It's In Our NatureThe human body seems to have a natural instinct to burn itself out. We find something we like and want to continue receiving those brain signals so we keep on doing the thing. Eventually our brain grows weary and sometimes our body too. My scientific analysis has some gaps but you get the idea. We like to put blinders on until we feel pain that something is no longer fun. ...
I've recently become a fan of Walt Whitman's poem from 1892 entitled "O Me! O Life!". I've heard the poem in the past but it has never resonated with me until hearing Daniel Steinberg, an iOS developer and trainer, used it in his keynote at CocoaConf Chicago. O Me! O Life! Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d, Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me, Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined, The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? ...
Walking While You WorkI'm not going to link to any articles or research about the benefits of walking while you work. I've been standing at my desk since I started working at home and to me this is the next progression. I have ADHD and I'm always trying to find ways to hack my brain. I decided to get in on the treadmill desk game. The First StepsA couple months back I ended up buying a cheapie treadmill on Amazon to experiment with walking while working. I used it a couple of times with some success but I ultimately felt it didn't provide much help for my focus. I kept doing research to determine what the issue was and spent time observing myself during a walking session with it. I was surprised it wasn't obvious why I didn't like this experiment. ...
Every year at Automattic we get together at what we call the Grand Meetup. Everyone is expected to give a four minute flash talk on any subject - literally any subject. Last year I described a funny story about a boss stealing my iPhone. This year I combined another funny story with some personal philosophies. Last summer I posted about how Things With Wheels Are Meant To Move and that paired well with my tweets about my philosophy on systems. This flash talk is an amalgamation of those two posts. ...
This has to be the most useless and scary software update screens to date that I've seen. Don't get me wrong, I like Android and I'm getting back into developing software for it and iOS isn't blameless in the shit-UX department. I couldn't pass up this example of a super important interaction that is done so poorly. Even though I'm familiar enough to what a "target" is in this context, I'm still confused by the screen. I'm uploading TO the device, not downloading FROM the device. According to this warning, I'm safe to turn off my computer and unplug the USB. The block of text in the upper left, while useful to a developer, is super scary for a user. If they're lucky to be blessed with 20/20 vision it's still pretty useless information. ...
It is very surreal to see your name on a printed book.
We've all done it - left your wallet at home and you're in a dire need for money, groceries, gas, etc. How do you get by if you can't get your wallet with your ID in short order? I was thinking about this problem and thought of a simple solution. Go to a merchant that accepts Apple Pay and sells general gift cards. A place like Walgreens sells gift cards for restaurants, gas stations and other merchants. They even sell Visa and MasterCard gift cards (with an activation fee). Walgreens also typically sells transit passes for buses and trains. ...
I've been using an UpDesk since I started working from home in July 2013. I typically try to stand over half of the day being careful to not hurt my lower back with multiple days of standing fatigue. I do plenty of stretches and general movement while standing as well - but I do like to sit in my fancy Herman Miller Aeron chair once in a while. Having the motorized desk is awesome for this because I can change the configuration of my workspace based upon my mood, attention momentum and other variables. I noticed after some time, however, that I didn't have a really good understanding of how often I switched configurations and generally how long I could stand. ...
I recently got a new work computer and instead of using Time Machine to restore, I decided to install everything fresh. I installed Oh My Zsh (which is fantastic by the way) which I used on my previous machine. My favorite theme is Candy Kingdom. After switching and relaunching Terminal I noticed the following error after every command prompt display: zsh: command not found: battery_time_remaining Turns out it was a simple problem - I had to enable the battery plugin in my ~/.zshrc config file: ...
The ProblemSomething that has been missing on iOS for a long time is a reliable way to provide emergency contact information. Imagine you're out and about and you end up having an accident or have an acute attack from a known medical condition you have. We all tend to carry our mobile phones with us. Most emergency personnel are trained to review personal data in your wallet/purse and now mobile phones. The issue is most of us have a lock code on our devices, preventing access to potential life-saving communication with a loved one about your medical condition. ...