His second day back on the Internet has been busy.
Category: General Tech
Enthusiasts
On a recent episode of my podcast CMD+SPACE, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jonathan Coulton. On this episode we spoke about some of his recent projects and a little about his history in creating music—pioneering some of the methods of crowd support that we have today.
During this episode we were attempting to try and describe the nature of his audience. On the whole they tend to be quite geeky or nerdy, but Jonathan wanted to avoid these terms. The best description we were able to come up with instead was, ‘enthusiasts’.
Letting The Numbers Go⇢
As those who visit the site can see, it now reads “This is Pat Dryburgh.” This is who I am; this is what I love, what I hate, what inspires me, what challenges me, the questions I am asking myself and the answers I’m discovering. I could go and scour the internet again to fill another “Top 10 Best Websites with a Green Background and Sans Serif Type” post, but that’s not me.
Gazelle Donating April Profits to One Fund Boston⇢
Israel Ganot:
As a Boston-based company, our hearts go out to all those impacted by the explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. For some of us, it has hit very close to home. And we’ve been thinking hard about how Gazelle can help.
For the remainder of April, we will be collecting donations in support of the One Fund Boston, the victims’ relief fund established by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.
On Backups in 2013⇢
Federico Viticci:
However, I’m not as anxious about backups as I used to be. With the move from local storage to cloud services, I feel comfortable knowing that my documents always exist somewhere. I see this every time I set up a fresh install of OS X: my documents, passwords, and photos are in Dropbox and Evernote, my music is on Rdio, my purchased apps are on the Mac App Store, and if they’re not, I have a license saved in my Gmail account. My movies and TV shows are on Plex and iTunes in the Cloud.
On Being a Mac Consultant⇢
All of Patrick Rhone’s advice on the subject is good, but this is great:
Seriously, just be up front with people and have a willingness to help them find a solution even if you don’t know it yourself right away. Sometimes, someone just needs a hand to hold to work through a problem. You should be ready to offer both of yours when needed.
Before I took my current position, I ran the service shop for an Apple-Authorized Service Provider. We did a fair amount of consulting, and the most important thing I told people was this: “I don’t know, but I know how to find out.”
News Corp Threatens to Take Fox Cable-Only if Aereo Isn’t Shut Down⇢
So, how do I give Aereo money?
Arrested Development Comes Back May 26⇢
I can’t believe how happy this makes me.
iFixIt Tears Down an Orange⇢
I hate April Fool’s day, but this made me chuckle.
On the Internet, Freedom of Speech and Being a Dick
This isn’t a post about the Adria Richards thing. I don’t have much unique or all that interesting to say about it, honestly.
But this is a post about the Internet, and its response to Adria Richards and those who have stood up for her over the last few days.
Take Gina Trapani, for example. Gina’s an excellent writer, great podcaster and successful developer. While I don’t know Gina personally, I’ve followed her work for ages and look up to her.
Content Providers Should Fear Netflix⇢
Willa Paskin, in an article I started reading because I love Arrested Development:
Yet traditional television networks still apportion their series in weekly episodes over four to eight months, allowing binge-watching only in retrospect, even though, for an increasing number of viewers, binge-watching isn’t just a way to catch up on a season that has already wrapped but a better viewing experience altogether. Why let networks and advertisers get in the way of that? Which may explain what Sarandos says, that the audience for Breaking Bad is bigger on Netflix than it is on AMC. (One of the few hard numbers Netflix has shared is that 50,000 of its subscribers watched all 13 episodes of Breaking Bad’s season four the day before the new season premiered on AMC.)
On Fighting About Smartphones⇢
Mat Honan:
Nobody cares what kind of smartphone you believe in. It’s not a religion. It’s not your local sports team even. Stop being a soldier. You are not a soldier. You are just wrong. Shut up. You there, with the blog, in the comments, in the pages of the newspaper or the magazine or on Twitter or Facebook. Whatever your opinion is, as soon as you employ it in partisan fashion, it’s deeply and profoundly wrong. Just by sharing it, you are wrong. And nobody cares. Except for the people who do. And they are wrong too. Myself included.