May 2013
2 posts
a rambling, stream of consciousness thing on my... →
openareas:
You get to a point in your life when you think you’ve outgrown the whole concept of a songwriter speaking for you or to you. That’s for kids, right? Adults don’t say “He really knows what I’m feeling” or “that song really speaks to me on a deep level,” right? Oh, that’s such bullshit. Because any adult that is no longer moved by music has pretty much stopped living life fully. Angst?...
February 2013
3 posts
resolution independent. platform agnostic. →
You ultimately realize that the harder you squeeze and hold on to old workflows, the quicker things slip through your fingers.
Here’s a thing I wrote introducing the new essentia creative site. (In case you couldn’t guess, it’s all responsive and stuff.) Please go check it out.
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Affiliate links are not advertising
Advertising materially affects the user’s experience of content. Banner advertising has long been the standard model for monetizing a web site. Banner ads create visual distraction and often cause longer load times and other problems with page rendering. A site that features banner advertising is almost unilaterally a worse experience than one that does not feature advertising.
Affiliate links...
January 2013
4 posts
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A Treasury of Chip Kelly, for Eagles Fans
The New Old School: The success of Chip Kelly’s Oregon offense is more familiar than it seems
If you only read one of these links, make it this one.
“We spread the defense so they will declare their defensive look for the offensive linemen,” Kelly explained. “The more offensive personnel we put in the box, the more defenders the defense will put in there, and it...
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“We have a million fonts, a million colors, and a million piles of shit leaving...”
– Aaron Draplin on the simplicity of vintage design, delivered at the Brand New Conference.
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“Imagine Johnny All-Star tells you his father used to throw bottle caps to him to...”
– Tom Verducci
December 2012
3 posts
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____ of 2012
I think year-end “best-of” lists would be so much more interesting if they focused on what the reviewer actually listened to, rather than what they thought they should like. Thanks fo the magic of things like last.fm, this is actually pretty easy.
In that spirit, here are my Top 20 Albums of 2012, based upon actual listens recorded by last.fm:
My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
The...
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“The first thing I heard today was that he grew up on a pig farm. That’s...”
– Barry Switzer, former Oklahoma coach, Arkansas alum, on the hiring of Bret Beilema.
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The Thing About Git
You have to crawl before you can walk, and you have to understand Git on the command line before one of these fancy-pants GUIs will be helpful.
All it takes is about 300 lines of accidentally-deleted CSS before you say, “You know what? Maybe it’s time to get serious about version control.” Which means it’s time for the scary, scary command line. Terrifying for someone who...
November 2012
3 posts
“You know what it is? I spend maybe 10% of my time thinking, “God, I’m really...”
– @lonelysandwich
October 2012
4 posts
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How 'Star Wars' Seduced Another Generation Of Kids... →
“Boys versed in Star Wars share a private language about a vast technical universe that is simultaneously imaginary and concrete, re-created in Lego plastic blocks.”
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12 Proposed U.S. States That Didn’t Make the Cut →
I can literally not get enough of stuff like this, especially as a Delmarva resident.
September 2012
2 posts
4 tags
JankyScript
Before you refactor your code, you have to factor it first.
I wrote about 50 lines of the jankiest JavaScript you’ll ever see last night. The code would be slaughtered in seconds on Stack Overflow. I probably could have done what I needed to do in about 10 lines if I planned it out and thought it through. But none of that matters for now. Know why?
Because it worked.
Sometimes...
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August 2012
5 posts
John Roderick, helping people.
[View the story “John Roderick, helping people.” on Storify]
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“”The views expressed were offensive. Rape is rape. And the idea that we...”
– President Barack Obama, re: Rep. Todd Akin’s comments claiming that victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant.
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July 2012
5 posts
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WatchYou’re mine and that’s it, forever.
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“[The Samsung Galaxy tablets] do not have the same understated and extreme...”
– British High Court Judge Colin Birss, dismissing a parent infringement claim by Apple against Samsung.
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June 2012
3 posts
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Built To Not Last →
Move beyond the immediate economic question, though, and you’ll uncover what I think is one of the biggest shortcomings of Apple’s recent design legacy: this stuff just isn’t made to last. …
This is the age we’re in now, though. … Thanks in part to Apple’s influence and success, we’ve internalized that way of thinking about products so well that we don’t really want hardware that’s capable of...
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WatchThe Antlers - I Don’t Want Love, live on FlyTV
March 2012
1 post
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“[Cole’s] not going anywhere. He was drafted by this organization, raised...”
– It’s amazing to hear Jimmy Rollins say this…especially since he’s maybe the last guy left from the time when this was decidedly not so.
October 2011
2 posts
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HTML 5 Canvas Deep Dive →
You had me at “Bézier curve.”
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Gruber: Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot
Why wear this grass-stained pair for the keynote, a rare and immeasurably high-profile public appearance? My guess: he didn’t notice, didn’t care. One of Jobs’s many gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about. He knew how to focus and prioritize his time and attention. Grass stains on his sneakers didn’t make the cut.
A beautiful, thoughtful...
September 2011
10 posts
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“People love to complain that R.E.M. should have broken up when Bill Berry quit...”
– R.E.M. R.I.P.: Thank You for Running It Into the Ground | Rob Sheffield | Rolling Stone
Rob Sheffield is a man who gets it.
(via perpetua)
“Given the choice, I’d rather make history than simply take it in and post it to...”
– Jason Calacanis, in a brilliant piece on why we’re really at 10% unemployment, and why that number is only going to grow, no matter what the government does. Seriously, go read this now if you or someone you know has, or wants to have, a job.
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“I just thought it was better to be Pete Best than Linda McCartney.”
– Justine Frischmann, on leaving Suede
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“The whole music business in the United States is based on numbers, based on unit...”
– Frank Zappa
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“If the client writes back immediately and says ‘These numbers look great!...”
– Jessica Hische, The Dark Art Of Pricing
If you have ever had to prepare an estimate or charge anyone for creative work, go read this. Now. I’ll wait.
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“A certain strata of middle-class hipsters share Pavement, and that’s...”
– Stephen Malkmus, on Pavement’s legacy
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August 2011
15 posts
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“If $85 (million) is not enough to take care of my family and other generations...”
– Jered Weaver, discussing his contract extension with the Los Angeles Angels and ignoring the advice of his agent, Scott Boras.
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