Web — 1 comment
19
May 12

40 Hours and a Mule

I’ve done an exhaustive job making a case for the new generation of podcasts and podcast networks. This seems like an appropriate time to talk a bit about Mule Radio.

New Kid on the Block

Initially Mike Monteiro premiered his podcast, Let’s Make Mistakes, on the 5by5 network. It was a dark and cynical perspective on design work and to a lesser extent business in general. I loved it. The podcast featured Mike and Katie Gillum. The show was a perfect balance between the two personalities. After a short time, Mike started Mule Radio with his team at Mule Design1 and the first premier show was Let’s Make Mistakes. Shortly after the launch of the network several new shows started, all featuring employees of Mule Design.

There are some singularly interesting and clever people working at Mule which made all of the podcasts an immediate subscribe for me. I settled into a few regulars that I enjoyed the most.

Hour of Pour

The top of my Mule list quickly became The Hour of Pour with Jessie Char and Jason Permenter. Jessie’s sense of humor and acidic wit had me doing spit takes while sipping my morning coffee. Jason Permenter’s smart and clever come backs fit perfectly with Jessie’s quick jabs. But the show ended recently with Jessie’s departure from Mule Design.2 It’s still among the most entertaining banter, short of YLNT.

Salt and Fat

I enjoy cooking and I consider myself quite proficient in the kitchen. The Salt and Fat podcast was a natural fit. Salt and Fat features another super smart duo, Neven Mrgan from Panic Software and Jim Ray from Mule Design. It’s a light-hearted look at practical cooking tips. It’s better than any show on the Food Network. I’ve learned a number of great tips and motivations from listening to the show.

Let’s Make Mistakes

The premier Mule podcast still encompasses the principles of Mule Radio: 50% entertainment, 50% smart thinking, 0% Bullshit. The show produced one of the funniest hours in podcasting with guest star Amy Jane Gruber.

NSFW

And now for some frank commentary about The Talk Show move to Mule Radio.

I like 5by5 podcasts. I enjoy Dan Benjamin’s work a lot. But I do not know Dan personally. It’s none of my damn business what happens between these people. They make things I like and that’s the extent of my personal involvement.

 

I’ve looked over some of the speculation and personal attacks circulating about Gruber’s switch of networks and have one conclusion: There are a number of self-important dickheads with nothing important to do. I think that describes what’s wrong with many people on the Internet. People take their opinion too seriously and like to inflate their own value. How can anyone without personal connections to and personal knowledge of the network switch have any opinion? Further, who gives a shit. It’s a podcast that isn’t ending, just switching networks. No one shut down 5by5. No one changed anything that materially impacts my life. I had to resubscribe to a podcast on a different feed. Big deal.

SFW

The Talk Show will certainly help Mule Radio and that’s nice for all of us that like smart podcasts. It means we now have three excellent new podcast networks.3 Fans of this new media win all around. Perhaps John Gruber is a king-maker. Perhaps by spreading his massive following around more people will discover these new outlets. Perhaps this is the greatest advertising ruse in podcasting. Perhaps we shouldn’t be concerned with his personal business at all.

  1. Seriously, Mike without a beard is creepier than Mike with a beard. ↩
  2. At least that’s how it appears. It was never good with regular appearances, so it is possible that the show will return. ↩
  3. The 70 Decibels Network is coming on strong too. ↩
Link — No comments
18
May 12

Before Watchmen [Link]

I like the Rorschach cover the best. Look at the image on his mask.

By way of Twitter

Link — No comments
18
May 12

Optimism Bias [Link]

Ted Talk on Optimism Bias. I guess I’m the 20%.

I liked this quote in particular:

Remarriage is the triumph of hope over experience

—Samuel Johnson

By way of SwissMiss

Mac — 2 comments
18
May 12

NVAlt Tips

There are several options for Simplenote and Dropbox text editors on the Mac. I happen to prefer NVAlt1. Here are some of the amazing things that NVAlt can do (unless you RTFM you probably will miss them). I use the latest, very stable, public beta. Some of these features may be beta only. You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.

Markdown

  • Markdown preview
  • Markdown autocompletion
  • Markdown wrapping.
  • Export the HTML from the preview.

Select some text in a note and hit cmd-B to wrap it with a double asterisk (**) which is the Markdown tag for bold. There are similar shortcuts for italic, strikethrough and removing formatting.

For working in Markdown, NVAlt may be the best note app on the Mac. It just gets Markdown.

Create a Simple Wiki

  • Words between [[double-brackets]] will become links to other notes
  • Note-titles inside double-brackets are (optionally) auto-completed
  • Shortcut (CMD-Shift-L) for inserting [[Links]]

This is a nice way to keep notes separated by topic but still link them together. It’s basic, but it is very useful. Without the look-ahead autocompletion, I doubt I would ever use it. With autocompletion, it’s fantastic.

Bookmarks

I keep a few bookmarked notes. These are either my general purpose files like a scratch document and a log of links I have created or will need in the near future. Select the bookmark to instantly jump to that note. Bookmarks are available in the menu bar or through the bookmark viewer (cmd-0). Unfortunately, deleted notes are not automatically removed from the bookmarks list.

Tagging

Menu Bar Mode

  • Optional menubar and menubar-only modes: Take NVAlt out of the Dock or just use the quick access menubar
  • Quick jump to NVAlt instantly. A left click activates NVAlt. A right click shows the NVAlt option.
  • Quick access to bookmarked notes.

Files

  • Show in Finder shift-cmd-R3: Pops open a finder window with the text file selected
  • Import: Import an entire folder of text files in one go.
  • Edit With: Since my NVAlt is just using text files, I can easily swap the editor. If I decide a note is becoming something I need BBEdit for, I just hit shift-cmd-E (opens the current note in the default external editor).

Links

  • Right click a note that has links to get a quick option to copy any link. No need to open the note, select the link to put it on the clipboard stack. Yeah, huge time saver.

  • Copy a note’s URL: The link is only good on the Mac that it was copied from but it gives a very convent way to make a direct link to a note that can exist outside of NVAlt. For example, in an OmniFocus task:

Stuff I Don’t Use

  • Social note sharing via Peggd2
  • Insert new password (opt-cmd-\): This is so odd, I have no idea what to do with it. NVAlt can paste a randomly generated string as a “password”
  1. To each their own. ↩
  2. It’s not something I use because it requires Flash. Really? Flash? I’m a dummy. I thought the “Create” ad was actually the button to create a note.↩
  3. This only works if the files are stored in a folder rather than a database file. ↩
Link / Science — No comments
18
May 12

Is HDL Always “Good Cholesterol”? [Link]

A good summary with plenty of references at In the Pipeline. Lower LDL is proven to be good. Higher HDL, not so proven.

Link / Programming / Python — 1 comment
18
May 12

List Python Packages [Link]

Clark’s script prints the entire list of Python packages installed with easy_install. I don’t know what’s normal, but I feel like maybe I have too many.

Programming / Science — 1 comment
16
May 12

Please Teach How To Code

I hate posting links about broadly discussed topics. I thought hard about the latest discussion1 around Jeff Atwood’s post and I still had something to say, so here it is.

To those who argue programming is an essential skill we should be teaching our children, right up there with reading, writing, and arithmetic: can you explain to me how Michael Bloomberg would be better at his day to day job of leading the largest city in the USA if he woke up one morning as a crack Java coder?

—Jeff Atwood

Jeff is very smart. I almost always agree with his posts, but I think he gets this one wrong.

Traditionally we2 have focused our primary educational institutions on Language, Math, Science and History. The presumption has been that teaching these basic topics also provides basic problem solving and critical thinking skills necessary to participate in society in a constructive way. Language provides communication skills. Math teaches us rules based problem solving. History teaches a sense of place. Science teaches general problem solving. By gaining a basic understanding of each area, a new graduate could competently perform a number of basic jobs.

Our social needs have out grown our educational curriculum. Basic empolyment now requires some fundamental understanding of computers. While we debate net neutrality and the internet as a basic human right, we are producing high school graduates that lack even the most rudimentary understanding of the tools needed to access the internet.

Later, Jeff writes:

The general populace (and its political leadership) could probably benefit most of all from a basic understanding of how computers, and the Internet, work. Being able to get around on the Internet is becoming a basic life skill, and we should be worried about fixing that first and most of all, before we start jumping all the way into code.
Please don’t advocate learning to code just for the sake of learning how to code. Or worse, because of the fat paychecks. Instead, I humbly suggest that we spend our time learning how to …
Research voraciously, and understand how the things around us work at a basic level.
Communicate effectively with other human beings.

At once, Jeff invalidates his own argument and gets to the heart of my philosophy.

I agree that teaching to code for a “fat paycheck” or just to make an app are poor drivers. But teaching to code is valuable for more fundamental reasons. Our Science education in primary school is failing. On average, people leave school without the most fundamental understanding of the scientific process. At all levels of childhood we have perverted science education. Science has become CSI and chemistry sets are no more than baking soda. Programming gives us a another method for teaching the same critical thinking skills. It gives us a method that provides an immediate benefit to a 10 year old.

I can teach a 10 year old how to measure a reaction rate, but the concept will always remain abstract and the process will always seem arcane and anachronistic. However, teaching a kid to code with something like Scratch teaches them the same critcial skills and shows them how it relates to their world.

I’m a realist. I would love for everyone to learn science. I would really love it if people understood the data supporting evolution, global thermodynamics and vaccines. The reality is that we are not teaching those things well and students are not learning the skills necessary to teach themselves.

As a scientist and a hacky computer programmer, I see a direct parallel between the two. They both teach the following skills:

  • Abstract problem solving through visualization
  • Cause and effect
  • Hypothesis generation
  • Hypothesis testing
  • Record keeping

But science and programming teach two important lessons as well:

  • The value of well executed failure
  • There is no such thing as a status quo

In all of these discussions, I replaced the word “programming” with the word “science”. If I may, I will take some liberty and rephrase Jeff’s question:

To those who argue science is an essential skill we should be teaching our children, right up there with reading, writing, and arithmetic: can you explain to me how Michael Bloomberg would be better at his day to day job of leading the largest city in the USA if he woke up one morning as a crack scientist?

Yes I can.

  1. Are we still calling it that when it all takes place on Twitter and blogs? ↩

  2. I am writing from the perspective of an ignorant American, because that’s what I know best. ↩

Link / Politics — No comments
16
May 12

Byron Sonne [Link]

Remember kids, even when the judicial system works, you’re still pretty much screwed.

A moment of sanity from the Canadian judicial system, and all it cost was Sonne’s marriage, house, and freedom.

Link / Science — No comments
16
May 12

Selenophenol [Link]

From In the Pipeline:

The biggest stinker I have run across. . .Imagine 6 skunks wrapped in rubber innertubes and the whole thing is set ablaze. That might approach the metaphysical stench of this material.

Also known as things I have regrettably worked with. Every step of the chemistry sucked. Luckily, I spent so much time in lab, no one ever noticed that my skin and hair stunk for a couple of months. So when I see dapper scientists in nice white coats and perfect teeth, I known that it is mostly bullshit. A lot of basic science is done by smelly, unkempt, poorly dressed and often hung-over graduate students regularly sacrificing their wellbeing.

Politics — 1 comment
15
May 12

$10K to $15K a Day in Donations [Link]

The biggest Kickstarter in the world is still Congress. From This American Life:

I needed to bring in ten to fifteen thousand dollars a day [for two years]

Think about that. One congressman. $10K-$15K a day to get reelected. Not to build something. Not to create infrastructure. It’s to run ads to buy votes from people that do not understand what they vote for.

Another great one about the return on investment for a giant corporate tax break called the American Jobs Creation Act1:

22,000%. So For every dollar on average these firms spent on tax lobbying they received $220 in tax benefits from this repatriation provision.

  1. It passed in 2004. Sure, it had other provisions tacked on, but it was really a huge tax shelter. How’s that job creation working out? ↩

Link / Politics — No comments
15
May 12

The Janitor from Columbia [Link]

It’s a feel good story about reaching beyond limitations and finding new potential. But I think it highlights how much a society loses by not creating an inexpensive route into higher education. Is there any downside to getting an education other than debt?

By way of Kaush’s Journal

Link / Python — 2 comments
15
May 12

Plumbum [Link]

Plumbum is a Python library for cross platform shell commands in Python? I’m not sure when I would use this instead of the Python OS modules. Maybe if I wrote more scripts that were intended to be cross platform. It’s something interesting to play with.

By way of Clark’s Tech Blog.

Productivity — No comments
14
May 12

Purposeful Mistakes

This post at The Visual Exegesis was entertaining, but it’s the video embedded half way down that really stuck with me.1 I wouldn’t consider myself a comic book fan. I like them well enough and I have my own personal preferences, but I am no Andy Ihnatko. That also means I don’t really know anything about Neal Adams who is the artist in the video.

Here’s the video:

I watch that video and I see someone making hundreds of directed mistakes. He has many false starts and ideas flow out onto the page while he works through his process. He doesn’t seem to filter out his ideas, but rather builds upon each one and abandons what he doesn’t like. Part way through he obliterates almost the entire work except for the skeleton left by all of those mistakes. His art is made from continuing to move forward beyond the individual faults and failures. His art is a product of many mistakes he makes on purpose in pursuit of the greater perfection.2

  1. Sorry, I don’t remember where I first heard about this. I have some strange sources in my RSS feeds. ↩

  2. I’m not a philosopher, this is just something I thought was “magical”. I know it made me pause and think about how I make things. Before anyone comments, I also know a purposeful-mistake is an oxymoron. Some people take all the fun out of the internet. This footnote is for you. Dicks. ↩

Link / Politics — No comments
14
May 12

Haircut [Link]

Am I the only one that wants more political writing from Andy Ihnatko?

Productivity — No comments
14
May 12

Purposeful Mistakes

This post at The Visual Exegesis was entertaining, but it’s the video embedded half way down that really stuck with me.1 I wouldn’t consider myself a comic book fan. I like them well enough and I have my own personal preferences, but I am no Andy Ihnatko. That also means I don’t really know anything about Neal Adams who is the artist in the video.

Here’s the video:

I watch that video and I see someone making hundreds of directed mistakes. He has many false starts and ideas flow out onto the page while he works through his process. He doesn’t seem to filter out his ideas, but rather builds upon each one and abandons what he doesn’t like. Part way through he obliterates almost the entire work except for the skeleton left by all of those mistakes. His art is made from continuing to move forward beyond the individual faults and failures. His art is a product of many mistakes he makes on purpose in pursuit of the greater perfection.2

  1. Sorry, I don’t remember where I first heard about this. I have some strange sources in my RSS feeds. ↩

  2. I’m not a philosopher, this is just something I thought was “magical”. I know it made me pause and think about how I make things. Before anyone comments, I also know a purposeful-mistake is an oxymoron. Some people take all the fun out of the internet. This footnote is for you. Dicks. ↩

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