Luca Parmitano, the first Italian astronaut to take part in a spacewalk:
“After shaving more carefully than usual (I don’t want to have any cuts on my head or face), I have a particularly big breakfast – there’ll be no lunch today. Then I turn to Chris [Cassidy], and he must have been able to read the question on my face, because he answers even before I have time to speak: "Yes, let's do this". In other words, it’s time.”
I loved this whole story.
Introduction
I've been a big fan of Patrick Rhone's writing for several years now. His work onMinimal Mac and in his books has always been thoughtful, enlightening, and a breath of fresh air in a world otherwise polluted by crazed tech news cycles and rumor mills. He takes a rather Zen-like, minimalist approach to technology, with a writing style perfectly complemented by a nice cup of coffee.
When I decided to do this interview series, Patrick was the very first person I asked to participate, and thus, he is the first person I've ever interviewed. He's been gracious enough to put up with me as I learn my way around this sort of thing, and not only did I learn a lot along the way, but I had a lot of fun with it too.
Shawn Blanc, earlier this afternoon:
“At the end of the day, Flickr is the only place I’ve got to put my best photographic work. And as much as I love the service, it’s just not cutting it — it doesn’t feel like the right place for my best photographic work. And I suspect I’m not alone.”
I've been thinking about this a bit myself, lately. For a while, I was excited to see that Flickr seemed to be making a comeback, and I started using the service a lot more than I ever had prior to 6 months ago.
Unfortunately, it looks like the majority of the web hasn't agreed with me. I have a few Flickr contacts who upload consistently, but nowhere near the levels of uploads I see from my Instagram friends every day. And as Shawn has noticed, there's a lot less engagement happening on Flickr than I would like.
My theory for this is two-fold:
Many people see Flickr as the product of a bygone era. To them, it had its heyday in the mid-2000s and can't recapture that magic now that Instagram is so deeply embedded in our culture. Or, if they're young enough, they may not have ever used Flickr in the first place.
To put it more bluntly: Flickr is for the old guard, Instagram is for the new generation.
Instagram has made the experience of browsing/uploading/commenting on photos so simple that even my mom can do it, and she doesn't even understand iOS App Store updates.
To me, Flickr's iPhone app is relatively straightforward considering the advanced features it allows, but there's no denying that it conveys a certain "pro photographer" vibe that could be offputting to newbies.
Now, my photo uploading habits are a bit different from Shawn's. I keep my photos in several places, for different reasons.
Flickr: I dump pretty much all of my photos here, good or bad. I think of Flickr as a kind of archive for everything I shoot, and the ability to organize everything into sets is awesome. If I think something really isn't worth public scrutiny or I'd rather not have anyone see it, I just mark that set as private. Boom.
500px: This is where I post only (what I consider to be) my best work, no matter what camera it originated from. If I wanted to show someone the cream of the crop, I'd just point them to my 500px page. I don't worry too much about sets or whatnot here.
Instagram: Actually, my "workflow" here is similar to Shawn's except I add the extra step of exporting from VSCO back to my camera roll before uploading to Instagram, because sharing to Instagram straight from VSCO doesn't allow you to adjust the image crop. Like with 500px, everything I put on Instagram is what I consider some of my better work, with the exception of any DSLR shots.
VSCO Grid: Just today, I received my invitation to create a VSCO Grid, which is essentially VSCO Cam's own photo-sharing service. I've already uploaded all my best VSCO shots there, and I may play around some more with it, but I do like the way it looks so far.
Of these, I still think Flickr is the overall ideal place to host photos, just because it's an easy way to upload my DSLR and iPhone shots together, but I have to agree with Shawn about one thing — the community just isn't there right now.
[You'll just have to imagine the drumroll I played in my head as I typed the title of this post, punctuated by a cymbal crash at the end.]
Starting next week, I will publish the first in a series of interviews I've been conducting, featuring some of my favorite creative people from around the web. The current lineup consists of writers, podcasters, web designers, and entrepreneurs, and hopefully I can add some photographers to the list soon.
I'm super excited to finally share these interviews with you guys.
This is a project I've been wanting to approach for a long time, but as someone who had never conducted an interview prior to a few months ago, the idea of it seemed pretty daunting at first. Eventually, I decided to go for it anyway – you gotta start somewhere, right? – and began asking a few people to be my guinea pigs, so to speak.
Thankfully, they've all been been gracious enough to put up with my ineptitu- er, inexperience. I've been having so much fun with these interviews, and learning a whole lot along the way. I've got five interviews under my belt so far, and I'm anxious to do more (meaning I'm open to suggestions, if you've got any).
The first one will drop on this upcoming Monday (July 15th, 2013). Stay tuned.
* * *
Update (08/08/13): There are now a couple of ways to browse the list of interviews, if you'd like: you can use the 'Interview' category to read through them one after the next, or if you'd rather pick and choose, go with the Interviews archive page I've put together.
Greg Pierce, developer of the much-beloved Drafts:
“I was approached by a large multi-national corporation regarding concerns about the old Drafts “D” icon’s similarities to one of their trade marks. This was likely a somewhat tenuous claim, but I was not interested in pursuing a battle on the matter – and I must say the corporation in question conducted itself in a professional and reasonable matter, which made it much easier to capitulate. At any rate, in the end, I think I like this new icon better.”
The new icon is rather lovely, and I really can't blame Greg for trying to avoid such a legal battle. Still, it's a shame that indie creators have to face such challenges. I highly doubt an iOS app catered to nerds was really going to affect a mult-national corporation's bottom line or confuse their customers in any way.
Over at Tools & Toys, Shawn Blanc and I put together a list of some awesome iOS apps and games that have gone free this week to celebrate the App Store's 5th anniversary.
Seriously, this list is full of great stuff, so go check it out.
An oldie but goodie from Shawn Blanc (emphasis mine):
“Anyone can get fans by simply showing up day after day and being genuine. But to get fanatics you have to do something long enough to create nostalgia. Or you have to do something crazy or wonderful enough to give your current fans something to get fanatical about.”
Google Reader is dead, long live Google Reader.
Sorry, I had to.
Now that Reader has truly been put out to pasture, I suppose it's time to share what my new RSS setup looks like. I really liked the format of David Sparks' setup post, so I hope he doesn't mind if I copy it.
Over the weekend, Jordan Cooper invited me to be a guest on his Blenderhead podcast.
We discussed RSS readers, consumerism, the tech blogosphere's focus on CEOs, Instagram's popularity, my iPhone's home screen layout, the origin of the name 'Unretrofied' for this site, and I even got to gripe about my day job a little.
This was a lot of fun to record, so go check it out. And just so you know, the episode contains NSFW language so consider this your warning.
Well folks, this is it — the last weekend before Google reader shuts down for good. By now, you've probably already chosen a new RSS setup to get you through this tragic time, but you should still go ahead and back up your Google Reader data while you've still got a chance.
Luckily, there are several ways to do that:
I've been trying out Feed Wrangler over the last 12 hours or so, and I'm mostly loving it so far, but I agree with the general consensus that the web interface isn't the prettiest thing around. Now, this is totally understandable since it was more important for David Smith to get the thing off the ground first, but it doesn't change the fact that the UI could use a little polish.
Thankfully, Preshit Deorukhkar – the lovely man who runs the Beautiful Pixels blog – has come up with some nifty tools for improving the overall look of the UI. The first is a Safari extension called Feed Rango, and the other is merely a set of CSS rules to accomplish the same task. Personally, I'm using the CSS rules in a Chrome extension called Stylish.
[Update: Feed Rango is now available as a Chrome extension. I'll be switching to that from the CSS rules shortly.]
I'm sure that Feed Wrangler will inevitably get a redesign at some point, but my thanks goes to Preshit for making the current experience a lot more enjoyable.
I was just reading through the Daily Beast's recent interview with music producer Rick Rubin, enjoying the article but not really learning anything I hadn't already known about the guy.
Then I reached the penultimate paragraph, where they asked him the secret to having a good ear for music. This is what he came back with, and it really struck me:
“I never decide if an idea is good or bad until I try it. So much of what gets in the way of things being good is thinking that we know. And the more that we can remove any baggage we’re carrying with us, and just be in the moment, use our ears, and pay attention to what’s happening, and just listen to the inner voice that directs us, the better. But it’s not the voice in your head. It’s a different voice. It’s not intellect. It’s not a brain function. It’s a body function, like running from a tiger.”
It's a shame this is where the interview ended, because it was just getting good in my opinion.
I think what Rick is saying applies to more than just producing music, it's about all creativity. As creative people, how often do we avoid making great stuff because we try too hard to intellectualize everything or worry about all the ways something might succeed or fail, all before we've even started?
Maybe it doesn't apply to you, but I know I'm certainly guilty of falling into this trap now and then. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that despite any failures, it's more important to go with our gut instincts and actually do the work instead of getting in the way of ourselves before we've managed to take the first step.
Just some food for thought.
John Marstall, designer for Black Pixel, details the steps that went into the design of NetNewsWire 4's new app icon, the beta of which I linked to on Tools & Toys the other day:
“With the release of NetNewsWire 4 Public Beta, we wanted to overhaul and modernize NetNewsWire’s app icon as much as the rest of the app. We didn’t throw out everything — the color scheme and satellite metaphor stayed — but the design is completely new.”
I love how much thought and care went into the design (and it certainly doesn't hurt that they're sticking with the astronomy theme).
This will be my first-ever film review, and it’s going to be a doozy. And just so you know, this review discusses every big spoiler in the film, so if you haven’t seen it yet and prefer to be left in the dark, click away from this review right now (or save it to Instapaper, etc) and come back when you’re ready. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Mat Honan went behind the scenes at Digg to get the story on their new RSS reader, which is said to be releasing next week:
“McLaughlin is talking about the future of Digg Reader, the project he and his small team of fifteen have been working on for the past month. Right now it’s just a mess of code, Keynote sides, and shit on a whiteboard. They need to turn it into a real product, one to take the place of Google Reader, which shuts down on July 1. They have less than 60 days. Simultaneously, the same team of five engineers is working to integrate another product–Instapaper–that they’ve just purchased. None of this is top secret, the opposite in fact. Digg publicly promised the world to have a replacement ready in time. They had to move fast. And when you move fast, things get fucked up.”
A few months ago, I never would have imagined that any product with 'Digg' in the title could possibly be interesting, but now I'm actually looking forward to checking Digg Reader out. It certainly sounds like they've put an impressive amount of effort into the project.
From the Feedly blog:
“Feedly cloud is now live, providing a fast and scalable infrastructure to seamlessly replace Google Reader. Feedly cloud also comes with a completely stand-alone Web version of feedly, that works with all major browsers. Finally, we are please to announce the first nine applications built on feedly cloud, that allow you to expand your feedly experience.”
With only 10 days left until Google Reader bites the dust, this is great news indeed. Feedly has been one of my top choices for Reader alternatives (especially since Reeder supports it), and I'm glad that they're working to make the transition as painless as possible.
Relatedly, IFTTT just announced a Feedly channel.
Mark Waid, author of Superman Birthright, gives his (somewhat spoiler-y) review of the new Man of Steel film. Given that the film just came out last night and most people haven't had time to see it yet, I'm opting not to blockquote anything Mark wrote.
Once you've seen the film though, head over there and read the review because it's very good. I don't entirely agree with Mark's vision for how Superman should be characterized throughout the canon, but I definitely feel where he's coming from.
A couple months ago, I switched from Squarespace's built-in RSS feed to one provided by the service URI.LV. Today, they've announced a change in names, and are now calling themselves FeedPress.
From the announcement:
“As we’ve grown, it’s high time we re-launched and re-branded. URI.LV was intended to be a temporary name. It simply does not roll off the tongue easily. Today, we’re exceedingly happy to present to you FeedPress. We have spruced up the website and have given it a responsive design. If you visit your stats page on a smartphone, it should flow nicely. For iOS users, you can tap your bookmark button and add FeedPress to your home screen (it sports a nice Retina ready icon).”
I like the new name a lot better.
This shouldn't cause any issues with my RSS feed, but let me know if you see anything weird and I'll get it taken care of.
Marco Arment on what the iOS redesign means for app developers, whether they're established or relatively unknown:
“This big of an opportunity doesn’t come often — we’re lucky to see one every 3–5 years. Anyone can march right into an established category with a huge advantage if they have the audacity to be exclusively modern.”
This is something I hadn't thought of during my post-WWDC analysis (but then again, I'm not a developer). I mean, I knew that devs would probably be forced to update their visual design to better blend in with Apple's own apps, but Marco's right that this gives many non-established players more of a fighting chance than before.
Now I'm even more excited to see what happens next.
Matt Gemmell's astute take on the design of iOS 7:
“iOS 7 is much, much lighter – in the colour sense, and consequently also in visual weight. Breathable whitespace is everywhere, and is used to unify and homogenise previously disparate interface styles.
The overall impression is of brightness and openness. The extent of the change (and its consistency of application) only becomes obvious when considered in aggregate.”
This is true, there is a certain lightness to iOS 7 that seems refreshing. Call me crazy, but I expect that in the coming years we'll all be describing Apple software this way, using terms like: refreshing, room to breathe, airy, clarity, calmness, fluid, and so on.
Seems pretty Zen, doesn't it?
