1% Workout) | Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do you think you need fancy equipment to get fit? Think again and listen to Arnold.
Take off that Fitbit. Exercise alone won’t make you lose weight. – The Washington Post. Not just for fitbit users, but anyone trying to lose weight. You need to cut back on eating to make gains (though with enough exercise over time, you can lose that way too).
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Eats About 821 Pounds Of Cod Per Year | FiveThirtyEight. On the other hand, here is an extreme example of what massive amounts of exercise can do to your diet. The Rock eats alot. ALOT. See for yourself.
The Rise of the Spornosexual. Finally, this post is a good one on anyone who wants to go from blah to fit. (The image above is from this piece.) It’s a spartan life to get that way, but it is within the range of the possible for anyone dedicated. Like you, perhaps?  (And yes, they use a bunch of tricks to make the After photo look fitter than the Before photo, but still, the dude is fitter.)

 

Newt Gingrich reviews the Apple Watch and it’s worthwhile

Mashable seems to have taken Newt on staff to do tech reviews and here he is the first piece of his I’ve come across: Newt Gingrich reviews the Apple Watch.

I was surprised, but I found his review well suited for non-technical people who are wondering if such and such technology is worth it for them.  If you fall into that category, you should get some benefit out of what he writes.

The modern history of comic based Hollywood movies is here

The modern history of comic based Hollywood movies is here (via VOX) and it’s great. It starts with this:

Though they both center on a certain caped crusader, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) and Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever (1995) couldn’t be more different. One is regarded as a cinematic treasure; the other is viewed as beautiful, colorful garbage

It goes on to review how films centred on superheroes have been progressing since Tim Burton’s Batman in the beginning of the 1980s and reviews films all the way to 2015. There’s been significant change in the genre in that 35 years, as you might expect. And it looks like it is about to undergo another change.

Like alot of genre films, it’s can be easy to dismiss genre films like this as something outside the mainstream of cinema and not worth discussing. My own view is that comic book films are films first and foremost, and when good directors like Nolan and Burton direct them, you end up with really good films. This has always been true for genre films, not just super hero movies.

For fans of such films, or film in general, it’s well worth a read and a consideration.

Personal drones are getting smaller and cheaper. What that leads to.

As you can see, this new drone (Micro Drone 3.0: Flight in the Palm of Your Hand,  Indiegogo) is really small. Also relatively cheap. Like other IT, I expect personal drones will only get smaller and cheaper. The only limit will likely be how big they have to be in order not to get blown away.

I have heard people come up with innovative ways of using personal drones. For example, some home inspectors are using them to check out hard to reach parts of people’s house in order to see if they are in good shape or not. That’s great.

But there are going to be lots of other ways that people use them which may not be so desirable. The most obvious one is invading people’s privacy. It is one thing to inspect a house when no one is in it: it’s another to do so when someone lives there. Instead of prank phone calls, we’ll have prank drone visits.

How people protect their rights in such cases will be difficult. Drones will raise a number of legal questions. For example, what is your recourse if someone has a drone follow you around? Or if someone has a drone hovering in a public place outside your home? Can you fly a drone above an outdoor concert so you can record it? Can you attack drones that fly into your personal airspace? Will there be security drones that keep other drones off people’s property? If you post a video of a drone visit to a property on YouTube and someone uses that video to help them rob that property, are you an accomplice?

There has been some good work on drones being done by government agencies like Transport Canada, but I think the technology is going to challenge governments and courts to keep up. Expect to see more and more debate on drones in the coming months and years.

As far as this particular drone, Mashable has more on it here.

What do Renaissance artists and animators have in common?

Cartoons! Well, there’s more to it than that, as this fascinating post shows: The secret to great Renaissance art: tracing (Vox).

I knew Renaissance artists did sketches: I didn’t know that they used them as stencils. In hindsight, it makes sense: to make such great paintings, it is best to work them out in detail first and then focus on paint.

Twitter is in trouble! Again!

Since I have been using Twitter, it’s been in trouble. And according to this really good piece, Twitter is in trouble. Here’s why. – Vox, it still is! What is new is the the type of trouble it is in. Previous troubles were technical and then social. Now it’s business trouble.

My take:

  1. they need to be less controlling and make it a platform.
  2. they need new leadership.

Otherwise they are going to become MySpace.

 

Do you like Korean BBQ ribs? If so, you need this


This recipe for a Slow-cooked Asian Roast (from Chatelaine) is something easily adaptable to other dishes. Meat, onion and garlic aside, you can mix up the other ingredients use it for an overnight marinade for beef or pork or chicken that you quickly cook. You can also use it for things you want to simmer on the stove for awhile. And of course you can use it for roasts. It goes without saying you could use it for ribs. Whenever you need to impart those flavours you associate with Korean BBQ ribs, then you want this recipe.

A few tips: if you want to add some spice to it, try sriracha. Don’t worry if it doesn’t seem sweet enough at first: when I was braising some pork chops, I found it seemed sweeter the longer I cooked it, so best to leave it cook and then adjust for sweetness at the end. (That also goes for spiciness.)

BTW, if you want a straight up recipe for Korean BBQ ribs, I recommend this one (which is where the image comes from). Now you have options. 🙂