Check out this great article on an exciting discovery of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy playing together. The album comes out July 14th. Hat tip: Aaron Wieczorek.
Category Archives: Personal
On the Design Better Podcast
I was on the Design Better podcast hosted by Aarron Walter and Eli Woolery, we talked about jazz, generative AI, distributed work, and my journey as an entrepreneur.
We just launched polls on Tumblr, and it’s been pretty fun. Cool to bring together the Crowdsignal (née Polldaddy) technology into a new world.
Tumblr Updates
Tumblr launched Community Labels yesterday, which allows consistent tagging of addiction, violent, and adult content, and for people to hide, blur, or show that content. It’s gone pretty well so far. We’ve still been getting a lot of questions if it’s going to be free-for-all with adult content again, and the short answer is no, but the longer answer is covered in Why “Go Nuts, Show Nuts” Doesn’t Work in 2022.
If you haven’t tried out Tumblr in a while, check it out. Lots of improvements the past few months, and it can be a refreshing alternative or add-on to your online social life. And get your friends on it too!
Sonic Sphere and Empyrean Gate
If I had to pick one reason why I’d suggest every person should attend Burning Man at least once, it would be the art. (Second reason would be seeing the principles in action.) This year I am particularly excited to support two pieces, the first being the Sonic Sphere which has this great video introducing it:
I got a chance to try out a smaller prototype of this and it was a great experience. You can read a bit about the history of the Kugel Auditorium that this is based on on Ed Cooke’s blog post Which is more memorable, a Bitcoin or a Spherical Concert Hall? The Sphere will be in Deep Playa (what3words).
Another exciting new project is the Empyrean Gate at the Entheos camp, which will be at 3 and Esplanade. Here are some renderings but I can’t wait to see how it turns out in person.
Gaiman on Tumblr
From a nice new Polygon article, Our favorite Neil Gaiman books, comics, and more:
Before I elaborate — yes, people still use Tumblr and it’s far more popular than most people think. Neil Gaiman has been an active Tumblr user since 2011, and he still actively uses the microblogging platform to this day. This is notable, because celebrities have notoriously been bullied off of Tumblr. Yet somehow, Neil Gaiman has outlived them all, watching from the shadows of his own dashboard.
He keeps his ask box open and answers questions from fans. He gives life and writing advice. He talks about the various adaptations of his works, giving information he is able to give and answering with a signature “wait and see” when he cannot. He plays along with dumb jokes and reblogs additions. He helps fans track down obscure lines he’s written. And as is the reality of the internet, he deals with his share of haters and trolls, but he’s always remarkably graceful toward them.
He also reblogs posts, adding on new information, providing funny commentary, or giving helpful tips (this usually causes some surprise from people who organically stumble upon a comment from Neil Gaiman in the wild, and it’s always really amusing to see).
He’s just a good presence on the internet, which is exceedingly rare to see these days.
I’m seeing more and more people use Tumblr in this way, and it’s nice to be part of making the web a more interesting place. If you haven’t tried Tumblr recently, download the app and start with Neil’s blog as a subscription. Hat tip: Matthew Ryan.
Junk Your Jabra
I usually wouldn’t do a post about this, but I was so surprised I had to share. I picked up a Jabra Evolve2 30 UC wired headset, with USB-C, because my friend Hugo loves the wireless Jabra and I’ve been using an older USB-A headset and thought it would be nice to not need an adapter. I also thought for $89 it must be good. The reviews were also really solid (4.3 on Amazon right now).
Do not buy this headset. There was a constant buzz/hum in the speaker, people sounded lower quality, and the mic also was lower quality. On the plus side, it was a nice build quality and comfort.
For $29 cheaper ($60) the Sennheiser SC 135 USB-C had better speaker, way better mic quality, very nice build and comfort. Get that one instead.
So don’t mute, get a better headset. Krisp.ai is still great, too.
Thirty Eight
This is an unusually late birthday post (still backdated to January 11). I woke up on my actual birthday and was not feeling it. I was locked down even more strictly than January 2021 because I was trying to be extra cautious prior to a surgery my Mom had later in the month. I was also on a fairly strict diet and exercise regime after slipping into a weight range I wasn’t comfortable with.
So I was feeling extra isolated, had a strange pain in my lower back, and I just felt old all over. I thought of the Drake line, “I’m really too young to be feeling this old.” (Maybe originally from Garth Brooks?)
I meditated with a Daily Calm from Jeff Warren called “The Boggle,” which unfortunately I can’t hotlink but here’s how it starts: Sometimes we’re in the boggle, life is throwing everything at us: complicated situations, complicated relationships, we have all these feelings, all these impulses pulling us in different directions, and we have no idea what to do. No idea how to resolve it all. Even no idea what self-care strategy to implement right now. So what’s interesting about the boggle is that there’s the challenge of the situation itself, or situations, and there’s the added challenge of the confusion of it, the scrambling to make sense of everything. So we’re going to try something different, we’re going to stop scrambling and accept, even forgive, the boggle. We’re going to let ourselves be right here, inside any confusion, and take a break from trying to fix any of it. That’s the itinerary, let’s go. It hit close to home, and I’ve ended up returning to that meditation several times since.
The day really shaped up, though! Friends surprised me with a trip to a Teamlab exhibit at a museum that was closed on Tuesdays but they got opened up just for us. The museum was magical, but the best part was seeing friends I wasn’t expecting to, even if masked and relatively distanced. I wore a new comfy matching tie die outfit too, because, why not? Ended the day with a small dinner with Mom and three friends.
I don’t have any particular wisdom from this birthday except no matter how you feel, take some Advil and keep going.
This year on the personal side I’d like to take more silent retreats, get settled at home and out of liminal states, particularly construction projects, and listen to more operas. On the work side I’d like to set up alternative ecosystems for people tired of the traditional options for social with Tumblr, listening with Pocket Casts, and writing with Day One. (Update: A few weeks after my birthday I announced I’m working on Tumblr full-time.) Finally, I’d like to do my birthday post on time next year, but I’m forgiving myself for prioritizing friends and family that day. 😄
All birthday posts: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42.
Celebrate by Writing
My birthday is coming up soon so it’s that time of the year when friends start reaching out and asking where they should fly to and how we’re going to celebrate.
After a good run in the post-vaccinated-and-boosted part of 2020 that felt relatively “normal”, including traveling almost 200k miles, I’m going back into a pretty locked-down state of things. Omicron has just been catching too many friends and loved ones, even with fairly careful measures and testing. So what’s happening on January 11th?
What I’m asking for my birthday is for people to blog!
Whether professionally on WP.com, socially on Tumblr, or privately journaling with Day One, there’s never been a better time to stop being a passive consumer of the internet and join the class of creators.
Write for a single person. Share something cool you found. Summarize your year. Set a blogging goal with reminders. Get a Gutenberg-native theme and play around with building richer posts. Start a nom de plume. Answer daily prompts on Day One. Forget the metaverse, let’s hang out in the blogosphere. Get your own domain!
If you’re a close friend that feels intimidated by the software at all or that you don’t know where to start, I’m happy to hop on a Zoom to go through everything on a screen share. That will also be a great learning for me for places we can improve things, which is also a fantastic gift!
2021 Streaming Kit
My streaming setup post last year got an amazing reception — there are similar setups being used by executives across the board, from companies fundraising to several I know of with 100B+ valuations. Since that original setup, I’ve updated my own usage of hardware and software combinations to achieve similar or better results for about a quarter of the cost. So here’s the latest and greatest, and below I’ll talk about why the changes.
Video: Camlink, cable, and tripod are still the same, but the camera goes from an A7R IV and a separate lens to an A7C with a kit lens, which saves about $3,000. You also don’t need the dummy battery because the A7C runs great off USB-C.
Lighting: More is more, so I usually use two Key Light Airs (linked above) instead of one. If I’m on the road I’ll pair two Aputure RGB lights with two Lume Cube monopods.
Audio: My best audio advice is to upgrade to an M1 Macbook Pro so your computer is fast and the fan is never on, and position the laptop out of camera view but close to you so the built-in three-mic array picks up pretty good audio from you with no cables or earpieces. (Here’s a singer recording a song on the pre-M1 16-inch version, and note she has to remove fan noise in post-processing.) For bonus points add Krisp.ai ($60/yr) so you get background noise and room echo magically eliminated in real-time.
Teleprompter: The Glide Gear is much easier to set up and way cheaper than my old recommendation. Instead of an external monitor, I use an iPad and the MacOS Sidecar feature. I still don’t have a great way to reverse the screen; in the comments, I’ll share some of what folks have recommended to me.
The above setup removes 75% of the cost without sacrificing any quality.
I’ve gone through every permutation on audio, including using a MixPre-3, NoiseAssist plugin, and a MKH416 shotgun mic ($2k+ total), but I never use that setup unless I’m recording a fancy audio-only podcast.
Why am I using the Sennheiser SC30 in the above photo? Well it was an unusual situation…I was on the side of the road, next to an RV, with logging trucks rumbling by. Sometimes you don’t always know where you need to do a broadcast. 😄
2024 Update: Everything still stands but if you can find an Elgato Prompter it really helps. I’m using these RGB lights for lighting more now. And BetterDisplay is a great MacOS utility for rotating screens and such. I’ve dropped Krisp.ai because the built-in “Voice Isolation” feature on MacOS is pretty good.
It’s not every day you see noted writer Cory Doctorow refer to a column as “the piece I’m most proud of,” and his essay in Locus Magazine on IP doesn’t disappoint, connecting the free software movement and the evolution of the term “author’s monopolies” to “intellectual property.”
The essay on DRM and Apple, available on his WP-powered blog, or Twitter, is also worth reading.
Invest Like the Best and Building Worlds
On a Founder’s Field Guide episode with Patrick O’Shaughnessy we had an interesting conversation that covered a lot new ground, including an idea I’ve been playing around with on, as Patrick put it:
The idea from @photomatt that the best companies are those that build intricate worlds (in the same way that J. R. R. Tolkien came up with the elvish language) will always stick with me.
We also covered the pendulum of centralization and decentralization, current challenges facing the internet, and being a connoisseur of things overlooked. You can check out the episode on Apple, Google, Spotify, Overcast, and Pocket Casts.
I’ve been impressed by the audience of this podcast, a lot of people I admire reached out after this episode.
Compounding Ice
I learned something novel about how the ice age happened from this Freakishly Strong Base post by Morgan Housel:
The prevailing idea before [Wladimir] Köppen was that ice ages occur when the earth’s tilt supercharges the wrath of cold winters. Köppen showed that wasn’t the case. Instead, moderately cool summers are the culprit.
It begins when a summer never gets warm enough to melt the previous winter’s snow. The leftover ice base makes it easier for snow to accumulate the following winter, which increases the odds of snow sticking around in the following summer, which attracts even more accumulation the following winter. Perpetual snow reflects more of the sun’s rays, which exacerbates cooling, which brings more snowfall, and on and on.
You start with a thin layer of snow left over from a cool summer that no one pays much attention to, and after a few tens of thousands of years the entire earth is covered in miles-thick ice.
Fascinating! The blog goes on to apply the idea to that strong base, accumulating a bit at a time, to investing and business. The power of compounding seems appropriate to share on the day Jeff Bezos announced his retirement.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Charlie Munger, which is also how the article ends:
‘The first rule of compounding: never interrupt it unnecessarily.’
Charlie Munger
The iceberg photo is one I took near Svalbard in 2011.
Thirty-seven
I turn 37 today. I look around and I feel incredibly lucky to be writing this after a topsy-turvy year. I have health. I have friends whom I love. These are all good reasons to feel optimistic about the future. A few unconnected thoughts today:
My father had me when he was exactly 13,300 days old, and this year I passed that number of rotations of the Earth.
It’s hard to plan when so much is changing, so resolutions this year haven’t felt the same. But in times like these it’s even more important to plan for the long-term. A look back, once a year, is enough to remind of what remains.
I’m so thankful for the internet. It’s where I learned and practiced my trade. It’s where I connect every day with the most interesting and eclectic group of people I could imagine, a modern day Florence during the Renaissance. I hope to make a lot more internet and enable others to do the same.
Many years ago I said “Technology is best when it brings people together.” This quote has taken on a life of its own on motivational posters and images. When I first said it I think I had in mind WordCamps and meetups and other physical gatherings; this year it transformed for me seeing how technology brought together those separated by the pandemic. This year has appeared divisive, so it’s easy to overlook how many times people came together. It’s like the old saying, it’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you get up. Fall thirty-six times, get up thirty-seven.
All birthday posts: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42.
Autonomous and Beautiful Home Devices
Of all the smart home upgrades I’ve made, replacing all my regular smoke detectors with Nest Protects (Google’s smoke detector) has been the one that I regret the most.
I don’t really need a smart smoke detector. It doesn’t need to talk, connect to wifi, and cost hundreds of dollars. I don’t need it integrated with my Google account which is impossible to share, so I need to be personally involved to replace one.
But other smoke detectors are just so unsightly, and the Nest is light years ahead of the competition from a design standpoint.
There’s such an opportunity for something that looks as good as the Nest, but doesn’t require two-factor authentication to replace. I didn’t want to call it dumb but beautiful, so let’s say “autonomous and beautiful” appliances and home devices. I still want it to be smart, but if you’re going to have the risk profile of a device that connects to the internet, it needs to be worth it, like Brilliant, Sonos, smart TVs, or connected cameras.
I’m becoming more wary of any hardware that requires an app, just because of the natural decay of non-SaaS and non-open source software. Van Moof bikes are beautiful, but will they still connect well when iOS 24 is out and Bluetooth has been removed from iPhones for security reasons?
What’s In My Bag, 2020
Instead of sharing what’s in my backpack this year, I want to share the apps and pandemic purchases that were meaningful to me, along with a few words on each. Something I haven’t shared with you yet on this blog is… I went down a #vanlife rabbit hole and ended up camping and working remotely a decent chunk of the year. I learned a ton and feel much more resilient. So this is a phoneful and truckful update of my year.
First I’ll start with apps, these all link to Apple’s app store but almost all have Android equivalents that I also use:
- Calm and Waking Up — Very different but both incredibly valuable meditation apps. I had an 82-day streak with Calm this year! I wouldn’t have survived without these.
- Fitbod — You tell the app what equipment you have, how much time you have, and it gives you a workout like a trainer would, rotating muscle groups.
- Streaks — An app for starting and tracking habits. This is a funny one because I actually stopped using it because it worked. The things I was tracking on Streaks became daily habits and I stopped using the app every day. The same thing happened for me with Zero, my daily fast became part of my routine so I’d only use Zero if I was doing a longer one.
- Tumblr — It was so nice to have a social network centered around creativity and humor.
- Asana — Getting organized helped lessen anxiety.
- Pocket Casts — I switched to this because it syncs between devices, and I used my Android device a lot especially while driving.
- AllTrails — I spent more time in nature this year than almost any previous, and AllTrails was an amazing way to find great hikes.
- The Economist — The most insightful news, and the weekly cadence helped me avoid the wild variance of the daily news cycle. My favorite news app.
- YouTube — Wow, there’s a lot of stuff on here. This was the year I started to “get” why people spend so much time on YouTube. Some favorite finds were Jacob Collier and Mark Rober.
- Walmart — Surprisingly good on road trips for curbside pickup orders scheduled a few hours ahead. Yes, I have now joined 95% of the US population.
- Blueground and Avantstay — Good for longer stays in places. I found both through Airbnb, which is still the king.
- Food apps in order of usage: DoorDash, Uber Eats, Tock, Toast TakeOut.
- Camping apps in order of usage: AllTrails, Chimani, Recreation.gov, iOverlander, Boondocking, FreeRoam, Harvest Hosts.
- App I deleted and re-added the most: Twitter. I love the things I learn from using it, but hate feeling like I’m wasting time.
When on road trips I found Android Auto running off the Pixel 5 much more reliable than CarPlay, which would frequently freeze up on me. Things have improved with iOS 14, but I still always use the Pixel when I’m on a longer drive.
I also have been living with my Mom since July, including her two cats and new Coton du Tulear puppy. Pets are humbling! It’s been great to learn how to support them best, as I last lived with animals when I was in high school and wasn’t that conscious of the responsibility then.
Amazon says I made over 850 orders this year, more than double from any previous year. Here are the non-tech purchases that ended up having a big impact on me:
- SmartMouth mouthwash — Available in travel packs as well, this is magical for having great breath, which you’ll notice more now that you’re wearing a mask all the time.
- Marvis Royal Toothpaste — Delicious! SLS-free! I switch between this and the SmartMouth toothpaste which works better but isn’t as luxuriously tasty.
- Theragun — Because you can’t get a massage.
- Hurtle vibration platform — Really weird but seems to shake the stress out of you, especially if you stretch on it for 5-10 minutes.
- Bowflex Adjustable Dumbbells — I was lucky enough to get these before they sold out and became crazy expensive.
- Buckwheat meditation cushion — So much more comfortable to have a cushion, especially for longer meditation sessions. Here’s a smaller version I use on the road.
- Tons of Philips Hue lights — Got a ton of joy from playing with the colors on these.
- Cloth napkins — Felt so luxurious, easy to wash and re-use.
- Heated cat bed — My Mom’s cats are obsessed with this now.
- Sharonds hair cutting scissors — 10x better than the scissors I had lying around the house.
- Babyliss clippers — They’re gold and have a “Lamborghini” motor which is ostentatious but works great.
- Hair Apron Cape — You feel like a dog with one of those cones, but mostly works.
- Yeti Lowlands picnic blanket — Expensive but sturdy.
- Cliq camping chair — Super small and great design, but ended up using these less than I thought because we mostly just stayed on the ground on the Yeti blanket.
- Isdin foot care cream — Really softens your feet.
- Silicone tip cooking chopsticks or the ones with the spoon on the end.
- Roll-up drying rack — Goes great over the sink.
- Joseph Joseph nesting kitchen tools, nesting bowls — They’re so pretty as well.
- Hanging solar mason jar lights — Like fireflies in a jar.
- Matador Freerain32 waterproof packable backpack — My new favorite for hiking.
- Matador Transit30 packable duffle bag — I ended up using this way more than I expected.
- This bamboo table — Just the right size for eating or working on the ground.
- Ikea Frakta bag — Just a few dollars each and can hold so much, and available on Amazon.
Clothing and wearables, like much of the world I trended toward comfort and away from normal shoes and socks:
- Bumpers flip flops — Weird but you get used to them.
- Oofos slide sandals — Ridiculously comfortable, and this model looks like it has the Automattic logo on it.
- Glerups wool slippers — Like wool clogs, I wear the rubber-soled ones out if just stepping out for a bit.
- Patagonia Capilene Air baselayers — So warm! Addictive.
- Faherty Brand — I just love their whole look and feel, and have met the brothers before.
- Alo Yoga — Pricey but looks great and fun to workout in. I’ve had some quality issues with their items though.
- Lululemon — Especially their new tech canvas pants.
- Unbound Merino — My go-to shirt, also decent socks.
- Uniqlo — Great value, and no logos!
Electronics:
- Everything in the streaming post — I ended up doing a ton of press and talks this year as the world became more distributed. I also personally helped many others get similar setups.
- Everything Unifi — It’s a year I really appreciated solid internet.
- Retractable 50′ ethernet cord — I actually daisy-chained two of these to do an internal company town hall presentation.
- 25′ retractable power extension cord — I also carry two of these.
- Macbook 13″ M1 — It really is the fastest computer you’ve ever used. This replaced a maxed out 16″.
- Hyppr 100w USB-C charger — Smaller and better than Apple’s charger.
- Airpods Max — I didn’t want to like them but they’re slick.
- Airpods Pro Dekoni Tips — Great upgrade for normal Airpods.
- iPhone 12 Pro Max — It’s like a mini iPad. Camera with RAW support is fantastic.
- Apple Pro Display XDR — Wow.
- Pixel 5 — Pretty great that they got the fingerprint reader back in as FaceID with a mask is terrible, so this has become my primary device if I’m out for a walk.
- Pixelbook Go — For my Mom.
- Chromecast with Google TV — Bad name but great product. Truly. Really well designed.
- Kindle Oasis with the new warm light — Even though I read less this year, this made what I did read a pleasure.
- Sinjimou charging stand for iPhone and USB-C — Works great, really cheap.
- Megaboom 3 — Two of these paired together in stereo is the best sound, weight, and battery life combo I’ve found on the road and in parks.
- Garmin 945 watch — I’ve talked about this watch previously, but this year I discovered the GPS maps feature when in hiking mode, which can literally be a lifesaver. Amazing for going off-trail.
There you have it. As always, if you’ve tried something here and found an alternative that’s better, let me know in the comments!
Jack Dorsey and Running Two Companies
I had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Dorsey for the Distributed podcast, a conversation that ended up going a bit deeper and longer than previous episodes.
In preparation for the interview I kept coming across people critical about the fact that Jack is the CEO of two companies simultaneously, Twitter and Square, each having over 5,000 employees.
I think what people miss is that at that scale, running a company is not that different from running a large division of a company. No one asks Jeff Bezos how he’s CEO of both a retail company and a cloud computing one (AWS), or Tim Cook how he’s CEO of a hardware business and a services business, and of course with both of those examples the breadth of what the companies cover is much wider. Also as an added benefit, shareholders can choose to invest in Square and Twitter together or not.
All of that said, I think having a CEO-level seat at two of the most influential technology companies today does allow for accelerated learning, as organizational experiments will naturally happen at each company and then the best practice can be shared to the other. Jack wasn’t aware how much peer executives at each company meet with each other to share learnings, but that seems like an obvious win.
Readers of this blog will especially appreciate how much we talked about open source and cryptocurrencies, and his view on the three things he’s responsible for as CEO. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.
Second-Order Effects
Derek Thompson’s writing for the Atlantic has been some of the most interesting this year. His latest, The Workforce Is About to Change Dramatically, is worth a close read. He gives good arguments for and against how remote working will change real estate, entrepreneurship, and something I’ve been meaning to write about but he did a much better job, how the great migration happening away from superstar cities could reshape politics.
I sincerely hope that all the people moving to new places are registering to vote in their new home, as I did when I moved from San Francisco back to Houston in 2011. The following year was 2012 and in Harris County (Houston) with 4.263 million people, Obama won by 585 votes. I was one of those votes.
Corner Office Interview
If you pick up a print edition of the Sunday New York Times today you’ll see the Corner Office interview with David Gelles in the business section.
A quote that seems to be resonating with people,
This column is called Corner Office, and most people who choose to have offices are usually the bosses. And I’ve been to the offices of billionaire C.E.O.s that have their own private bathroom, beautiful art and couches. But these are all things that you can have in your house. What I love about distributed organizations is every single employee can have a corner office.
Sometimes my corner office has been the corner of an airport floor next to a power outlet! I’ve also heard from colleagues that feel like their office feels like an unsupervised day care center since the quarantine started. The point I want to make is there’s a world of possibility that opens up when you move from the finite space of a shared office, and all the politics of dividing up the scarce resource of desirable space, to the infinite game where people can define their own “office” as the place where they will be most productive, and do so however they like with no penalties or restraints.
If you had the best space in the legacy office, you probably liked it and may even have had motivated reasoning around ineffable things that happened in the office like “culture” that would be impossible without it, but the average experience of an entry-level worker was not as positive. Now there can be a much more even playing field. At Automattic we have a home office allowance people can use to buy equipment they need to make their home work area comfortable and productive, and it’s the same if you’re leading a team of hundreds or if it’s your first job.
If you’d like to hear the entire conversation they’ve posted the original audio and interview that was distilled into the print version.
Follow-up Questions from WCEU
Matias and I just finished up the discussion and Q&A for the online WordCamp Europe that is going on right now, which was originally happening in Porto.
There were more good questions than we had time to get to, so at the end I suggested that we continue the conversation here, in the comments section! Comments are the best part of blogging.
So if you have a question we didn’t get to, please drop it below. If you don’t have a Gravatar yet now’s a good time to make one.