Absolute must read. Jesse @putthison at GQ. Seriously awesome article. Seriously. http://t.co/Ee8d9mm0

What More Could You Have Wanted in a hypothetical ‘iPhone 5’ Today? A 4-inch screen? What sign has Apple ever given that it will ever change from the one-size-fits-all 3.5-inch screen? Every single iPhone and iPod Touch ever released has had the exact same size screen. Now, maybe you would prefer a…

Worthy & ominous read from Apple employee #8 on the implications of Amazon's Silk technology. Ma http://t.co/pCfAvnDG via @cdespinosa

Steve Jobs and Paul Rand: The impact of confidence September 26 2011 Steve Jobs’ recent departure from Apple was met with sadness and nostalgia within the design community. And rightly so. Jobs had a unique appreciation for the value of design and allowed designers to flourish in a way that is…

This talk by John Gruber and Merlin Mann at SXSW 2009 came up again from John’s link to a fan video , and it was a great reminder to redownload the audio and listen again. It has become much more famous than I imagine John or Merlin expected at the time, but I’m particularly fond of it because of my…

For years I wrote software with the absolute certain knowledge that nobody would ever see my code. I was a solo developer. Who besides me would ever see the code? That certain knowledge turned out to be completely wrong, as I discovered when we sold MarsEdit to Daniel Jalkut back in 2007 . But…

In the 14 years since we started Netflix, we’ve gained more than 25 million customers worldwide by providing the best DVD by mail service anywhere. Along the way, we’ve built an unrivaled streaming service that continues to grow every day. Today we want to tell you about some big changes at Netflix…

happy notes * / september 2011 / why we test This past _why day an email made the rounds that _why had sent two years prior to someone asking how they could become a better programmer. The crux of the email was: if you follow the rules you are not going to maximize your risk and your creativity will…

Nude Dude Pro Photo MistahWong I want to highlight a few fit mistakes I see all too often on men in the street – and even in professionally-styled photos. To help, I’ve created one of the most brilliant Photoshop illustrations of all time to serve as guide – I call him Nude Dude. I’ve also presented…

What Does Google Mean by “Evil”? Pretty much ever since Paul Buchheit suggested “Don’t be evil” as a corporate values statement (and Amit Patel begun writing it on whiteboards around the office), any time Google does something people don’t like, they begin calling it “evil” and complaining that…

I’m not a patent lawyer. I’m not even a lawyer. I’m just a software developer, and like every software developer, I’ve probably unknowingly infringed upon hundreds of patents while routinely doing my job. In my efforts to educate myself on the patent system, I’ve learned about the requirements for…

Google SVP and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond threw a public tantrum Wednesday over the recent patent auctions Google lost to Microsoft, Apple, and a number of other companies. This led to a heated exchange between Microsoft and Google over Twitter and the web. MG Siegler at TechCrunch has a…

Why conferences need a code of conduct As usual, what I write here is my opinion and I don’t speak for anyone else. In particular, this isn’t any sort of official PyCon anything. Recently, tech conferences have started publishing a new kind of document: acode of conduct or anti-harassment policy .…

Prompted by a passing thought about TextMate, I thought I’d make a comprehensive, accurate, unbiased, and irrefutable survey of text editors by way of comparison to locations in The Lord of the Rings . TextMate: Minas Tirith A once-great but now decaying city. Only the King has the power to renew…

When it comes to working at your computer, there is only one rule: context switches are horrifically expensive. Let’s talk about the Zone once more. You’re either sitting down with your computer to futz around with something or you’re attempting to get in the Zone. This is that magical place where…

Facebook is on a shopping spree. The company made waves during WWDC 2011 by acquiring the long-respected team at Sofa , and we’ve just learned that the folks from Push Pop Press, who made the amazing Our Choice app for iOS, are also headed to Palo Alto . There can no longer be any doubt that Mark…

I know a couple that’s in pretty bad shape. They're in awful financial trouble. And it seems so stupid and pointless because it was all avoidable. Both the husband and wife make a ton of money. They're actually one of the most affluent families I know. Even their children are productive. But like so…

Digital news is broken. Actually, news itself is broken. Almost all news organizations have abandoned reporting in favor of editorial; have cultivated reader opinion in place of responsibility; and have traded ethical standards for misdirection and whatever consensus defines as forgivable. And this…

Just got back from OSCON 2011. There were some really interesting talks, and “the big three” were all over the place: Google, Twitter, and Facebook. I attended the Twitter talk on how they moved from Ruby to the JVM, as well a talk by Rob Pike (of Google) on Go . I use Twitter and Google a lot , and…

The Financial Times recently launched their new web app , replacing their dedicated iPad app . It’s been widely speculated that this was in response to Apple’s (since relaxed) policy of not allowing publishers to offer cheaper subscriptions outside the App Store than they do within the Store itself,…

Hmm, lots of interesting responses to If your website’s full of assholes, it’s your fault , and even more interesting conversation about the topic of commenting culture in general. A few highlights from the last few days: My wonderful friend Caterina Fake on Anonymity and Pseudonyms in Social…