Saturday, June 21
Ok, well, actually
Delicious Library 2 shipped like four weeks ago. Sorry I didn't tell you. It's not because I don't care. Honestly, I tried to tell the press, but I think they're pretty sick of me, so there wasn't much of a splash on the news sites.
Sales have been great, though, so I can't complain.
But, hey, enough about me... what's up with your life? (Use blank space provided.)
_______ ______ _______ _____ _____ _____ ____
Really? Wow. Well, you know, stuff changes. I think it'll work out.
Oh, also, I launched a new company down at WWDC last week, called
Golden % Braeburn. I'm going to license out the store I wrote to sell Delicious Library, since it was a huge pain in the tush to write, and I actually would have licensed a store from someone else if there'd been a decent option back when we launched Delicious Monster.
I know, it seems kind of pretentious for one guy to have two companies. Even *I* blush a little at it. But, it kind of makes sense — Golden % Braeburn's only going to have customers in the dozens, and they'll all be Mac developers. I didn't want to confuse my Delicious Monster customers by saying, "Oh, hey, now that you've bought Delicious Library, would you maybe be interested in buying a store to sell software on the internet?" That doesn't pass the "mom" test. (Incidentally, as my mom gets battier I'm finding it harder and harder to write software that passes the "mom" test. I'll have to go back to using Matas' mom as the eponymous mom from the test.)
You can see how it kind of de-focuses my message, yes?
---
A lot of people have been asking about Pimp My Code... No, it's not dead, it's just that those entries take approximately a day to write, and when I was in the final months (and months and months) of Delicious Library 2 I really felt like I owed it more to my customers to actually write my dang software than to publish my vanity blog. (I know, I wrote about my cat and girls and stuff — those entries take like half an hour. I don't have to fact-check them or anything.)
So, we'll have some code pimping here soon... coming up first is the on-the-fly localization code that's part of what I'll be sharing with all Golden % Braeburn customers (one of the advantages of licensing the store is you also get all my helper code), and also the system I'm trying to get Apple to switch to. You can evaluate for yourself whether it's better than AppleGlot or FoobleBlot or whatever you are using.
---
On a personal note, recently my shrink said to me, "Hey, Wil, why don't you drop the pimp act? Nobody actually looks at show-offs and thinks, 'Oooh, I like him.' In fact, everyone resents them."
This made a lot of sense, so I'm officially renouncing my phony pimpitude. Honestly, I'm just a geek who stays up late and plays GTA and makes clumsy passes at pretty girls and tries to write software. That's me.
Labels: business, stories
Saturday, April 12
In 1987 I was a senior in high school and my mother was in the hospital with leukemia; a long, very painful experimental treatment would either cure her (but leave her changed for life) or she would die.
With the profits I'd made from my summer job, I had bought a $400 Technics portable CD player, one of the very first ones ever made. It was solid metal and heavy as hell, and the rechargeable battery pack was as big as the CD player itself and weighed twice again as much. It still plays perfectly to this day.
I was left with her lame car and a giant house to myself and not much supervision. It would have been many a teen's dream, but not mine, since I was truly alone; after I moved back to the States for the eleventh and twelfth grades I never once had a friend over after school, or went over to a friend's house, or went to a party, or a dance; I worked in my little computer lab from when I got home to when I went to sleep. I graduated with honors but didn't show up. I was programming at the time.
Some nights I would take my mom's (new-model) Chevy Nova out and just drive around the waterfront, listening to my little CD player. There were two discs in particular for when I felt most alone: Steve Winwood's "Back in the High Life" and Peter Gabriel's "So". Both artists were consummate musicians, at the height of their craft -- neither would ever make another album as successful. Both created incredibly rich soundscapes, and both talked about loss, and longing.
I don't share either album with people very often, these days, because I've discovered I am incredibly upset if my guests are anything below astounded by them. I require rapt attention, possibly sighs, if you hear the Blessed Two. I feel as if I am physically cutting away my skin and pulling it aside with tongs to show my viscera, the actual core of my being, and if my listeners are all, "Can we put on some GOOD music after this?" I just want to smite them.
To this day if I hear "Don't Give Up" I will cry. I may not bawl, but you can see little tears in my eyes. I can see the park on Lake Washington I would drive to. I can feel the slight cold of the wind through my not-at-all-fashionable windbreaker. I can see the giant CD player on its huge strap around my neck. And I feel the hurting, of wanting to not be alone. Of waiting it to be over.
--
The happiest and saddest part, I think, of liking someone of the opposite sex... really liking, as in, really admiring the person, thinking that she is, in fact, a really good person, a decent person, a person whose morals and smarts and sense of humor and accomplishments you actually think are amazing -- not just, like, "Damn, she got pretty tummy," which latter sentiment I have also fallen prey to -- the happiest and saddest part is that you become someone different when you feel this way.
I don't want to, and won't, use the stupid cliché from the stupid movie. But it's true. You make yourself into a better person, not to trick them into liking you, but because _they deserve it_, and _you want to be a person that deserves them_. The difference is everything.
It's the saddest part because when you lose the hope, the dream, the focus -- well, you want to hold on to that you, that better you, that you that you liked so much, the you that you were with her. It's inside you. Were you faking? No. You have it. Just continue being it. Just don't stop. Be more patient with people you see. Smile at them. Let tiny things go, ignore any little slight, be generous with praise. Be that person. You can still do it. Hold on to him.
--
An interesting, if bizarre, factoid about me is that I cry if I see kids under the age of 10. I also cry if I see child's toy aimed at under-10-year-olds. And, finally, I can remember only two or three scenes from my life from before I was 10: My dad reading "One Fish, Two Fish" to me to teach me what words looked like. (Read to your kids! It's more important than you think.) My parents in bed on a lazy Sunday and the kids coming in and hassling them. Running to get one of the Big Wheels in recess in kindergarden, because there were only a couple and if you didn't get one recess was lame. The other kids wanting to build a boat out of toy cardboard bricks, and me, the quiet kid who never spoke up, finally saying something: I have a plan. I can build a boat. Show us, show us, and I did, and for that one day, for that afternoon, I was the hero.
The rest of my childhood is gone. I don't know where that person is. He's very sad, though.
Yes, I'm in therapy, thanks for checking.
--
I listen to Steve Winwood again, on my expensive studio monitor speakers, the likes of which I couldn't dream of when I was 18. His album still sounds great to me, after all these years.There's a part of me that's conscious of all the time that's passed: that the rich, full sound I loved is now considered cheesy and overproduced, that nobody has heard of Steve Winwood in twenty years, Peter Gabriel is just another dude at TED, and that schmaltzy emotions are for angsty teenagers with zits and five-year-long erections.
But there is a little kid who has felt alone all his life, and he wants it to end. When will it be over? Will I die first? Why are you so old? What have we done with our life? Why are we alone? How did you manage to fail in this, the one thing that mattered.
Labels: stories
Monday, March 24
There is a moment when you are touching a woman, innocently, you say, innocently, she says, but you are massaging her back, stroking her hair, running your fingers lightly over her face.
There is a moment when you think to yourself, "I want to kiss her, I should kiss, I am going to kiss her."
And you know that if you are wrong, you will feel stupid. And she will leave. And you will apologize. And everything will be spoiled.
But the kiss is still hanging there. Evolution is stronger than you. It doesn't care if you feel stupid. Kiss the neck, it says. She smells wonderful, and you should kiss. Necks were created to be kissed. They crave it. They are empty without it.
There is only one thing worse than her rejecting you, and that is if you do NOT kiss her neck, in this moment, right now. You have lived your whole life for this. You dream of this moment every day.
There is a moment when you kiss her, lightly, on the neck, and instead of leaving, instead of being outraged, she breathes. You hear her breath, you feel her breath. And you have lived your whole life for that moment.
Labels: stories
Friday, February 29
I am back, after a fashion. The night before TED, my new MacBook Air was stolen out of the lobby of the Portola Plaza hotel, leaving me in the dark for days, feeling incredibly violated.
My old, now kind of stinky-seeming MacBook Pro has been shipped to me, so at least I can connect to the sweet mother intertron, whose warm nectar I crave daily. Also, I can now track down the frakker who took my Air, so you better hope you wipe that disk good
and don't ever connect to the net again. Or sell it to anyone who, like, has heard of me.
[My MacBook Air serial number was W880311W12G and the "MAC" or Airport ID was "001EC2B605B9". If you see this machine it is stolen and you should call the Monterey police at 831.646.3830 and reference case number 08-1077. Intertron powers activate!]
--
I should start with a story which sounds like bragging, but you will quickly discover, is actually me fulfilling my duties as a gentleman.
Last night at Crown and Pig and Whistle and Anchor bar I was talking with an attractive you woman TEDster, who, after I convinced her I was
not gay (there had been a HI-larious
Three's Company style mixup that's not actually particularly funny so I won't recount it here) she proceeded to lean over and whisper in my ear for five minutes about who she actually WAS attracted to (said list not including me, if that needs to be made explicit).
After a few moments of this, I pointed out the irony that everyone else at the table, including my new rival Jonathan Hodgman, thought that she was leaning over and whispering to me because she was into me, not because I had become her new eunuch confidant. (Speaking of Hodgman, who KNEW he was such a ladies' man? He was surrounded by pretty girls the whole time. Of course, being the perfect family man, he acted the gracious gentleman -- you thought I was going to get him in trouble with his wife, didn't you? That's not how I roll. I've never even posted my really juicy ultimate cock-block story about LP from a few years ago, and he wasn't married then.)
So, being informed that it looked as though we were flirting, and her being a game sort with a wicked streak, she was all, "oooooh!" and turned fully towards me and put her hand on my shoulder and leaned in close to my ear, so her lips just brushed its tiny hairs with every word as she spoke, sending a little involuntary tingle up my spine with every warm, wet breath as she seductively whispered, "So, should I pretend I like you, like this?"
Then she bit my ear.
No, no, sorry, I'm lying: the hairs on my ears aren't "tiny" any more. They are stark white and surprisingly sturdy and grow to be, like, four feet long. I'm like fucking Yoda. I've gotten to the point where I don't even bother clipping them; I see my body as some kind of bizarre science experiment as it deteriorates and I'm actually curious to see how long any given hair in any given spot will get. A week ago I had an eyebrow hair that was, no shit, two inches long -- Mike tried to pluck it for me and I got protective of it, like it was my tomagotchi. Sometimes I have races between the hairs on my left ear and the ones on the right.
Anyhow, the point is, for anyone in the bar that night, I shall protect the young lady's honor by giving up the game -- she was, in fact, just making a scandal for scandal's sake; trying to help my pimp cred... an act of charity from a kind stranger. I'm not not not saying I didn't not not enjoy it -- any bone looks like top sirloin to a hobo, and it's been a too long since I've been thrown a bone.
Labels: stories
Sunday, February 17
Lots of people have asked for my impressions, so I thought I'd post a more sober (literally) look at life with my little MacBook Air. With no cussing!
• It feels really nice, like a pebble. A large, smooth pebble, from a stream. This shape speaks to me, like the MOTOPEBL did, except that was a crappy phone and not a really nice computer.
• It is super-solid. It feels way more structurally solid than any laptop I've ever owned. I don't know if this like a synesthetic illusion because it is so beautiful, or because it has curved surfaces (== less flex!), or because it's just so darn light that there's not a lot of mass to flex.
• The prominent feet and rigity make the machine seem wobbly on anything but a 100% level surface. The antique wood tables at Zoka are not that perfect, so every time I type the machine rocks like a shopping cart at K-mart. Mushier feet, maybe? I dunno, you guys are the geniuses, you figure it out. But, seriously, wobbling things make me nuts. I'm going to start stuffing napkins under the corners of the machine, and that's not good advertising. [UPDATE: John Siracusa provided a great suggestion for this: the MacBook Air should have only three feet; three points always form a plane.]
• I love how the port door on the right opens and closes; it's a very solid-feeling mechanism, and very natural. Also, I feel like I'm in Star Trek (the new one).
• I don't run on battery much, but I've noticed it seems to take a billion years to charge it if it gets discharged, at least the first couple times. Odd.
• I got the 64GB SSD. It seems pretty awesome, but I can't fit my (legal) iTunes collection on it, even without movies, after I put my iPhoto collection on it and my source code and just a couple apps (Acorn, Twitterific, Zuma, iWork so far, MarsEdit coming).
• I'm moving over my old stuff as I need it. Copying stuff over AirPort is super-slow, but the ethernet adaptor is pretty decent. I tried to copy World of Warcraft from a friend's PowerBook (I have a legal copy, don't worry) and it was scheduled to take five hours, since she doesn't have 802.11n, even. Using the ethernet adaptor it was, like, five minutes. No surprises here, but the take-away message is, ethernet adaptor is a good idea.
• I don't try to access CDs or DVDs from my machine -- my previous machine didn't even have a working drive -- so I don't really care that it doesn't have one built-in. The external one is a thing of beauty and I almost want to buy it just
because, but it doesn't work with other machines so that kind of stinks.
• The screen is so very, very bright compared to the (1st-gen) MacBook Pro. Games look much better. It's not something you realize you want until you get it -- you think increases in resolution or color depth are cool, but when you get a brightness upgrade this dramatic you realize AH! THIS is what I really wanted! Who needs
more pixels when each of my pixels now shines so very, very brightly? ("I've seen things, you people wouldn't believe...")
• I think the machine's smallness is tearing up my neck. I'm sitting 8-10 hours a day working on this thing, and I end up looking DOWN at it more than my 15" MacBook Pro. I've had neck cramps since I got it, but I'm still adjusting, and I'm also in crunch mode with Delicious Library 2.
• It compiled Delicious Library 2 from scratch in 1'59". The 2.33GHz MacBookPro takes 2'04". SSD's LOVE compilations.
• SSD's love context switching, as well. Having an SSD is a lot like having 64GB of RAM in your machine. Sure, I'm going to lose in a Photoshop filter race with your machine, but I'm going to crush you switching between the 15 applications I have open right now. Again, it's not a surprise to say that if video editing or cutting-edge video games is your primary purpose, you'll probably find the MacBook Pro faster. But if you're writing software or just snurfing the web and running lots of apps, this machine is faster.
• Bizarrely, it still has a sudden motion sensor in it. Think about that for a minute.
• More bizarrely, if I drop the Air a foot (onto a soft, fluffy pillow on my bed -- I'm not an idiot) the sudden motion sensor will still shut down the SSD (tell it to park its heads?) and stop processing for a second. I think that's pretty funny. Hey, hardware guys: "SSD stands for SOLID-STATE DISK."
• I admit there could still be problems I don't know about with dropping SSDs, and I'm just being snide. I'm sorry, hardware guys. Still friends? Buy you a drink? Hug it out?
• I like using the "pinch" gesture. That's the only one I've really used. So far, it works great in Finder (icon mode) and iPhoto and Safari (just feels bizarre there, honestly) and two places Delicious Library 2 (shhh!). It's the right solution.
• The "swipe" gesture should have been mapped to "start scrolling and then after I stop the swipe keep scrolling slower and slower until you stop naturally or I stop you" like scrolling works on the iPhone. The Air team didn't ask me, but they should have. This would have been trivial to add to Cocoa (we added it experimentally once to DL2, may put it back). Sure I could file a RADAR bug on this, but isn't it more fun to complain on my blog like a prima donna? (Yes. Yes it is.)
• Jonathan Ive should design a laptop bag as beautiful as the Air, that just can contain the machine, a power cord, and a Wireless Mighty Mouse. I'd be in heaven. Nobody seems to have addressed the "I want a small, slim bag that can still hold a power cord without having a giant wart in the side" market. Like, duh, bag designers, STOW THE POWER CORD ABOVE OR BELOW THE LAPTOP, not STICKING OUT THE SIDE WHERE IT CREATES A TENT AND LOOKS UGLY AND BANGS MY KNEE.
• The Air runs World of Warcraft pretty damn well. Sure, I don't have, uh, specular water reflective anti-aliased spectroscopic quadrophonic roto-tilling turned on. But, you know, I can, like, heal things and run around and pick liferoot and run around some more. (PHEAR MY HEALING, EVIL-DOERS OF AZEROTH!)
• The Air's main performance limitation is heat, and mainly from the GPU. When it starts doing graphical things, it gets hot. When it gets hot, it starts venting out the bottom-back. If there's not enough clear vents (like, if you are in bed, and it's resting in your lap so the bottom vents are perfectly pressed into the fluffy down comforter) then it underclocks the GPU and you go into slide-show mode. This will happen in Zuma if you try hard enough, or if you're watching Hulu.com, even, but it's pretty easy to get it in World of Warcraft. Throwing off your comforter and getting nakeder with your Air is the only solution at this point, and also, it feels... so deliciously wrong.
• Note to hardware guys: don't put vents there, bokay? Laptops are for bed. Don't put vents right where the laptop touches my leg. (Aw, come on back, hardware guys! I still love you! Look, sometimes I just get a little angry, and when I've been drinking, well, you know my temper...)
• On the other hand, if this baby is plugged in and sitting on a flat surface, I can play Teh WoWz all day and it's great. (Not great for shipping DL2, so I don't do it, but I
could. It's nice to know it's there, like a beautiful ex who still wants to have sex with you.)
--
This isn't a machine for everyone, nor should it be. Just as there should be
three types of spaghetti sauce, you and I should not HAVE to agree on what we want in a machine. The machine should, instead, be designed to agree with us.
I admit my last post was a bit over-the-top; my point was supposed to be: "Look, this machine may not be for you, personally, but please acknowledge that there are people for whom it is perfect." For instance, Gabe told me he wants a new MacBook Pro, and I didn't try to push the Air on him (...much). He's an artist and a gamer. He wants pixels, and lots of them, and FAST. The MacBook Pro is going to run his Windows games faster than pretty much every laptop.
I
will try to steer him towards the biggest MacBook Pro that has the LED backlight, because it's just SO DARN PRETTY. And if anyone offered a 128GB SSD, I'd be recommending that to all my friends who have cash to burn. Because it's the future, baby, and it's beautiful.
-W
Labels: mac community
Saturday, February 9
Mr. Rentczchxh has posted my talk from C4, and if you would enjoy watching a talk without paying, you can watch it. It's on hype, and how I generate it, but it also touches on other topics concerning having your own software company, like making good software, bundling, getting into stores, having sex with cylons, &c.
Watch it!Or don't.Labels: advice, business, code, interface design, mac community
Tuesday, January 15
I thought of a lot of titles for this post, but, really, the first one that came to me seems the best.
I've read nothing but whining about the MacBook Air on Mac news sites since it came out this morning. Honestly, I just want to shake these people. Not, like, shake some sense into them, but shake them like you're not supposed to shake a baby.
The criticism all basically goes like this: "It's not like a MacBook Pro!"
No, really? Seriously? I mean, they introduced this new product, and it doesn't have the same specs as the MacBook Pro? God, that is bizarre. I wonder why they gave it a new name, and continue to sell the MacBook Pro, then, if it's not going to be exactly the same. I mean, that hardly makes sense, does it?
Ok, fine, there are some people who want, like, an extra battery Pack. But let's admit amongst ourselves that the overwhelming majority of people out there have never pulled the battery out of their existing laptops, and didn't even know or care that it comes out. In fact, if something goes wrong with their battery, this majority -- whom we'll call "NORMAL PEOPLE" for convenience -- will just take the damn machine to the store and get it fixed, whether it's user-serviceable or not. Because we don't want to hassle with it.
And there are people out there who do video editing on their MacBooks and want FireWire. Great! I respect your choice! You should buy a MacBook! It's an awesome machine! If you want to do that! Which I don't!
I've read journalists complain that you can't get at the hard drive in the MacBook Air. What? I have no fucking idea where the hard drive is in my MacBook Pro, and even if you drew me a damn diagram with labels and numbers and gave me a replacement drive I wouldn't open my machine even in exchange for a year with Zooey Deschanel. Ok, yes I would, but you get my point. I'm sorry, Zooey, I didn't mean it, baby.
Some journalists get so close to the truth it hurts, yet miss the large print. "OMG! The unit is all sealed and self-contained like the iPod!"
Yes... the iPod. That huge failure. Also, the iPhone. Stunning disappointment that it was. I mean, jeebus, why would Apple make ANOTHER device incredibly simple? Clearly the market has spoken, and it wants tons of ports and screws and geegaws and flippers... no, wait, no it doesn't.
You guys are TECHNOLOGY JOURNALISTS. You are GEAR HEADS. There is no shame in this, but, come on, recognize that what you think is cool is NOT what my mom thinks is cool, or what an executive thinks is cool, or what a lawyer who just wants to write a deposition on her laptop thinks is cool.
I'm a programmer. I just want a machine I can write software on. Once, I loved gadgets, too, but now I really just want a gadget that (a) works, and (b) is beautiful and easy-to-use. Sure, my iPhone doesn't have as many raw features as my lawyer's Blackberry + RAZR combined (she carries both). But I understand my iPhone, and I don't have to learn it, because it's learned me. I can take a photo in three seconds, and so can she (we tested) even though she'd never seen an iPhone before.
I'm not the freak, here. In this one instance. I'm with the majority. All software developers should be hailing the advent of the computer-as-appliance, because it means we'll be reaching into markets that are afraid of self-service machines.
I can't take apart my Kitchenaid blender. If they come out with a new motor, I'm screwed. It's not upgradeable! And when the motor blows (as it DID... grrr), I have to send it back. I can't take apart my car. When Lotus came out with a bolt-on supercharger, I had to (gasp) take it to the dealer to have it put in. Somehow I survived.
I don't buy a laptop because I want to replace its drive in a year. I buy it because it seems great and meets my needs today. If my needs magically morph over the coming year, I guess I'll sell it on eBay. Or pay Apple to throw in a different drive, or something. Honestly, I think we need to admit that just because machines get faster every year, doesn't mean that the majority of people need faster machines.
In two weeks I'll be writing Delicious Library 2 on a MacBook Air, every day. Because it's simple and beautiful, and I crave those things.
And all you haters can... well, buy one in six months, when you realize how nice it is.
--
Update 2/4/2008: My MacBook Air with 2GB of RAM and 1.8 GHz cores and the SSD compiles Delicious Library 2 from scratch in 1:59.4. My MacBook Pro with 3GB of RAM and 2.3GHz cores and an HD compile it in... 2:04.3.
MacBook Air FTW.
Labels: business, interface design, mac community
Delicious Monster
