Reading Time: < 1 min Joe Rogan used to have one of the most popular podcasts on the internet, but in mid-2020 he signed an exclusive deal with Spotify, reportedly for $100M. Therein lies the problem. I don’t fault Joe for taking the deal. If Spotify offered me $100M for almost anything, I’d do it. However, I love the open […]
Technology
Making RSS about people
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve been talking about RSS feeds for about 13 years now, and have been using them much longer than that. I recently suggested that most everyone should be using them, and you can see how they fit into my larger system here. That said, I’m constantly adjusting how I use them, which is part of […]
Beat Saber is a fun workout
Reading Time: < 1 min I heard about Beat Saber a few years ago — think “Guitar Hero” but you swing virtual light sabers at notes instead of playing them on a plastic guitar. My wife got me an Oculus Quest 2 for my birthday a few weeks ago, which is a VR headset with a few controllers, and it’s […]
Thomas Edison was bad at math
Reading Time: 2 min Thomas Edison was famously bad at math (he said he had a “distaste” for it), but math was essential to much of the work he did. Rather than force himself to learn it better, he focused where he excelled, and hired mathematicians to assist with his work. Who built your mouse? Related, Matt Ridley has […]
Social media is vapor
Reading Time: 2 min If you’re reading this post in 2021, there is a good chance you found this post via social media. If you’re reading this at some point later, you probably didn’t — at least not from a social post of mine. My posts about it have come and gone, just like millions of other posts every […]
Johannes Gutenberg was the first Steve Jobs
Reading Time: 2 min In learning more about Johannes Gutenberg and his creation of the printing press, the similarities with Steve Jobs and the first Macintosh are remarkable. Typeface Both men took a serious stance on high-quality typeface (fonts, essentially), at a place in history when it seemingly didn’t matter. Both men created something spectacular and history-changing, yet were […]
Night shift all day long
Reading Time: 2 min A popular feature that has found it’s way to all major operating system (not only Windows and Mac, but iPhone, Android and others) is “night shift” mode, where your display shifts to show more colors from the warmer end of the spectrum, with less blue light. When you first enable it, most systems default to […]
Escape into brain.fm
Reading Time: 2 min I’ve been trying to read more over the past year, and for the most part have been pretty successful. Much of that is due to simply making it a higher priority, but some tools have helped along the way — a big one is brain.fm. The app is essentially just specially-created music that you listen […]
We have to do something about it
Reading Time: 2 min Over the past few weeks, the stock market has been in a bit of a frenzy over the mess with GameStop. If you’re not familiar with what’s been going on, this is a good overview. The problem I’m seeing is a lot of people suggesting “we need to do something“. While perhaps things need to […]
Needless artificial constraints
Reading Time: 2 min Constraints on your work can be a good thing. In The Practice, Seth Godin devotes an entire section to them. Among other examples, he cites Susan Kare’s work on the original Macintosh and the amazing icons she created while under a 32×32 pixel constraint. However, there are times when constraints seem arbitrary and unnecessary, a […]