With all of what you need, and none of what you don’t the Propellerheads Balance is a sleek, cool little recording console.
Author Archives: Bill
DFW: On Perfectionism
April 24, 2013 – 12:34 pm
Perfectionism is very dangerous, because, of course, if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything, because doing anything results in … it’s actually kind of tragic, because it means you sacrifice how gorgeous and perfect it is in your head for what it really is.
–David Foster Wallace
via PBS Blank on Blank
Symbolset
April 23, 2013 – 2:33 pm
Staircase / Book case / Slide!
April 23, 2013 – 12:57 pm
Designed by achitect Moon Hoon, the Panorama House includes a staircase that is also a book case, and features a slide to boot!
From the architect:
The basic request of upper and lower spatial organization and the shape of the site promted a long and tin house with fluctuating facade which would allow for more differentiated view. The key was coming up with a multi-functional space which is a large staircase, bookshelves, casual reading space, home cinema, slide and many more…
The client was very pleased with the design, and the initial design was accepted and finalized almost instantly, only with minor adjustments. The kitchen and dining space is another important space where family gathers to bond. The TV was pushed away to a smaller living room. The attic is where the best view is possible, it is used as a play room for younger kids. The multi-use stair and slice space brings much active energy to the house, not only children, but also grown ups love the slide staircase…An action filled playful house for all ages…
The rest of the house is pretty cool as well.
Wilson Keyring
April 9, 2013 – 12:35 pm
The Wilson Keyring, by genmfg.co. It is simple, sturdy, good-looking, and most importantly, very practical. It is simultaneously quite easy to open, yet very unlikely to accidentally spill your keys everywhere. The splash of color looks good, especially when hung from a belt.
A Startup Development Plan
April 1, 2013 – 6:43 pm
- Continuous Integration, use it.
- All code must have tests. Lower coverage == CI fail
- Tests must run fast. Slower average test speed == CI fail
- Code quality regression == CI fail.
- Vagrant and Chef for your development environment. A new dev machine is a “git clone” and “vagrant up” away. (this means good seed data!)
- Any and All strings that a user could ever see must be internationalized, resource file in {native language} first, of course.
- Github is the hub: pull requests for code review. One other person signs off on code before it goes to staging
- Deployment, Rollback, and Scaling are all one command away.
- Build for horizontal scaling. Start with multiple instances of every server/database/application/service type. Plan on your servers/apps/services being fungible, unreliable, and innumerable. Discovery over configuration. (etcd, zookeeper, ironfan, doozerd)
- Faster response to the user is always better. Anything that doesn’t need an immediate response, queue it up and do it in the background. Cache and pre-compute as much as possible.
- If someone else has made a library that does most of what you want, use it. (Submit patches so it does all of what you want)
- If you can abstract the solution out of the app into a standalone library, do so and make it open source. Open source is the great code review in the sky. More eyes means better code.
- A service is better than a solution. A solution is better than a hack. A hack is better than nothing at all.
- Done is the engine of more.
- Perfect is the enemy of the good.
Hotel Coffee Salvation
March 13, 2013 – 12:41 pm
Desiderata Of Happiness
February 6, 2013 – 12:04 pm
Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its shams, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
The Desiderata of Happiness, by Max Ehrmann
Klein Bottle Opener
November 19, 2012 – 4:10 pm
The problem of beer: That it is within a ‘bottle’, i.e. a boundaryless compact 2-manifold homeomorphic to the sphere. Since beer bottles are not (usually) pathological or “wild” spheres, but smooth manifolds, they separate 3-space into two non-communicating regions: inside, containing beer, and outside, containing you. This state must not remain.
A proposed solution: Clearly the elegant course is to introduce a non-orientable manifold, which has one side and does not divide 3-space. When juxtaposed with the beer-bounding manifold described above, it acts to disrupt the continuity thereof, canceling the outdated paradigm of distinction between interior and exterior. This enables the desired interaction between beer and self.Implementation The Klein Bottle Opener shown above is an example. It is palm-sized, durably constructed in stainless steel, effective, and blissfully ergonomic. Q E D You need one.
Why do children hide by covering their eyes?
October 25, 2012 – 2:19 pm
Because they believe that to be “seen” they have to see the other person.
… it would seem that children apply the principle of joint attention to the self and assume that for somebody to be perceived, experience must be shared and mutually known to be shared, as it is when two pairs of eyes meet
Fascinating.
Why do children hide by covering their eyes? from the British Psychological Society.
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