twice upon a time

We rouse this Tumblr from hibernation mode for an important nerd announcement

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 17:03:15 -0400

I’ve been waiting for zero-downtime deployment from Heroku for over a year, ever since Splitwise started taking off.It’s seriously embarrassing to run a consumer app for tens of thousands of users, and to have that app grind to a halt for fifteen seconds every time you make an update (which is several times a day, usually).

Well guess what just quietly slipped through the back door at Heroku HQ? Mothaflippin’ zero-downtime deployment.

Really digging this street art set: The Pseudo-Advertising...

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 20:07:18 -0400

Really digging this street art set: The Pseudo-Advertising Series by Paris Koutsikos and Alexandros Vasmoulakis.

Reinventing the Clothes Hanger

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:21:32 -0400

Reinventing the Clothes Hanger:

A simple, clever update to the clothes hanger. Make sure to watch past the 1:30 mark to see how it actually works – it’s a devilishly elegant tweak to the standard design.

For the record (and for my own future reference): I’ve...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:53:18 -0500

For the record (and for my own future reference): I’ve probably gone through 50 copies of this iPhone wireframe template in the past month, working on app designs for Splitwise. Super useful for laying out multiple-screen interactions.

"Were I to choose an auspicious image for the new millennium, I would choose that one: the sudden..."

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:13:10 -0400

“Were I to choose an auspicious image for the new millennium, I would choose that one: the sudden agile leap of the poet-philosopher who raises himself above the weight of the world, showing that with all his gravity he has the secret of lightness, and that what many consider to be the vitality of the times—noisy, aggressive, revving and roaring—belongs to the realm of death, like a cemetery for rusty old cars.”

- Italo Calvino, from the Lightness essay in Six Memos for the Next Millennium (via viafrank)

Making a bunch of design and development updates to Splitwise in...

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:41:00 -0400

Making a bunch of design and development updates to Splitwise in the next week or two, including Facebook Connect. Feels good! I like building simple, pretty things. (Using Boiler-strap helps.)

Gotye :: Giving Me a Chance I’ll admit: I was a little...

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 01:13:33 -0400

Gotye :: Giving Me a Chance

I’ll admit: I was a little disappointed by the new Gotye album on first listen. Don’t get me wrong, it’s well worth picking up, but it’s missing those few perfect moments that made Like Drawing Blood so special. Hell, I’ve listened to “Heart’s A Mess” several hundred times and it can still make me cry.

That said, this is one of the most gorgeous washbeats I’ve heard all year, and I’ve been playing it on repeat for the past hour. Simple, honest, and beautiful.

Global Thermonuclear War (Luna)

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 01:06:04 -0400

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about death recently — not intentionally, but it just keeps cropping up in the films I’m watching and the books I’m reading. Or in this case, the music I’m writing.

Below are the lyrics to a song I’ve been working on for Six Songs for the End of the World: an EP that I’ve started, abandoned, restarted, rewritten, and semi-re-abandoned over the past two years. Honestly, a part of me thinks I’ll never get my act together enough to actually finish and record this stuff, but another part hopes that I still might, someday. At least it gives me something to hum to myself as I walk down the street.

Anywho. Have some post-apocalyptic blues.

———

Waltzed in into this town
Beneath dark clouds where the silence stares you down
Come on and sing your sin
We’re spilling blood; we’re splitting hydrogen
I know you think the day’s enough
But when the sun goes down, the moon comes up, yeah

Sky don’t look much like snow
But I hear it’s gonna be a long winter so
When you look up and see the sign
Oh won’t you lay your atoms next to mine

So come on come on and race the sunlight down
Come on come on and race the sunlight down
Don’t you know someone someday somewhere’s gonna take your breath away
So better run while you can
Because the night makes the man

Waltzed in into this town
Our heads held up; the bombs came down
Burrowing into your dreams
Let the acid rain wash your acid-wash jeans
And they’re wolves in woolen clothes
Well I can’t be held responsible for those
Who wanna tear down what we’re making
Well my heart is pure; it’s for the taking

So come on come on and race the sunlight down
Come on come on and race the sunlight down
Don’t you know someone someday somewhere’s gonna take your breath away
So better run while you can
Before the light burns the land
Lord won’t you send me an answer; here I’m waiting
‘Cause time’s evaporating

((bridge!))

Come on come on come on come on
The sun goes down, the moon comes up, yeah

Edward Tufte’s “Slopegraphs”

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:13:03 -0400

Edward Tufte’s “Slopegraphs”:

I was just talking yesterday about Tufte’s original cancer survival rate slopegraph, which is probably my favorite data visualization of all time. Clear, concise, and compelling.

Anyone know of a source for good, modern serial fiction?

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:58:25 -0400

If so, have any recommendations? I’ve recently started reading again in large amounts (I went through several thousand pages last month), and now I’m itching for something to follow, rather than to devour all at once.

I’m also just curious about the form…has it disappeared? Serial publishing was a huge thing in 19th century literature: most of Dickens’ novels, for instance, were originally published chapter by chapter in various magazines, as were the majority of Sherlock Holmes stories. To the best of my (admittedly limited) knowledge, though, it’s almost non-existant today — the only thing that even comes close is the comic book. Maybe some forms of online publishing, as well. (Fanfiction?)

Is anyone still writing literature that unfolds in issue after issue, in print or online?

SplitTheRent on Lifehacker

Thu, 12 May 2011 08:53:23 -0400

SplitTheRent on Lifehacker:

Woke up (or rather, was woken up) to this good news this morning. Now I just need to make sure our little start-up doesn’t crumble under all the web traffic when people actually arrive at work :)

The National :: Exile Vilify What is it with sublime music...

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:40:00 -0400

The National :: Exile Vilify

What is it with sublime music moments in video games? This new track from National in the middle of Portal 2 was strangely and terribly moving, much like the bit of Jose Gonzales that was woven into Red Dead Redemption (or Tomas Dvorak’s entire soundtrack for Machinarium). There’s something about stumbling upon music when you’re not expecting it, I guess – something that resonates quite strongly for me.

(Also: Owen Pallett is apparently responsible for the string arrangement here. The man has a way of popping up in every good song, ever.)

Interactive Derp

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:25:32 -0400

Interactive Derp:

Sometimes I get bored and use my web-fu to do silly things.

If you’re not reading Buttercup Festival, you really...

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:05:11 -0500

If you’re not reading Buttercup Festival, you really should be.

So: John Campbell elected to take a year off from hourly comics...

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:01:05 -0500

So: John Campbell elected to take a year off from hourly comics this year (as did Max Karl Key, Jakob Burrows, and a few other people). The internet was left without its yearly dose of hourlies, and I was left without my usual source of entertainment for the month of January.

Thus, I’ve decided to do my own hourlies for the month of February! I was planning to do so already, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I decided to share my comics online. And while I can’t claim to have the artistic talent of any of the aforementioned individuals, I can make one small innovation to the form: posting my comics in real-time, rather than on a 24-hour delay. I’ll be using an iPad and an app of my own creation to post updates live to Tumblr and Twitter, so please, follow along!

7 Best Things of 2010 by Dave Gamache

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:59:15 -0500

7 Best Things of 2010 by Dave Gamache:

Simple and gorgeous.

Part of my rogue postering campaign for Yale’s Safety...

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:38:32 -0400

Part of my rogue postering campaign for Yale’s Safety Dance, happening this Friday night. It looks even better in print — I’m keeping an 11”x17” copy for my bedroom wall.

My 10K Apart entry is up — a Javascript-based synth and...

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:24:00 -0400

My 10K Apart entry is up — a Javascript-based synth and visualizer, using the all-new canvas and audio tags, packed into less than 10KB. Go check it out, and vote for me!

The Future of Self-Service Banking

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:33:54 -0400

The Future of Self-Service Banking:

An interesting evolution of the ATM, though I have to wonder at some of the things that are left unsaid. (Accessibility? Price?) Still, it’s nice to see someone take on a redesign of a product that is (a) so ubiquitous, and (b) relatively unchanged since its initial creation.

The good news: Internet Explorer 9 seems like a big step forward from IE8 (and lightyears ahead of...

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:18:22 -0400

The good news: Internet Explorer 9 seems like a big step forward from IE8 (and lightyears ahead of that scourge of the internet, IE6). It’s still extremely rough around the edges, but you can tell that Microsoft is earnestly trying to make it into a good product, and I really am hopeful that they succeed.

However, there are still plenty of things to get frustrated at, as evidenced by my recent attempt to view an IE9 bug report:

Follow a link from the official IE9 release notes
Get redirected to a Windows Live sign-in page
Sign up for a Windows Live account, wait for confirmation email, and log in
Get redirected to a Windows Connect sign-in page
Sign up for a Windows Connect account, wait for confirmation email, and log in
Finally arrive at the bug report page, only to be told that the report has been deleted/I don’t have permission to view it.

It just makes me bang my head.