Technology

A collection of 28 posts

Software Development

Facebook (creator of react-native) sings the praises of using mobile native code over framework libraries.

The new Messenger is twice as fast to start and is one-fourth the size. We reduced core Messenger code by 84 percent, from more than 1.7M lines to 360,000. We leveraged the full capability of the OS without needing to wait for any framework to expose that functionality

Technology

Virtual Junk Drawers

Internet 3.0 is really just us making MANY MANY giant virtual junk drawers.

Google

Automation, the illusion of caring

This time, there was no notice e-mail at all. It was taken down, and there was no clear reason behind it, no notice, nothing. Google, a company that violates privacy of millions of people, took my hard work down without any explanation. And when they did this, they could have

Technology

Third-party delivery platforms

as they’ve been built, just seem like the wrong model, but instead of testing, failing, and evolving, they’ve been subsidized into market dominance

Technology

Spotify’s Problem

Even though Spotify continues to see strong subscriber growth, the additional scale hasn’t resulted in dramatically improved financials. The problem is found with the high variable costs associated with music streaming. For every dollar that Spotify brings in the door, only 25 cents is left to cover the costs

Technology

“Link In Bio” is a slow knife

For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are deeply dangerous. If anyone on Instagram can just link to any old store on the web, how can Instagram — meaning Facebook, Instagram’s increasingly-overbearing owner — tightly control commerce on its platform? If Instagram users could post links willy-nilly, they might

Security

Ring let police use a heat map to easily see all devices in an area

"The more we learn about Ring, the clearer it becomes that this product poses serious privacy and civil liberty threats,"  Markey said in a statement to CNET after learning about the video. "Information as sensitive as the street you live on should be kept private and secure. There are gaping

Apple

Smartphones and tablets killed the PC

Yet none of this mattered. Because of its hold on the smartphone business and a very sticky software ecosystem that users found hard to leave, Apple has been able to incorporate many innovations pioneered elsewhere and sell its customers on a series of peripheral billion-dollar businesses, including the Apple Watch

Technology

The Shift to Electric Vehicles

Some great quotes from this article: The Shift to Electric Vehicles Propels a Strike Against GM “electric cars are disasters. They are evil. We are very nervous.” the 3 stages of acceptance Last year, a study by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO found that by 2030, a

Technology

Am I an Executive?

Can you answer yes to these two questions: * Can I set my own budget and sensibly spend money how I see fit? * Can I hire the right people at any time? If no then sorry you are not. Bonus follow up question: * But do you have a fancy title? If

Apple

HomePod will expand in markets Amazon and Google can't

Apple is competing for the home audio experience, not ad surveillance The next year, Apple expanded its "Pods" branding to the home. The HomePod wasn't designed to outsell $30 loss leader microphones from Amazon and Google, which are designed primarily to snoop on customers as an Internet-connected bug installed right

Technology

Our Lives Are Becoming Comfortable Illusions

Once you start to see this, you’ll see why it wreaks havoc on people’s minds: Reality isn’t simple. It’s complex and messy. Life is full of uncertainty so naturally we’re eager to flock to media where everything makes perfect sense in neat, rounded rectangles. It’

Google

Google, Facebook, and The Creepy Line

Google also makes most of their money via this same type of keyword-based advertising that doesn’t require any search-history tracking. So why do they track it all then? Because Google is not really a search company; they are an advertising company. On Google, your searches are tracked, mined, and

Technology

Media’s Blame Game

When you have sales guys (they are mostly guys) in charge, decisions will reflect their usual approach, which is to maximize their personal gains as quickly as possible, cash in their bonus checks, and then move on to another outfit desperate enough to let them do it all again. This

Media

Tracking-based ads, generally called adtech, do not sponsor publications

Getting the world to mistake direct marketing for real advertising is one of the great magic tricks of all time: a world record for misdirection in business. Tracking-based ads, generally called adtech, do not sponsor publications. They use publications as holding pens in which human cattle can be injected with

Technology

Neal Stephenson – Why I Am a Bad Correspondent

Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four.

Technology

Virality Is History

We all watch different TV shows and read different books and listen to different music. So nothing catches fire and blows up, because no one’s got the time for what they’re already interested in. So marketers furiously look for publicity in newspapers, blogs, believing it will start a

Technology

Computers and Video Surveillance

It used to be that surveillance cameras were passive. Maybe they just recorded, and no one looked at the video unless they needed to. Maybe a bored guard watched a dozen different screens, scanning for something interesting. In either case, the video was only stored for a few days because

Technology

Heroku vs. a private server vs. Kubernetes

Heroku vs. a private server vs. Kubernetes 1. Use Heroku (or something similar) whenever you can. It’s easy and painless. But sometimes you need disk storage, or your own database server, or a few apps which cooperate. This is hard to do with Heroku. 2. You can always run

Technology

Magic

Magic at its very core is simply limiting the number of people that know the secret.

Technology

How the Tech Press Forces a Narrative on Companies it Covers

I don’t remember who told me company narratives were like a clock. I was at Google, where I’d taken a job on the communications team despite zero experience in communications. During my early days there, I tried to navigate my new profession by listening to the many comms

Technology

Tesla critic changes tune on Elon Musk: ‘I think it’s time to re-evaluate the man’

“I think it’s time for a re-evaluation. I think it’s time to look at the man’s achievements, rather than his public image. Like him or not, Elon Musk is surely the prime example of a brilliant entrepreneur. “He makes state-of-the-art electric cars. OK, he leaned heavily on

Technology

Dokku - The smallest PAAS

The smallest PaaS implementation you’ve ever seen Own Your PaaS. Infrastructure at a fraction of the cost.Powered by Docker, you can install Dokku on any hardware. Use it on inexpensive cloud providers. Use the extra cash to buy a pony or feed kittens. You’ll save tens of

Technology

Mass personalization is a trap

I know that I’m asking you to spend hours on the favor I’m asking, but no, I couldn’t be bothered to spend three minutes to ask you. There’s an uncanny valley here, that uncomfortable feeling we get when we know we’re being played, when someone

Technology

Not making decisions

I think that the biggest problem that Reddit had and continues to have, and that all of the platforms, Facebook and Twitter, and Discord now continue to have is that they’re not making decisions, is that there is absolutely no active thought going into their problems The incentive structure