I recently presented a talk at the Spain.js conference and I spent a long time (a long, long time) making my slides. Then I realized that while it was a good slide deck for the presentation, it was nearly useless without me accompanying it. Since … [Read more]
Meteor Discovered
tl;dr: Discover Meteor is a great book for learning to program in Meteor. Highly recommended. New programming languages, tools, and paradigms come out all the time, old nuggets get rediscovered or reinvented, and old mistakes get remade. It’s … [Read more]
How To Teach Yourself Programming
This didn't come through my new web-crush Mentii, but it is another bit of advice that I thought deserved to go farther than one email. This is a friend that lives near a tech center and wants to learn programming, but has no background or experience … [Read more]
Mentoring Made Easy
I came across a new site that has completely captivated me: Mentii. It's a matchmaking site for people looking for mentors and people willing to be mentors. The signup process was simple - you can import your profile from LinkedIn, you can import … [Read more]
Thank You Andrew Mason
Today something sad but not unexpected happened. Andrew Mason was fired as CEO of Groupon. I worked at Groupon for two years, from late 2010 to late 2012, and while the experience was a mostly positive mixed bag, Andrew was definitely one of the … [Read more]
Makers – Inspiration and Limitations
I just finished reading the book Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson. tl;dr version: It's a well written, entertaining read, it covers some exciting possibilities, but while it describes some society-wide changes, I think those … [Read more]
When We Build – Notes and Quotes
I just watched an inspiring video about what it means to be a designer today. It's called "When We Build" by Wilson Miner. Wilson Miner - When We Build from Build on Vimeo. It's worth watching the video because the images, music, video, … [Read more]
Notes on DIYDrones/3DRobotics Talk by Chris Anderson
[Last night I went to the Silicon Valley Automotive Open Source meetup where Chris Anderson of DIYDrones/3DRobotics told his story. Here are my notes, slightly rewritten and re-ordered to make more sense if you weren't there] DIY Drones talk by … [Read more]
Understanding the Clojure Development Ecosystem
Lots of books, talks, and blog posts help people learn Clojure the language, but leave out prosaic issues outside of the language, like development environments and using libraries. This covers the gap between dipping your toe in and confident … [Read more]
Master the Chrome Developer Tools
Every few months I get in the mood for intense learning and saw-sharpening. Inspired in part by Cal Newport's Textbook Technique, I'm writing and summarizing things I learn to make them easy to reference later. I decided to start by getting to … [Read more]