Lose Lose

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The Economist:

Then they offered [Aaron Swartz] a deal familiar to criminal defendants everywhere: plead guilty, and get off relatively easily—in his case, six months in a “low security setting”—or take your chances at trial, and face a harsher sentence if you lose. For Mr Swartz, that could have meant a sentence of decades in prison and fines exceeding $1m.

…

Until the early 20th century, plea-bargaining was widely considered corrupt. But as the number of criminal statutes grew, so did the stress on the courts, and the consequent need to avoid endless trials.

Our criminal prosecution system is disgusting.

Building Humans in the Cloud

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Via the Huffington Post:

If we understand the brain well enough, [Ray Kurzweil] says, we would be better equipped to fix its problems, like mental and neurological illnesses. He imagines a search engine capable of accessing a database of your thoughts, stored in the Cloud. It would anticipate what people are seeking before they even know.

It’s amazing to me how people have no ethical problems with having an external brain in their pants pocket at all times but the idea of these devices being smart enough to predict our thoughts and actions tends to raise the hackles. We’re getting closer to the elixir of life, it seems. The real question is: who will we trust to host these databases?

I’m not sure how far away we are from singularity, but I’m sure the next 20 years are going to house some of the most exciting innovations in the history of humankind.

My Best of 2012

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Here are the best things I’ve discovered, learned, read, wrote, made, and accomplished in 2012. There’s no particular order and not everything on the list was conceived this year, even if they were a part of my life this year. Inspired by Fogus.

My favorite blog posts

Most viewed blog posts by me

Total number of blog posts written

One hundred, even

Number of books read

Sixteen – I usually like this number to be higher, but many of the books I chose this year were long and/or technical

Favorite non-technical books

  • Wizard and Glass by Stephen King – I’ve only read up to Wizard and Glass in the Dark Tower series, but this one was, by far, my favorite yet
  • The Launch Pad by Randall Stross – Fast and easy read with a great behind the scenes look at all the companies I’ve been reading about on HN
  • The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Very inspirational tale and the style reminds me of one of my favorite books, The Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jelloun

Favorite technical books

  • How to Count by Steven Frank – By learning how computers count, I was able to think about numbers and counting in an entirely different light
  • Programming in Objective-C by Steven Kochan – A programming book I was finally able to finish. This is the book that led me over the hump of not understanding to understanding what I don’t yet know

Books still in progress

Gadgets of choice

  • 2011 13-inch Macbook Air – It’s everything I could ever want in a notebook, and more
  • iPhone 4S – Skipping the 5, I’ll wait for the ‘5S’
  • $69 Kindle with Special Offers – Why on earth would your book need a touch screen? Proper tech for proper usage, people
  • iPad mini – Even with the lower screen resolution, the iPad mini trumps every generation of the larger-sized iPads
  • Fitbit Zip – Attach to keys in pocket and forget

Number of books published

Zero

Number of books written

⅛

Number of apps published

Two

Classes designed and taught

One

Musicians played most

Sleigh Bells[♫], Cold War Kids, The Faint, Bright Eyes, LCD Soundsystem, Thom Yorke, Florence and the Machine

Favorite TV shows

30 Rock, Single Long, Shark Tank, Seinfeld

2011 plans for 2012

  • Learn to code – in progress
  • Start freelancing – mild success
  • Write a book – in progress
  • Get out of retail – success
  • Learn to cook and cook more – failure, more or less

Plans for 2013

  • Finish writing my book
  • Develop and teach two new Skillshare classes
  • Build and launch a functioning dynamic website with Ruby on Rails
  • Code and release updates for my two iOS apps
  • Say ‘no’ more
  • Start consulting in the mobile app space
  • Meditate regularly
  • Start doing yoga

Bring it on, 2013.

[sc:newnewsletter]

On the Internet, People Only Rally Once

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If I was a successful corporation or government entity and I wanted the general public to accept a policy that was good for me but bad for them1, I might do something like the following:

  1. Create a Terms and Conditions page that’s sure to create a bunch of link-bating headlines that would be shared all over the Internet.
  2. Publicly apologize, tell people they’re right and they have simply misunderstood our intentions. Promise a revision.
  3. Wait. Then re-write the Terms and Conditions to say whatever I want. No one cares anymore, they got their victory.

Shhh, let’s just keep this between you and me. It’s a good thing nothing like this has ever happened before.

  1. It’s a good thing corporations and government entities aren’t as clever as me, amiright? ↩

Flawless Cap of White Hair

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Lev Grossman, writing about Tim Cook, runner-up for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year:

Cook’s flawless cap of white hair could have been designed by Jony Ive and fabricated in China out of brushed aluminum.

Too far?

Naming Stuff is Hard

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Don Melton, describing the brainstorming meeting when trying to name the browser now known as Safari:

As I remember, Steve just started saying some names out loud…I don’t recall all the names, but one that stands out is “Freedom.” Steve spent some time trying that one out on all of us. He may have liked it because it invoked positive imagery of people being set free.

Safari is such a perfect name, I can’t imagine it being anything else. Let alone Freedom.