I was in the city a few weeks ago and exclusively used Waymo for the entire trip. My biggest complaint? I needed to walk four minutes to a pick-up spot. Other than that, the car just showed up, traversed San Francisco streets easily, and the cost was reasonable1. Sitting in the back seat watching the… more
I’m still angry with Facebook. It’s unfair anger because Facebook is full of the things (fake or not) that we created. Facebook algorithmically determines which of those things (fake or not) to show to a particular set of humans. They do this matching quite well because they have a bajillion daily active users.
There’s an easy way to avoid being a daily active user. You don’t show up.
However, twice a day, I want stupid cat pictures because they make me laugh. This one makes me laugh 48 hours later just thinking about it. In the morning and at night, I have a short window where I need the inane and Facebook protest is hindering my cat stupidity.
Reddit to the rescue.
I’ve been a daily active user of Reddit for years, but this break I installed the newly revamped mobile application, and it’s good. A clean interface accompanies a front page which does a far more aggressive job of unfurling videos and images. This means very little of clicking to see the reveal behavior that I do on the website.
Stupid cat pictures, dumb questions, insane videos, and pictures of cute animals. Perfect.
The icing on the cake when I do a presentation is Q&A. Being peppered with random questions might seem problematic, but I love it. First, because it tells me what the audience heard and, second, because it allows to me fill in the gaps of the presentation.
There are a standard list of questions I get on a regular basis, and one of them is, “If you were going to found a start-up, what would it be?” My answer has been consistent for the past five years, “I don’t know how I’d do it nor how I’d make money, but I would provide a service which allows a human to determine the source of a piece of information.”
Everyone suddenly cares about this idea a lot. Facebook recently announced it’s plan to vet alleged fake news with five different independent news/fact-checking groups. These groups are:
I remain jaw on the floor shocked how much opinion that swirls me is repackaged as facts. I’m not pointing the finger at a particular demographic; I’m talking about everyone (including myself) who says, “That insert-fact-here just feels wrong.” We are 100% entitled to our opinions. Our views are also protected. However, usage of an opinion as fact is rotting our national discourse.
Kudos to Facebook for taking action, but a better course of action is when you hear or read a fact that seems just plain off check out one of the sites above get the real facts.
p.s. There is a fact-checkers code of principles.
This article started when I once again became frustrated with notifications in iOS 7. I glanced at my phone and the screen was full of them. I sighed and I scrolled and – for an instant – half-saw a notification that piqued my interest. So, knee-jerk, I automatically unlocked the phone and realized I didn’t… more
When I am in a foul mood, I have a surefire way to improve my outlook – I build something. A foul mood is a stubborn beast and it does not give ground easily. It is an effort to simply get past the foulness in order to start building, but once the building has begun,… more
In posing a real threat to Facebook, Snapchat proved that it may have that one elusive thing that no money can buy: the ability to change how people behave, to become central to their relationships with one another, to re-architect human contact, to be masters of the human domain.
Best analysis of Snapchat’s rejection of the Facebook bid that I’ve seen.
When I do a talk, I introduce myself as “Rands. That guy who sounds like a fortune cookie on Twitter.” I relay this introduction with a mixture of joy and sadness. For me, the joy arrives when I successfully distill a complex thought down to fit the 140-character restraint of Twitter. These blurbs can easily… more
Back in the early 90s, Borland International was the place to be an engineer. Coming off the purchase of Ashton-Tate, Borland was the third largest software company, but, more importantly, it was a legitimate competitor to Microsoft. Philippe Kahn, the CEO at the time, was fond of motorcycles, saxophones, and brash statements at all-hands meetings:… more
In an otherwise elegant and well-integrated operating system, the notifications user interface in iOS 4.x feels like a wart — a tacked-on afterthought that offers a bare minimum of usefulness. Competitors have jumped all over this weakness. An early Microsoft Windows Phone ad implies a strategic notifications deficiency by showing users glued to their iPhones…… more
I sign up for every single beta, trial, or preview that crosses my inbox as a virtual land grab for the “rands” username. Yes, I am very interested in whatever bleeding edge thingamahoo you’re up to, but the chances are this will be the only time I’m going to login into your service. It is… more
