Landed

Asides, Travel

Paris has the most confusing airport, although I suppose any airport is confusing if you don’t speak the language. Franck was right. I ended up chickening out and taking a taxi, and I’m not checked in and settled. First order of business: find an adapter for these weird plugs. The weather seems to have cleared up so I’m going to venture out and explore a bit.

First Time Movember

2014-movember Automattic is participating in Movember for the first time this year, and so to join I shaved for the first time in the better part of a decade. (Before and after pictured above.) For those not familiar with it, you shave clean on November first and grow and groom a mostache (no beard, goatee, etc) through the course of the month, and when people comment on how ridiculous you look you encourage them to donate to Movember which is a non-profit which has raised over $500 million and funded over 800 programs in 21 countries. (Wow!)

I doubt I’ll be able to match the ‘stache of some of my more hirsute colleagues, but it’s for a good cause and seems like good fun as well. If you’d consider dropping a few dollars in the hat to support men’s health, here’s the link to the Automattic team page where you can donate to support the entire team, which is currently ranked #163.

Gnome 2.8

Asides

Some screenshots of Gnome 2.8. Looks nice. Like any true geek, I’m more interested in the nice shadows on everything than the actual improvements. Are the shadows stock? 😉 I keep going back and forth on my Linux desktop. I’ll use Gnome for a while because it seems cleaner and then I’ll switch to KDE because I seem to get more done and I like things like being able to press Win + M to minimize all the windows. Hat tip: Wes.

Beeper & Texts

Automattic

It’s such a delight when a plan comes together and unfolds, especially when it’s something you’ve been working on for many years. Today the announcement went out that we’re combining the best technology from Beeper and Texts to create a great private, secure, and open source messaging client for people to have control of their communications. We’re going to use the Beeper brand, because it’s fun. This is not unlike how browsers have evolved, where solid tech and encryption on top of an open ecosystem has created untold value for humanity. Eric Migicovsky has written well about the plan going forward.

A lot of people are asking about iMessage on Android… I have zero interest in fighting with Apple, I think instead it’s best to focus on messaging networks that want more engagement from power-user clients. This is an area I’m excited to work on when I return from my sabbatical next month.

A Calendar Problem

Asides

So here’s the scenario: I have a work calendar on Outlook 2003 which gets all the work meetings. I use iCal on my Mac to keep a calendar with mostly personal events and it syncs via DAV online. I would love to combine all of these and sync them together and to some sort of web interface, and make all the events and alarms go to my phone, a Motorola RAZR. Is this even possible? Update: Groupcal looks like exactly what I need.

Sometimes You Just Can’t Win

Personal

The last name “Mullenweg” has elicited various schoolyard permutations over the years, but by far the most enduring has been “Mulletwig,” presumably because mullets are so entertaining. Therefore it is with great trepidation that I point to Mulletwigs.com, “Business in the front, party in the back!” 🙂

It’s worth outlining how I came across this: Email → Politech posting → “It’s the Economics, stupid” post on spam whitelist → scroll down to Hairy Situation → Original Mullet Wig.

I’m somewhere in the middle of the Arctic Sea right now, approximately 78°05’N, 28°45’E, but even through the thin pipe of an intermittent satellite connection the ripples were felt of the announcement that Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple. Jobs, or the idea of him, has had a profound impact on innumerable founders and CEOs. My own tribute to him (and Apple as an organization) is in the essay 1.0 is the Loneliest Number, where reviews of the original iPod punctuate a story of the messy act of creation. Moments like this give us an opportunity to take a step back and contemplate the bigger picture, so take a moment to read the post and think about what you’re launching next.

Millions of Blondes

Asides, Humor

I’m not going to particpate in it, but the “best blonde joke” (example) thing is driving thousands and thousands of hits every day to WordPress.com. It’s traffic on par with a front-page Digg, just constant and steady. Where did this thing come from??? (Continuing my tradition of being a month late to internet trends.)