Kripy

By Arturo Escartin
May 18, 2012

‘You Owe Me A Goat’

Nathanial Hornblower, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times:
Anyway, that video is big time good. Pauline Kael is spinning over in her grave. My film technique is clearly too advanced for your small way of looking at it. Someday you will be yelling out to the streets below your windows: “He is the chancellor of all the big ones! I love his genius! I am the most his close personal friend!”

Bonus round: Hornblower at the 1994 MTV Music Video Awards.

Ride A Bike, Move To The Netherlands

Sarah Goodyear, writing at Atlantic Cities:
This emphasis on early education in the rules of the road doesn’t simply result in well-mannered and safe bike riders who use the excellent cycling infrastructure on Dutch streets responsibly. It also means that everyone in the society understands what it is to be a cyclist. All the people driving cars have had experience on bikes. They can look at cyclists and think, “That could be me.”

I have been harping on about this for years. The “us versus them” mentality in Sydney – I can’t speak for the other Australian capitals – has come about by a complete lack of understanding by people who have never ridden a bike on the street. And I don’t mean around the block in a local suburb. Try riding into town from the inner-city, let alone a spin around the Sydney CBD, and you’ll get a sense of how frightening it can be. You need to be equal parts confident, which tends to breed riders on an agro tip, and crazy. Confidently crazy. There’s absolutely no respect, and it’s sad to say this, but unless we start getting the next generation onto bikes at a young age, there’ll never be any.
May 17, 2012

‘The Problem With iOS Developers’

“wast334″ commenting on The Verge:
Marco is actually a part of the Apple cult along with Gruber and the rest of them. These guys have no idea what actual software development is actually like. For this you truly need to look beyond the closed box that is Objective-C, Cocoa, and look out into the world of real languages. These guys won’t have the mindset to code natively in C/C++, for widely adopted frameworks such as .NET, utilizing modern languages like C#. They will not be able to write cross platform code using Java, and hence their inherent hate for Android (of course that is just a side reason for hating, we all know what the real reasons are).

Except that Marco Arment wrote the back-end code for a little old website called Tumblr that’s doing around 15 billion page views a month. Would really like to see any enterprise .NET stack even come close to handling that sort of traffic.
May 16, 2012

Homeboy Industries

Douglas McGray, writing for Fast Company :
“I told my daughter I’m going to buy her kids an outfit for school,” she said. She tried to continue, but she started to cry, and then sob, her whole body shaking. “I wanted to thank you,” she said, struggling to speak. “I’m going to tell her how you helped me.”

“No,” Boyle said. “No, tell her you did it. You did it.”

Heartwarmingly heartbreaking.
May 15, 2012

The Blog Stripped Bare

I’ve actually lost count of the amount of times Kripy has changed in the last seven or so years. From the newsletter – I’m going to dig up a few old issues and post them for prosperity’s sake – to the umpteen iteration of blog like morphs it’s been through since I stopped doing the newsletter. Only Orlando has gone through a more tumultuous warp.

In anticipation of an impending redesign, of which I’m still waiting on the designer, I jumped the gun and started pulling together the web templates. This was after a roundabout decision on sticking with WordPress instead of going back to Moveable Type. I looked at what both Gruber and Kottke run, and having hosted my first website, Psychic Boys Network, on it I toyed with the idea of going back. I did some research. I read how Gruber has fireballed a few WordPress websites in his time. I read how WordPress “completely dominates” the top 100 blogs. I even hunted for a flat file CMS that runs off Markdown. Then I came to my senses. WordPress is working for me right now. There’ll be no need to recode. I can look at caching if it ever comes to that: only worry about scaling when it becomes a problem. And I can focus on rewriting all the posts in Markdown and getting on with the most important thing, writing. And hunting down amazing photography or as I like to think of it: catching butterflies. Yeah, mixed feed, but I’m thinking of allowing a switch to hide images for those that like to scan words, fast.

I thought it was interesting to show what I blog looks like without any, neigh much, design wrapped around it. The skeleton if you will. And also what I’d present to a designer. A prototype is a step up from wireframes as you can see how the content truly flows on a real web page plus it allows you to play around with typography. Wireframes can hinder as much as help, but I’m not going to get into that today.

Sketch and code all the way.

Steak And Ice Cream

Evelyn Rusli, Nicole Perlroth, and Nick Bilton reporting for The New York Times:
“Mark and his signature hoodie: He’s actually showing investors he doesn’t care that much,” Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg TV. “He’s going to be him and he’s going to do what he’s always done.” Mr. Pachter added: “I think that’s a mark of immaturity. I think that he has to realize he’s bringing investors in as a new constituency right now, and I think he’s got to show them the respect that they deserve because he’s asking them for their money.”

The topic of Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie has been running hot the last few days. Is that what happens when you ask for other people’s money? It get’s better though:
“As the deal came to a close, Mark and Kevin sat outside and ate steaks and ice cream, while the lawyers all sat inside watching ‘Game of Thrones,’” said a person who was present. It wasn’t lost on those there, this person said, that “two 20-somethings were alone hammering out the terms of the deal.”

And there’s the opening scene of The Social Network Part Two.
May 14, 2012

Binge Thinking

Janet Reitman in Rolling Stone:
Lohse was given the pledge name “Regina,” after the character in Mean Girls, in honor of his aggressive social climbing. During his seven-week pledge term, he and his fellow SAE pledges, known as “whale shits,” were on call to cater to the whims of the brothers. Most of the formal “hazing” was reserved for meetings and challenges: Pledges would be required to perform endless “quick sixes,” recite SAE’s creed, “The True Gentleman,” while lying in a kiddie pool full of ice, or take shots of mystery alcohol while being quizzed on arcane fraternity lore. (This same ritual, with the addition of tying the pledge’s hands and feet with zip ties, led to the death of Cornell sophomore George Desdunes, the SAE pledge who died last February.) There were also “milk meetings,” where pledges were asked to chug a gallon of milk in 20 minutes, which always resulted in plentiful booting. “You get points for how many times you booted on other people,” says Lohse, who adds that the pledge trainers kept count while they sat on large throne-like chairs in a basement room. One brother recalls the night some of the pledges were served a scramble of vomit and eggs, known as a “vomlet.”
May 11, 2012

We Need To Talk About Rupert

Luke Ryan, writing for The Vine:
This isn’t intended as a defence of the Government’s Budget (I’m not enthused) or some partisan shot across the bows of the Liberal Party or even a real engagement with the content of the paper itself, but rather to suggest that if anyone involved in the production of this front cover looked at it and thought “You know what? This is exactly what a newspaper is meant to be” then they have no business using the title journalist. Just call yourselves propagandists and be done with it, because this thing is closer to the output of a Stalinist regime than anything contained in the 2012 Budget.

It’s starting to feel like, somehow, Australia has managed to punch its way through the bottom of the barrel.

Vote For Wavves

Jonathan Green, stirring up the locals on ABC’s The Drum:
To be reminded of Keating’s boldness and certainty is to recall that we have lost more than his trademark arrogant pugnaciousness in the intervening decade. We’ve also lost political leadership, surrendering it to belligerent ignorance at high volume. You get the feeling that the modern politician, seeing that Keating talkback video would be schooled: “see that’s the arrogance that cost him”. And that’s cost us.

I don’t want to waste the energy, nor the words. What really gets me: we’re not going to decide this time, we’re just going to get what we’re given.
May 10, 2012

Master Of None

James Aviaz, guest posting on Adspace Pioneers:
Growing up in Australia systematically breeds this instinct out of you. The real winners Down Under are the guys flying below the radar pretending they’d rather drink 15 beers than work on business strategy. And if anyone dares shine above the crowd – and HEAVEN FORBID BE PROUD OF IT – they’ll be cut down like a tall poppy.

See the thing is, I probably drank those 15 beers. I pulled this quote out of context: Aviaz is actually talking about the Jack-Of-All-Trades dilema and how the whole idea of a “Slashie” is actually a minus in New York:
The most amazing people I’ve met have all been insanely determined to achieve something great. When you talk to them, you know exactly what they’re about and what they want.

Focus. I wish I could be more like this with my writing, but with words, for me, it’s more of a time constraint than trying to do too much of everything. See I don’t write for a living; I make digital things.

This isn’t about writing though, it’s about Miles Davis:
These musicians didn’t just show up and play some tunes. They spent years and years practicing and honing their respective crafts. They weren’t all great at everything, but they were exceptional at their chosen instruments. These days we call it being T-shaped, but I think the point is simple: pick one or two instruments, and become really good at playing them through continuous learning and practice.

Jazz right? It always comes back to jazz.

Post Venture Capitalism

Felix Salmon, writing for Wired:
It’s like British cyclist Tom Simpson, who took a combination of cognac and amphetamines before a brutally hot stage of the 1967 Tour de France. It enabled him to push past his limits-until he collapsed and died on the slopes of Mount Ventoux. Sometimes it’s best to conserve energy, to play the long game, and not to risk everything for the sake of a short-term win. But once you’re public, the markets start pushing you to hit those numbers every quarter. And the results can be fatal.

In the context of secondary markets and IPOs, drug-addled Tour de France riders make perfect sense. That and I’m a sucker for an awesome segue.
May 6, 2012

Adam Yauch, R.I.P.‎

Sasha Frere-Jones on his New Yorker blog:
The ideal memorial is written from distance, a generous calculation of merit that proceeds honorably without abandoning accuracy. I have to apologize right now for being unable to give you that – Adam Yauch was a part of my childhood, an ambassador to America from our New York, which is now gone, as is he.

Gutted.

Encoded Labour

Matt Webb:
This idea of labour being hidden in things, and the value of things arising from the labour congealed inside them, is an unexpectedly powerful explanatory tool in the digital world.

Not quite The Matrix moment but as it turns out, we, the consumers, are the ones doing all the work. Not only that but as soon as we hit that submit button the content no longer belongs to us. Take the user away and you have no content. Take the content away and you have no platform.
What is the labour encoded in Instagram? It’s easy to see. Every “user” of Instagram is a worker. There are some people who produce photos – this is valuable, it means there is something for people to look it. There are some people who only produce comments or “likes,” the virtual society equivalent of apes picking lice off other apes. This is valuable, because people like recognition and are more likely to produce photos.

Feel like you’re being used yet? One of the biggest barriers to the web in terms of self-publishing is the fact that it’s not easy. Register a domain, find a host, point your domain at the host, find a turnkey content management system (CMS), deploy it, design the website, plug the templates into the CMS, write content, keep writing content, find the motivation to keep on going. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest: lock, load, push the button. Mingle with 900 million other people.

As the open web debate continues to evolve, or rather starts to eat itself from the outside in, the ability to host, and therefore own your own content, will no doubt come into play.
The second interesting point is that the word “user,” as in a user of Instagram or Facebook, is dangerous, because it hides all of this.

Wake up. Or maybe that’s it: in ten years from now you’ll be fully goggled into Facebook, not knowing the difference between it and reality – whatever it is and whatever reality ends up becomming – and I’ll come along in my silver ship and pull you out of there.
May 3, 2012

DIY DOS

“Bees with machine guns!” Or, how to build a bigger, better Facebook drill.
May 1, 2012

Moderate This

In a year’s time, the same beer will be $5.20. I’ll still be hungover, killing houseplants with neglect. I still won’t have done enough writing.

Mr. Ross-Edwards is thinking that he hasn’t written enough (even though he has). Note to self: write more.

Offsetting Technology

Dave Pell, interviewed by Hamish McKenzie on Pando Daily:
After everybody went around and said what their problem was, the person moderating the group said, “Let’s go around the table and people can talk about a solution they’ve found that’s effective.” As they went around the table, every single person’s solution was another piece of technology. Some people used Evernote for better note-taking, some people had new email strategies so they could make their email more efficient.

So we’re in this weird cycle now where we’re being overwhelmed by technology and we’re looking for a technological solution to that. Ultimately the solution for managing technology is going to be human. I don’t think technology can solve its own downside itself.

The interview is actually about Pell’s amazing newsletter, NextDraft, which he knocks out daily off the back of sifting through 50 to 60 websites. No mean feat. Naturally, they discussed human curation versus algorithmic sifting but as they got into it the idea of “information dieting” emerged.
April 27, 2012

It’s Not The Product, Stupid

Dustin Curtis:
Google+ is difficult design; it is not difficult engineering.

Take that Larry Page. Ever noticed how crap search is on Facebook? You probably haven’t because you’ve never used it. The product has evolved without the need for it.
My point here is that “social” is a point of view from which to design products and not a “layer” that can be easily draped over existing, non-social products. The properties Google has already relaunched with social integration, including Reader and Search + Your World, are almost certainly worse versions of themselves than their predecessors. If you started with the Google+ philosophy and wanted to solve the problem of RSS in a socially-aware way, would you even build a separate product? Maybe. Or maybe not. That’s the point. Evolving Reader into Reader + Social results – at best – in a mediocre experience of both worlds.

One of the best angles I’ve read on the “Google predicament” thus far. (Or even better, let’s call it the “Bart Simpson conundrum: you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t).

Attribute This!

What we are doing is sharing – posting, linking and blogging somebody else’s hard work. It is not our content, we didn’t create it, we don’t own it and we certainly don’t have any rights over it just because we think we found it first. We are not 5 year olds in the playground, it’s not finders keepers.

I “curated” this quote from a post about The Curator’s Code which was tweeted by some guy who pulled it from the RSS feed of this chick who saw it on Facebook and posted it on her Tumblr which in some roundabout way turned out to be written by the brother of the original tweeter and posted on his blog. Silly right?

In its current form – and there have been a few now – Kripy is all about the link, pull, response. The headers link straight out (including the RSS feed) with the idea being to refer traffic. I don’t feel there’s a need to attribute; as long as we’re all driving traffic to the good and important stuff, that endpoint is the winner.
April 26, 2012

So You Think You Can Code?

Dave Winer:
However, I think people would be better off starting to get into it in a more gentle way. Start by running your own server. That could involve a little programming. And you’ll be getting a solid basis in why you would want to program in the first place. Setting up systems that make your life easier. Automating things you do manually that a computer could do for you, perhaps better.

For Those Who Are About To Dot Matrix

I used to own one of those Donkey Kong Jr. machines.