Development, coding, software, hacking, video games, mobile, web, programming.
The first time I asked something on Stack Overflow it took me like 20 minutes to figure out how to ask the question. I had to format the code somehow in that little input box, repro it, explain what I'd already tried, provide output etc. After all that work someone closed it as a duplicate. I was confused and unhappy to say the least but also, I didn't realize at the time, I was…
Where ChatGPT was sycophantic, Claude is just straight up preachy. So after using these models for about three years now for daily chat work, I think I have some feedback. First of all, I think the memory feature is not as good as these companies want it to be. It feels more like a hostage situation, or like an ex who pulls up old baggage to bring up on you in the middle of a conversation. I…
What follows is one of my favorite (and what I consider to be most profound) ideas from Alan Watts. It suggests, to me, the truth of our life in the simulation, and the recursive loop of existence which we find ourselves in. ---------------------------------------------------------- If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies…
The Fiverr CEO recently made a hilarious statement regarding how AI is COMING FOR ALL OF US LOL. Here's what he said: So the AI doom and gloom train continues. But one need to look no further than Fiverr itself to realize what a crock of baloney this is. I'm currently dealing with what I believe is some kind of scammer who says I need to pay for extra. First, the seller sent me a request to modify…
Alright, did you get an offer to join a startup? Or maybe you are looking for a new career path. Are you fed up with years of wage slavery at huge corporations? Maybe you just graduated, looking for the first dent you'll make in the world. Perhaps you and a few friends are about to embark on a new voyage to discover a trove of digital treasures. So you're wondering if you should take that ever…
A little over a year ago, I wrote a post called Which Programming Language Should You Learn To Make Money , and at the time, the post was fairly relevant. In fact, it still is today, with one exception. JavaScript. JavaScript has really started to come into its own lately. There are multitudes of frameworks, patterns, architectures, microlibraries, testing tools, build tooling, and more. It…
Back before The Matrix, back before Simulacra and Simulation, and even back before Star Wars, Philip K Dick predicted that we are living in a computer simulation, and he cited his knowledge of this as the source of his novels. He even went so far as to describe a girl in black hair who shows up at his door and tells him his world is a delusion. While we may not want to believe PKD, we cannot deny…
Full disclosure: I run a growth hacking service called Followme.io . I hear it a lot, I see it everywhere. Growth hack your userbase! Growth hacks for more followers! Growth hack your way to success! But is it real, and does it work? The short answer is yes, it works. But the how and why may not be palapable to everyone. Growth hacking can be used by anyone from a teen on tumblr to your Series D…
Wow, the cloud sure does suck. But that doesn't seem fair. Your Digital Ocean account is fine. Your Dropbox you use to share your family photos is the greatest thing since sliced bread! In fact your mom has never been happier. So why does it suck? 1) Arbitrary restrictions and limits Your client asks to upload their forms to a server. Your boss tells you Google App Engine is amazing for this.…
I'll get right to the point. About $100,000 a year. That's the answer if you have been programming for 4+ years and work in a major tech hub like the Bay area or NYC. Of course your mileage WILL vary. Your salary is dependent on your skill level, your experience and your negotiating power. Most programmers will make between $40,000 and $120,000. Junior prgrammers, or people starting out…
"What can I do about it?" This is the most asked question when it comes to the declining state of the globe. Politicians and law enforcement are spying on all of us, bankers are taking advantage of uninformed people, our rights are disappearing, and dystopia is coming. We feel helpless. We tried to vote for 'Change', we tried protesting, we tried petitioning, we tried writing to our…
Apple is rich, powerful, and everyone is staring at its products all day. So how come the stock has been languishing, and despite their piles of cash, they haven't innovated since Steve Jobs' iPhone? How come some people even have the audacity to call Apple boring ? I still get pleasure from using my iPhone, and I adore my MacBook Pro retina and Cinema Display. I still cannot imagine…
I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. If you haven’t started a company, really gambled your resume and your money and maybe even your marriage to just go crazy and try something on your own, you’re no pirate and you aren’t in the club. — Michael Arrington Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work. — Stephen King If…
I really love this commencement speech. It's not about technology, it's not about business, it's not even about success or making money. It's simply a very real, honest examination of what life is like out here in the 'real world.' It seems like the thing that every commencing college student should hear, but none will understand (until it's too late.) It is a…
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. There's nothing new on the internet, there never is. You get tired of wasting time and go back to working on your prototype, SocialBox. It's your…
How do you get a programming job? It seems obvious, just apply for jobs until you get one. But that's not so easy for people coming from another industry, or people who have no programming experience. To get a programming job you will obviously need programming experience. Even getting a freelance job will require you to have some kind of portfolio. Also, there are many programming career…
Turns out that I've been posting in the 'Public' setting for some time now. This means whatever I post, anyone on Facebook can see . And anyone with an email address can sign up on Facebook. It does NOT mean anyone on the internet can see your posts, but a simple registration to the Book is all it takes. I quickly created a new Facebook account and checked out my profile. Sure…
Three big players and one little guy are looking out for your best interests. It is a good time to be a consumer. In the past we've seen loads of debacles around Facebook and privacy, and it seems like these guys don't want to make the same mistake. The most recent protector of your identity is Apple. A few months ago they announced they would no longer allow developers to track your…
I've always wanted to get this, and I did a few days back. There's some art work (graffiti?) you can see from the Q train as you leave Brooklyn, just before you get out of the tunnel and on the Manhattan bridge. I always love seeing it on my way to work.
1) It crashes. A lot. I remember back in the early days of Eclipse, it would crash pretty frequently. It's funny because I had forgotten all about that until I started using Xcode. Then I remembered what it's like to be using a shitty IDE which crashes all the time. Ironically enough, Eclipse NEVER crashes on my Mac, but Xcode, which is an Apple product, is crashing on its own hardware. 2) It…
That was one of the best lessons I've learned in recent years, something I like to call the Field of Dreams mentality. That if you build it, they will come. They being the critical mass, the teeming hoard, ready to blast your servers to hell. And it being anything your fingers could program, possibly something you thought of with a friend, and most likely involving social, mobile, geolocation…
This is a guest post by Stephen Johnston Just like when any good celebrity worth their grits dies, we all go on a rampage to buy anything and everything that has to do with the late great entertainer. Oh yes Steve Jobs (R.I.P.) was a genius, but he was also a celebrity and an entertainer. A keynote delivered by him in a lot of ways was better than seeing Radiohead live in concert. I've always…
Our idea sucked. That was probably the biggest reason. Other factors include: we had no prototype, no users, no traction and no revenue. We went to YC NYC and asked Paul Graham, Harjeet Taggar, Fred Wilson, Jessica Livingston, one of the founders of Airbnb, and some other really smart people about the space we were trying to get into and they didn't turn us off right away. They didn't…
This sweet new Chrome extension creates a temporary history of the songs you've been listening to and provides an easy download link to nab your favorite tracks. It even sets the right name on the file and adds id3 tags. I'm using it right now and I have to say, it is very convenient. My biggest gripe with Hypem used to be that I would like a song there, come back a few days later to…
I often hear people ask what programming language they should learn first. But the question should be: why do you want to program in the first place? If you are interested in it because it seems fun, then any language will do. But I have a feeling some of you have bills to pay, and you're thinking it wouldn't be so bad if programming could foot some of that. Now the question is more…
It feel like every week that I read some post on Hacker News or some random blog post extolling the virtues of free love with our ideas. People say that ideas are cheap, it's execution that matters. They say that nobody is interested in stealing your crappy idea. And if your idea is worth anything, you will have to shove it down peoples throats. I think that ideas are floating around in the…
Many people guard their ideas, as if simply sharing them would give others the desire, will and motivation to begin working on them and outpace the conceiver, who is probably not the only person with that idea. In Waking Life, there is a scene with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke lying in bed, and Hawke suggests that there is some telepathy, some type of Carl Jung collective unconscious: It's…
Although that's probably not a big surprise since everyone is looking for a ' rockstar programmer ' or ' ux ninja ' these days. I feel bad for my friends who don't posses these skills, it seems like that's all anybody cares about in the job market. And that reality is tough for job seekers, but it has an entirely different effect on youth. Back in my day if you…
One of my favorite songs by The National is Theory of the Crows . It takes place during the dotcom era when a couple of the band members were working in a startup, looking to IPO or have a sucessful exit, and Cash In. They caught the goldrush fever of 2000, and like so many others, got burned. Stereogum asked Matt Berninger what he would have done had he had struck it rich. STEREOGUM: Ever wonder…
I have been trying to trace back to when I first became so enamored with startups, and creating a business. I think it began when I met the founder of MenuPages , Greg Barton. Prior to that I was just another software engineer, totally oblivious to what the world had in store for me. I spent my days slinging code and my evenings chugging brews with my fellow developers. When I accepted the job at…
Maybe you missed it, but there's been a slew of new productivity apps lately: Orchestra , Clear , Asana , and so many others. We haven't had this much productivity since David Allen coined GTD. So why the obsession with productivity apps? Email Overload - People are inundated with email. Most productivity apps today are really touting email connectivity, with the promise to help reduce the burden…
The Sony Playstation Vita came out just a couple of months ago and has already sold over one million units worldwide. And it could be the next Foursquare killer. The Vita includes things we take for granted: GPS (3G only), accelerometer, motion sensor, front and rear camera. All these are ubiquitous today but they are still new to the portable gaming community, especially GPS. Dennis Crowley…
Customary first post. This is sort of like smacking the side of my yacht with a champagne bottle, or cutting a ribbon on the neighborhood grocery store, or making that first dig. But it takes more than a shovel to build a town hall. So I think I'll stick to building shacks, or dinghy's. I look forward to covering weird programming things I discover during my day to day, hot button issues…