Someone asked me the other day who my favorite rappers were, here they are in no particular order:
Pre-2000: Big Pun, Jay Z, Nas, Ludacris, Method Man.
Post-2000: Kendrick Lamar, Kanye, Childish Gambino, J Cole, Drake.
Aside Archives
We’re trying something new this year: instead of WordCamp San Francisco being the main WordCamp event of the year doing a WordCamp US in a rotating city. I’ve heard some great in-person pitches for places like Phoenix already. Do you think your city would be the coolest place in the 50 states for the first ever WordCamp US? Submit your city in this new survey. It’s open until the end of the month.
On the recommendation of my friend Timothy Young I checked out the book The Martian: A Novel by Andy Weir. Think of it like Shackleton’s Voyage (a great recommendation from Toni) but on Mars. I really enjoyed the book, and if you like geeky, science-filled novels you will too. One thing about the publishing I thought was really cool, as the Wikipedia puts it:
Having been rebuffed by literary agents when trying to get prior books published, Weir decided to put the book online in serial format one chapter at a time for free at his website. At the request of fans he made an Amazon Kindle version available through Amazon.com at 99 cents (the minimum he could set the price). The Kindle edition rose to the top of Amazon’s list of best-selling science-fiction titles, where it sold 35,000 copies in three months, more than had previously downloaded it for free. This garnered the attention of publishers: Podium Publishing, an audiobook publisher, signed for the audiobook rights in January 2013. Weir sold the print rights to Crown in March 2013 for six figures.
I was hoping it was on a WordPress blog, but it appears to be more of a static HTML site (his official site is WP-powered) and includes some awesome short vignettes like Meeting Sarah.
When I spoke in Ireland yesterday someone asked if I would blog about them today. I am, but not the best story: Ireland’s media silenced over MP’s speech about Denis O’Brien. Because of an injunction, no media in Ireland can report on alleged corruption, laws I think set up with good intentions (preventing libel?) but being twisted now to prevent the vital functioning of the fourth estate. The country showed amazing mettle in their Yes vote for gay marriage last week, perhaps censorship could be the next thing the populace tackles. (Also I really enjoyed my visit to Dublin, if you want an amazing meal check out Forest Avenue.)
Andrew Bosworth, one of the early engineers and leaders at Facebook tells the story about how he almost got fired in the early days despite being a top engineer. “If I was a good engineer, why would it be hard to work with me? Of course that question was the very foundation of my problem.”
Talent is leaving Silicon Valley because of high real estate costs. Today, the median price for a home just exceeded $1 million.
Why one in four Silicon Valley homebuyers wants to leave. Yep.
As promised a few weeks ago, a new installment of the Wired Silk Road story is out and I wanted to share it, The Untold Story of Silk Road, Part 2: The Fall. This one is actually a lot more normal, with some surprisingly simple breaks leading to the downfall of Ross, but there’s an interesting twist at the end.
Tad Friend has a great New Yorker profile of Marc Andreessen, one of my favorite people to debate and talk to (though it happens all too rarely). Check out Pmarca Says if you want to catch up on some of his recent thinking from tweetstorms.
The Verge: Slot machines perfected addictive gaming. Now, tech wants their tricks. Includes information from one of my favorite authors Nir Eyal, who also spoke at WordCamp San Francisco a few years ago.
This Untold Story of Silk Road is pretty amazing writing, a gripping story regardless of the genre (non-fiction, in this case). I can’t wait for the next chapter to come out on May 14. Also when reading about Ross, it’s interesting to keep in mind Vanity Jones who was in many ways the brains behind the operation, and also undiscovered.
We’ve lost two incredible souls this week: first Dan Fredinburg in Nepal and now Dave Goldberg has unexpectedly passed. I encourage you to Google articles about their lives, like this one about Dave Goldberg or this on Dan, because both were unique and incredible individuals. In an example of how software can have unintended effect on emotions, I just realized I had a pending friend request on Facebook from Dan, probably years old. 🙁 Going through a lot of emotions, but a good reminder that life can be fleeting and to make time for friends and those who you love, something both of these men were great at. May they both rest in peace.
You can’t go wrong with Amazon’s 100 Books To Read In A Lifetime. I’ve only read a bit over a dozen of them, and some of those in school when I probably didn’t appreciate them. I’ve never had a time in my life when I thought, “You know, I’m reading too much.” It’s a weekend — read!
Two big releases today: WordPress 4.2 with lots of interface improvements and emoji support, and the 3.5 release of Jetpack with a new menu editor.
I’m going to try out intermittent fasting for a few weeks, after hearing about it for several years from fit-minded friends. It’s tough to find a link on it that doesn’t have some sort of newsletter popup or sell an ebook, but Tim had a good guest post on it in 2008 which ends on a skeptical note, and this beginner’s guide to intermittent fasting by James Clear is awesome for its graphics and straightforward way of introducing the concept and ways to approach it. I’m going to aim for a late lunch and a normal-timed dinner, since like James dinner is often my most social meal.
Update: I also forgot that I wrote about this with a few more links and some good comments in January.
What is music? There’s no end to the parade of philosophers who have wondered about this, but most of us feel confident saying: ‘I know it when I hear it.’ Still, judgments of musicality are notoriously malleable. That new club tune, obnoxious at first, might become toe-tappingly likeable after a few hearings. Put the most music-apathetic individual in a household where someone is rehearsing for a contemporary music recital and they will leave whistling Ligeti. The simple act of repetition can serve as a quasi-magical agent of musicalisation. Instead of asking: ‘What is music?’ we might have an easier time asking: ‘What do we hear as music?’ And a remarkably large part of the answer appears to be: ‘I know it when I hear it again.’
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis writes on why we love repetition in music and the neurological effects repeated songs have on us. Hat tip: Brian Groat.
Read through this amazing horror story constructed of actual sentences (with links) from reviews of the Apple Watch. (Hat tip: Laughing Squid.) As for me? I tried on the Watch yesterday and was very impressed, I’ll be getting one as soon as I can once they’re available. I would have picked up one of the new Macbooks as well if it was available, but the stores had them on display but none in stock.
The CEO of Automattic worked with the co-founder of WordPress directly, mediated by the head of the WordPress Foundation. Matt Mullenweg said the meetings were very productive.
As inside-baseball WordPress-focused April Fools go, this one is pretty funny: WordPress to be bundled in Jetpack with mission to power 50% of the web.
Fun read by J.D. Andre: What Calvin and Hobbes taught me about mindfulness. I’ve been practicing daily with the Calm app.
Are you in or near Tokyo? I’m going to be in town and doing a meetup this Sunday, and I’m looking forward to hanging out with the local community. I’m told you can read about it on this link: WordBench東京 3月スペシャル『春のマット祭り』 – WordBench東京.
One of my favorite essays of all time is by David Ramsey in Oxford American on Lil Wayne, called I Will Forever Remain Faithful. I’m used to movies, books, even songs making me tear up occasionally, but not essays, but this one does every time. It’s worth Googling the songs mentioned and quoted in the headings, it gives an interesting soundtrack to the writing and after listening the essay is worth re-reading. I miss that old Lil Wayne, too.
I don’t think I’ve said it publicly before, but Ramsey’s essay was actually the inspiration for my 1.0 Is the Loneliest Number which is one of the most popular pieces of writing I’ve published.