Developing Upwards

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I upgraded my phone from the original HTC One to the HTC One M8, which was a really clear choice because I just loved the HTC One, but unfortunately this is what mine looked like eventually: It still works, if you want it for parts ! The M8 is exactly what I was looking for. It feels familiar, like holding a softer edged version of my One that fixes a few of a rare complaints I had, mostly around the purple-tinted sapphire lens camera. This is the first time I have replaced an Android phone without being frustrated by the performance of the previous. My HTC G1 (the first Android phone) and my LG G2 X (the supposed successor flagship) were both great phones when I got them and I still have both, in various levels of “working condition”, but they both showed signs of age as newer and newer applications ran sluggishly or refused to run at all on their dated hardware. Android hardware skyrocketed for the first few years, but I think we’ve seen it taper off now, and that’s a good t...

Handmade hero looks like an amazing project. If you're a long time game developer, new to it, or develop in some other discipline I think you have to respect the goals Casey has laid out for himself here. Developing an old style game from scratch live every weeknight is both a wonderful personal project and a beautiful piece of art. Check it out!

I've come across Buster Benson's attempt at a Codex Vitae , which he got from Robin Sloan's Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and I'm hooked. This is an idea that has come to me on its own, and I've made some personal attempts at it. But having a name for it, seeing others pick up the idea, it makes it feel more validated and more real. I am not sure what form my own Codex Vitae will take. Will it be public or private? Will I update it ad hoc or develop some rules around when and what to update? What topics are on and off the table for it? But I've got literally the rest of my life to figure that out. A project I can't finish until the moment I die? This is kind of perfect for me.

My NaNoWriMo attempt will not complete during the competition dates, but that doesn't mean I count it a failure. Most days I'm getting some words in, some days only a hundred or two and others a couple thousand. I keep at it, and I keep solving problems in my attempt to tell the story before me. I won't win NaNoWriMo, but I will finish my novel. That's the thing I care about. NaNoWriMo is a great event and I hope to win one day, but right now what it represents for me is a springboard towards my dream of finishing and publishing a novel. I'm not going to let that same inspiration be a weight that drags me down, so not completing my 50,000 words before the end of this month isn't a failure. It is just the reality of finishing this novel. The truth is, if I don't, it isn't about what I did or didn't do today. The larger factor is how rusty and out of touch I am with writing. It takes practice, like any skill, and I am woefully lacking in that ...

Day 7 I took a deliberate break, as a gamble. I was feeling some strain and I needed to show myself that I can take a break when I need it, so I spent the evening watching a movie with my son ( Honey, I Shrunk the Kids ) instead of writing that evening. I decided to catch up starting this weekend, but slowly instead of trying to do enormous days that would just kill me. 2000 words a day is enough to catch up over the next week without pushing myself too hard, and I do think I can do that. I did 2200 words on November 8th, and they were good words and a scene I was happy with. I'm feeling good. There are a lot of questions about how to get through some of the "rising action" that needs to happen between now and the planned summit of my story, but I'm feeling ever more confident that I can get there. Not just that I can get there, but that I can get there through an engaging story that someone might enjoy reading. I'm really feeling good about this. So,...

I miss the days when Chrome felt like a window onto the Web. Google Chrome was my favorite browser for a long time, almost since it first was released. I wasn’t just buying into the Google fanclub, or at least I want to believe it was more than that. What I saw in Chrome was something that I felt was exactly right in the world where I saw the web growing more powerful and able every day. At one point I recall saying that Firefox was about how much the browser can be for you, while Chrome was about how it can get out of your way and expose the web itself as directly and cleanly as possible. I was behind this idea of a window into the web full heartedly because I thought it was the best way to promote everything the web could be. How much has this changed? Today, I’m not sure if the situation has reversed, but I am certain that my old view of Chrome is no longer something I can stand behind. Chrome has changed a lot and shifts further from its roots as a neutral arbiter of a...