Hogwarts Board of Education Inspection

“The study of History is particularly poor, with very little teacher interaction and no group work of any kind. Students were frequently found to be asleep during these lessons and, on one occasion, the teacher was also sleeping at their desk. Clearly this is not good enough, and suggests that Senior Leadership need to have far more rigorous CPD in place for struggling teachers, alive or dead.”

Entertaining read, and one that manages to mention series plot points without being overly spoiler-y. (Via Kottke)

Matt Alexander Launches 'Need'

My buddy Matt Alexander, who I interviewed a while back, has announced the launch of his until-now secretive startup, Need:

“And now — all of a sudden — it’s here.

Deeming it surreal would do injustice to the term. It’s more of a cocktail of anxiety, excitement, and blind naiveté. Realistically, too, it’s an intense moment in which I’ve come face-to-face with the motto of the independent entrepreneur: "I have no idea what I’m doing."”

So what exactly is Need? Matt explains further down in the blog post:

“In short, Need is a monthly retailer and lifestyle magazine for the modern, discerning man. Each month, Need curates and sells an extremely limited quantity of items — including clothing, literature, furniture, artwork, alcohol, coffee, and so forth — whilst also commissioning independent journalism, photography, video, and so forth.”

Congratulations to Matt on the launch! I'm very excited for him, and about the site itself, which is quite handsome and features some great-looking product. This is definitely a company to watch.

Aaaand We're Back

My family and I returned from our trip this weekend. It's always a bit weird coming back to "normal" life (whatever that means) after such vacations, especially to a house on solid ground after a week living on a floating vessel. Not to worry though, our land legs are returning gradually.

So, how was the trip? Well, I don't want to sound too cliché talking about a Disney trip like this, but in a word, it was...magical. A week without internet, but filled with awesome food and wonderful experiences we'll treasure forever, was even more restorative than I'd imagined it could be. I sound like an advertisement, but it's true.

Of course, no vacation we take would be complete without some kind of mishap, and this one was no exception.

On the day we boarded the ship, we dropped off our car at a paid parking lot, which had seemingly good reviews and offered a shuttle to the port. There were two ships leaving from the port that day — ours, the Disney Wonder, and a Carnival ship I'm forgetting the name of. Our shuttle dropped off some passengers at the Carnival ship first, then we were taken "next door" to the Disney station.

As we got off the shuttle, we found that some of our luggage (which they had loaded for us) was missing:

  • A wearable baby carrier that, for whatever reason, hadn't been put into a bag
  • A duffel bag containing our passports (!)
  • A suitcase containing my iPad/keyboard, as well as some other valuables.

The driver realized he had dropped off that stuff at the Carnival ship, and went to get it back for us. He managed to recover the baby carrier and duffel bag (including our passports, so we could board the ship), but the suitcase was still missing. We were told at this point that it's out of the parking lot's hands and we needed to personally get this taken care of with the two ships' staff.

A few angry phone calls were exchanged with the parking lot manager (who hung up on us multiple times) as we stood outside, and I ended up doing a lot of walking back and forth between the two drop-off areas to speak with Disney/Carnival managers and their luggage personnel. Eventually, the best answer anyone could come up with was to go ahead and board our ship, and if our bag was found, it would be held for us somewhere.

Several days went by with no news, and we were sure the iPad was gone with the wind. I had used the 'Find my iPhone' app on my iPhone to put the iPad into "lost" mode with a passcode and everything, but I wasn't getting my hopes up. It's a WiFi-only model and I had no way of monitoring its movements.

On Thursday, the day the Carnival ship had returned to port (and a couple days before our own return), a Disney rep contacted us in our room to let us know they had been working hard behind the scenes (communicating with the Carnival people along the way) to track down our bag. Thankfully, they did locate it – on the Carnival ship, of course, meaning it took a little cruise of its own somewhere else – and it was waiting in the Disney lost-and-found area as we disembarked.

Everything in the bag was unbroken and in working order, fortunately. What could have been a completely ruined trip was saved by some Disney reps I'd like to hug right now. We don't have extra money lying around to replace such a device, so whether the Disney people know it or not, they've been complete lifesavers to us.

So now you can see why I dubbed the vacation "magical". Cliché or not, I'm now a fan of theirs for life (not that I wasn't already, mind you).

Mavericks Miscellany

Now that Mac OS X Mavericks is available, there are some things I recommend reading to get up-to-speed:

The Mac Pro Manufacturing Process

As awesome as yesterday's Apple product announcements were, one of the coolest things to come out of the keynote was this fascinating video showcasing how the new Mac Pros are made. I could watch this sort of thing all day.

Follow up the video by reading Greg Koenig's thorough breakdown of it.

Baldwin + Seinfeld = Awesome

Jerry Seinfeld recently appeared on Alec Baldwin's excellent podcast, Here's the Thing, and the only complaint I have is that it wasn't long enough. Whenever these guys have a conversation, there's always this enertaining magnetism that makes you feel like you're right there in the room with them. For another example of this, be sure to check out Baldwin's appearance on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

"One Fleck of Dust"

Matt Fraction, the writer of one of my all-time favorite comic book series, answers a reader's question about depression and suicide. Powerful stuff.

“[I’d] say the things any of us don’t know, especially about tomorrow, could blanket every grain of sand on every beach of the world with bullshit. And to simply assume you are done tomorrow because you are done today is a mistake. a factual mistake, an error, a critical miscalculation.”

'How Designers Destroyed the World'

Mike Monteiro of Mule Design gave an impassioned (and profanity-laden) talk at Webstock 2013, in which he discusses the importance of speaking up when a project is about to head downhill. I think it's a must-watch for anyone in the design world, and probably people outside of it too.

If you like Mike's talk, be sure to also check out his book.

Maciej Cegłowski's XOXO 2013 Talk

Maciej Cegłowski (MAH-tchay Seh-GLOW-ski), creator and developer of awesome bookmarking service Pinboard, gave a great talk at this year's XOXO Fest (of which there's also a transcript with slides, if watching videos isn't your thing).

As one might expect if they follow the @pinboard Twitter account, Maciej is a very funny and intelligent man, and his talk reflected both sides of his personality. I highly recommend watching it, along with all the other videos being put out by the XOXO Fest people.

Another thing many people seem not to know about Maciej is that he's also a very gifted writer and has run a personal blog called Idle Words for a long time, filled with wonderful stories about travel, food, and technology. I'd start by reading Argentina on Two Steaks a Day and A Morning in Iceland.

The Guardian's Awesome Response to the Daily Mail

After the Daily Mail accused The Guardian of being “the paper that helps Britain's enemies,” the Guardian responded in kind by showing that article to news editors around the world and collecting their responses.

I can't choose a single one to quote because they're all so amazing. This is the most eloquent “fuck you” I've ever seen produced in a newspaper. Kudos to The Guardian1.


  1. Yes, I know what I said earlier today, but this was so worth sharing that it couldn't be helped. 

Dear Mr. Watterson

Here's the trailer for the upcoming documentary that takes a look at the life and work of Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. It would be an understatement to say that I'm really excited about seeing this film.

After you watch the trailer, be sure to also check out Gavin Aung Than's excellent comic-strip recreation of Watterson's most famous inspirational speech over on Zen Pencils.

"A Confusing Mess"

I tend to keep political discussion away from this site, but I agree with this opinion piece, written in response to the GOP's anti-ObamaCare tactics of late.

“This approach never had a snowball’s chance in Texas of succeeding, since two-thirds of the government — the Senate and the presidency — are controlled by people who are totally invested in instituting ObamaCare. But this salient fact did not appear to be in the script these Republicans were acting out.”

'Overcast: Coming Soon'

Marco Arment on his upcoming podcast app, Overcast

“Rather than try poorly, I’ve decided to dramatically simplify.

[...]

If you need tons of features or anything I’m choosing not to do, you’ll probably be happier with one of the others.”

My favorite thing about Marco is that he’ll “sacrifice” features to make a better app. Personally, I hope he leaves out all the extra cruft I never use, such as various playback speeds and a sleep timer.

I'm super excited for Overcast, although he says it'll likely be three or four months before it's released. It's going to be a long few months.

Writing on the iPad

Federico Viticci's epic review of Editorial is now available as an awesome book on the iBookstore, and is packed with a ton of new content for your enjoyment. For a limited time, it's available for only $3, so be sure to pick it up today.

If you're like me and you do a lot of writing on your iPad, this is an invaluable resource.

Congrats to Federico on publishing his very first book!

UPDATE: Looks like the book is already a success.

A Guided Tour of Brett Terpstra's Blog

I honestly had no idea that so much work has been put into all the little nuts-and-bolts that run Brett's site. It's basically a mix between a blog and a webapp, which tickles the geeky side of my brain.

Currently, I'm just enjoying what happens when I hover my mouse cursor over the 'Donate' button at the bottom. Sometimes it's the little touches.