Cykod Blog

Apple passed Microsoft last week in market capitalization. This is big news, something that would be absolutely unthinkable even a few years ago pre-iPhone.

Apple was a niche product. It was for designers and the Starbucks crowd and that was it. Now, if I go to a Ruby meeting - everyone is running on a Macbook. It's ubiquitous. Everyone has an iPhone.

The question is, do we welcome our new sleek, futuristic-dancing-silhouetted overlords with open arms or do we need to be a little careful lest we lose something as Apple becomes the market leader?

Well, I think the name Apple is incredibly fitting if we reverse the myth of the Garden of Eden (Heck, the Apple Logo even has a bite out of it) We are being tempted to take a bite of their succulent technology, but the danger is not that we are going to be thrown out of paradise, rather that we'll be let back in. Back in to a walled garden where we no longer have the free will to use bad technology (Flash) but also will have a gatekeeper that controls what gets let in and what doesn't.

I believe Linux users and users of free software should be afraid (Yes, I'm liberally sowing FUD right now, but I think a little caution is in order) I never liked liked Microsoft, but I was never scared they would be dominant to a point where they would be able to affect my personal freedom. Why? Because people used Microsoft products, but they were never really happy about it. Even the MS Fanboys were pretty tame, sort of like they accepted their position as evangelizers of the platform, but secretly plugged black headphones into their iPods so no one would know.

Apple users are different. They believe.

To use a Firefly reference, who scares you more:

I'd take the sociopath every time over the idealist who is willing to destroy every right you have along the way just to get you to a better world. [ This is a just a metaphor, I don't really think either company has killed anyone - Chen's still alive, isn't he? ]

Steve Jobs thinks he's building a better world. They are refusing political satire Apps into the app store to protect the children. They are wiping years of developer hours off the face of the earth because they don't want apps that create "Desktops" in the app store (See MyFrame story). But he wholly believes: "We always saw ourselves as building the best computers we could build for people"

Do you think Steve would think twice about enabling objective-c scripting in the iPad browser because of Web standards if he thought it would be better for iPad users or Apple? I don't think so. A future of the Web that has a gatekeeper scares the hell out of me (I'm a web-developer, so clearly I have a selfish vested interest). Update: See this great example of how Apple treats the "open" web.

Now don't get me wrong, I love apple products. In fact after I poured wine over my Macbook and got angry that they wouldn't fix it for me at any price (once a unit is water damaged they won't touch it - even though everything works on the machine except the backlight), I'm going back with my tail between my legs today to get another Macbook. It's the best laptop out there.

But I'm holding off on the iPad as long as I possibly can because I don't want to fade away into the walled paradise just yet.

At least I hope you are. If you aren't you're going to be at an undeniable disadvantage to those who are.

My wife and I recently went to see Josh Ritter at the Orpheum. When he came out on the stage it was odd because he was smiling. I mean really smiling. I had assumed that he was of the angsty alt-country mold I was used to (along the lines of Ryan Adams pre-marital bliss) so it was unexpected that the guy on the stage belting out soulful, intricately-worded Midwestern gems was grinning ear-to-ear.

"Oh wow," I thought "Josh Ritter is a real dork."

After being startled by this fact for a few songs, it sank in that this wasn't an act and he was genuinely excited to be there on stage singing. His excitement and enthusiasm overwhelmed the audience and we quickly became dorks right along with him. When the lights turned off and he sang a song, minus microphone or any amplification, just him with an acoustic guitar strumming and belting out to the hushed crowd, we ate it up. When mid-concert one of his bandmates mothers came out and recited the poem 'Annabelle Lee' on stage, none of us jaded Boston yuppies in the crowd batted an eye.

Passion is intoxicating. Watching someone do something well that they are passionate about is an enthralling experience.

And passion is Dorkiness. It's the kid back in high school who was a little too excited about model trains and took a lot of abuse for that fact. But no matter how many times he got made fun of for responding seriously to a question asked in jest he continued to answer in earnest when someone asked him about his newest locomotive.

While that passion might get you a wedgie in high school, it's a recipe for success in real life.

Jesse Schell has a section in his "The Art of Game Design" called "The Secret of the Gifted" that speaks to this:

Well, here is a little secret about gifts. There are two kinds. First, there is the innate gift of a given skill. This the minor gift. If you have this gift, a skill such as game design, mathematics, or playing the piano comes naturally to you. You can do it easily, almost without thinking. But you don't necessarily enjoy doing it. There are millions of people with minor gifts of all kinds, who, though skilled, never do anything great with their gifted skill, and this is because they lack the major gift.

The major gift is love of the work.[ Pg.6 ]

Being across the table actually interviewing people, I finally understand why interviewers always say they look for candidates with passion. When I first heard this, I called shenanigans. Passion above IQ, Resume and Schooling?  But now speaking from personal experience, passion is really is what you look for as a prospective employer. Most important is whether the candidate would be overall be a good fit in the office. The next most important thing by far is what gets them fired up, what makes their pre-interview nerves melt away as they go-off on slightly too long of a tangent regarding something work-related they love. Someone with a limited skillset but a passion to learn your business beats a learned automaton every time.

Me, I'm a Web dork. If you want to get into an uncomfortably animated discussion, ask me about anything related to current web technologies (I'll get extra excited if you mention the word "Rails") and you'll be in for at least a 1/2 hour discussion for how HTML5 is going to cure cancer and bring about world peace. Make the mistake of asking our designer (and my wife) Martha about typography, you'll learn far more than you ever wanted to about Kerning and Serifs.

So like "Nerd" and "Geek" have morphed themselves from insults to badges of pride, we're reclaiming "Dork" too. In fact I wouldn't ever imagine hiring someone who didn't give me a "Wow, they are a dork" moment.

Oh, and go buy Josh Ritter's Albums. We need more dorks like him in the music business.

I made the mistake yesterday of reading through the comments section on a Boston.com article. I should know better and I quickly regretted my decision.

The comment sections on websites these days suck either because they are completely devoid of any sort of intelligent thought (poster child: YouTube) or because people really enjoy expressing strong opinions tangential to the subject matter just to make themselves feel smarter (poster child: Slashdot)

For the former problem there's not much you can do - to have a good conversation you need people willing to write coherent sentences. For the latter problem, unfortunately, it's not a question of being able to write the comment, it's being willing to take the time to read the article and add something productive to the conversation.

Now, the problem may stem from us internet-friendly millennials who think we're terriffic on account of our extensive collection of after-school sports trophies and refrigeratored A+'s, and so are convinced that the world really, REALLY needs to hear what we have to say, regardless of what we're saying. Or maybe it's a universal issue and people just like griefing. It's tough to tell.

In any case, for our purposes people who read blog posts fall into three overlapping categories: people who want to write comments, people with something intelligent to say, and people who actually RTFA. Ideally, you'd like the comments on your blog to come from only the intersection of all three of those groups.

What often happens, however, is that you just end up with the difference of the first group minus the other two. People who have RTFA will scroll down to the comments, see all the comments that say "You are an idiot and should never have children" and decide to move on. The other group - people with something intelligent to say, will often make a great comment that adds nothing to the subject matter because they can't be bothered to RTFA to the end. Furthermore, Austrian goats are my favorite animals!

As a partial solution to this problem we've come up with a concept called the Tilder filter that works like this: somewhere in the blog post, preferably near the middle, there needs to exist a complete non sequitur. Something that's really out of place and will catch the attention of anyone who reads the post.

Next, as soon as someone tries to submit a comment the system sets a cookie via javascript (more on this in a second) and darkens the screen with a lightbox-like popover obscuring the entire page. On this popover is a multiple choice question with 8 or so answers which the user has twenty seconds to answer. The answer is of course the non sequitur mentioned earlier.

If they get it wrong - too bad. No comment for them. Of course they could remove their site cookies and try again but at that point they are going to be so angry that their comment will be easily discernible and moderated (e.g. "Your site sucks, I just lost my f#$@%ing comment you worthless pile of ..." and so on)

Now regarding the cookie, since we set a cookie the minute they press submit, the system can black out the page if they bring it up in another browser and disable the comments form after they failed to answer the question correctly the first time. This could all be done very simply in javascript as a proof of concept, while a real implementation would need some server side support.

I'd love to hear feedback on the idea, provided, of course, you've taken the time to read the full post.

It seems that outrage has become the new pastime here in America. Accuse first and do the research and ask questions later

Scribblenauts' is a game for the Nintendo DS that lets you write words and have the object appear on the screen which can be used to solve puzzles in creative ways. Did the game's develoepr 5th Cell really think they could let people use an estimated 20,000 words and not figure out a way to outrage themselves somehow?

Sure enough within a week after release a post appears: And yet "WASP" produces some sort of insect

Entering the word "Sambo" results in something, that from the blogger's perspective looks like a watermelon. And since "Sambo" is a racial slur (albeit one that I hadn't heard used in a long time), and watermelons are a stereotype, it must be a hidden piece of easter-egg-racism. (  Ignoring the fact that it could just be a "Sambo"  )

Cue the overreaction by a number of blogging sites (Kotaku , Consumerist , Joystiq ) the first of which, I believe posted their original story before hearing back from the developer - luckily, however, while the internet never forgets, it's easy to amend - and all the stories carry the developer's response.

Now, I don't actually believe that we as americans get outraged that often. Given all the stuff going on in the world, I would really be surprised if things like this actually generated an emotional response of outrage. I think we have become such attention hounds that people will write anything they think could get them the page views - my favorite is the fact that as bloggers we view ourselves as just "raising the question," not actually responsible for the result of our words or for a modicum of research to prevent the resulting cacophony. Just like the birthers are "raising the question" of whether president Obama is a US citizen or not. [ And in response, people are "raising the question" of whether or not Glenn Beck Raped and Murdered a young girl in 1990 - I personally don't think he did, but I haven't heard him refute it ]

Regardless of the reason, the bottom line is - even if you don't say or think anything racist / sexist / controversial on the internet - as long as there's one person out there looking to get angry or make a name for themselves, all they have to do is take what you've written, put a personal racist / sexist / classist interpretation on it and you'll end up spending the rest of the week trying to convince people you don't run around the office in white hats - 5th cell's need to resort to writing that they have a number of black employees, also known as the "black friend" defense was a little sad.

You worked hard, you did your homework on time, got straight A's, and graduated from college with honors. What do you deserve? What are you entitled to? Many students graduating this past spring think they are entitled to a job that pays them at least as well as their peers from a couple of years previously are being paid; they think they are entitled to flex time, to email and surf the web whenever they are at work; to call in sick with a hangover whenever the weekend stretches an extra night or two. They worked hard during college and believe that they should be entitled to a pay off for all that hard work. Some even take it one ridiculous step further (and are then rewarded by some idiots )

Unfortunately the truth of the matter is that the the hard work has just begun. It doesn't get easier once college is over, I've found real life is actually a whole lot harder than 4 years at what our european peers like to derogatively call "Country Clubs." In real life, no one gives you an A for doing something well, in fact half the time your not even sure if you did it well or not. That environment is difficult for some people (especially those graduating in down economic times) to deal with.

I can empathize with the shock of coming into the real world because I know the feeling - My wife and I both graduated in 2002 during the fallout from the dot-com bust. Neither of us had a job lined up after college because we arrogantly thought we had earned some time off and there would be plenty of jobs for two eager and engaged young professionals when we decided it was time to look. We couldn't have been more wrong. By the time we got around to it in the fall of 2002, the job landscape for both developers and graphic designers was pretty much destroyed.

Coming out of school we effectively got hit over the with the "You Suck" stick enough that we took a step back and realized: college doesn't really mean crap in the real world. In good times, the name of the college on your diploma is enough to get an interview. In bad times, it might not even do that.

So what did we do? I worked for myself doing home IT (read: removing porn-related spyware from people's computers) and small business IT consulting (read: plugging in Ethernet cables, and, yup, still removing porn from the boss's computer) for a couple of years before starting to land development gigs off of web job boards and finally landing with a couple of larger jobs with clients that stuck. Martha stuck to her guns and temped for 6 months before finding someone who actually needed and wanted a junior graphic designer. Many design job postings at the time were getting 50-100 responses, with experienced out-of-work designers willing to take pay cuts to get a job.

Over the next couple of years, we slowly progressed upwards - I used to the freedom of working for myself to try to immerse myself as much as possible into web development - I figured the knowledge was very useful but temporary until I could get back to "real development" - and get up to speed on as many of technologies out there as possible. Eventually I progressed onto larger and more complicated systems while Martha steadily advanced in her trade and changed jobs a couple of times.

Two and half years ago Martha and I joined forces to create Cykod and we haven't looked back. We kicked and scratched our way up from small websites to larger sites with more and more features and are now moving to the next stage, from Web Consultants to Internet Startup, managing to stay small and independent. We just signed the lease on our first office space. To be completely honest, we're pretty happy with our situation, at the same time understanding that we're just one small notch up from the bottom on the life scale and still have a long we to go to be successful in the long term.

We also recognize that the past 7 years really don't mean jack for guarenteeing what's going to happen now. We're not entitled to any success just because we dug ourselves out of the first hole that we got ourselves into and we're more than likely going to fall right into the next one. That hard work we've done over the past couple of years doesn't mean we're going to end up with the next Facebook or Twitter. I'm am now optimistic that we're going to make it, but I understand that success is going to come as a struggle and I'm definitely not entitled to it just for showing up every day to that 8 o'clock class back in junior year.

I hate it when people look retrospectively back over hard times and say they wouldn't trade those difficult times for anything - so I won't lie and do that - I would have loved to have been successful right off the bat, but I will say that going through a little bit of hardship has made Martha and me a little less arrogant, and little more willing to consider other viewpoints and much more appreciative when good things come our way.