thesyndr☯me

Paul Miller:

I was wrong.

And he’s back after a year of internet hiatus as he shares his story.

Aaron Mahnke:

The goal isn’t to avoid mistakes, though, but to learn how to recover from them.

Kevin Holler:

The next day I came to work with a different attitude. I was going to be there for another 3 months and wanted to turn a mundane job into a fun one, so I decided to challenge myself.

Interesting story to be inspired to.

In case you want to visualize — cool and depressing at the same time.

Stephen Hackett:

My thoughts all revolve around this simple question: is the Pebble ahead of its time?

Mat Honan:

Do you like Android? You should, it’s amazing. iOS? Wow, what a great platform, no wonder it started a revolution. Windows Phone? Seriously, it’s got a remarkable and beautiful interface. BlackBerry? There are plenty of great reasons people love it. And no matter which platform you adore, it’s shockingly possible to both have a preference and respect that other people may prefer an entirely different device.

Having the best is to each his/her own. It’s as simple as that.

Bjørn Lomborg:

But, even if everyone in the entire world cut all residential lighting, and this translated entirely into CO2 reduction, it would be the equivalent of China pausing its CO2 emissions for less than four minutes.

And the cozy candles that many participants will light, which seem so natural and environmentally friendly, are still fossil fuels—and almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs.

Instead, we should focus on inventing new, more efficient green technologies to outcompete fossil fuels.

Interesting arguments, and while I have never participated Earth Hour in my life, I actually agree with Bjørn. Let’s do something about it!

Jared Lewandowski:

Keeping things in context keeps us familiar with our surroundings and frees us from worrying about getting lost. Imagine what it would be like driving around with no street signs; no way of knowing where you were or where you were going.

Brian Krebs shares his ordeals being a target of cyber and, then, kinetic attack:

On Thursday afternoon, my site was the target of a fairly massive denial of service attack. That attack was punctuated by a visit from a heavily armed local police unit that was tricked into responding to a 911 call spoofed to look like it came from my home.

It’s gone too far but when is it enough?

Christie Wilcox:

In humans, caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant, making us feel more alert and awake. Some early studies suggested that it also improves short and long term memory, but findings have been inconsistent. Most importantly, though, low doses of caffeine activate the reward system in our brains, contributing to its addictive nature.

Who knew bees are as functional addicts as we are?

Patrick Rhone:

The gumption to not only think of the best way — the now obvious way —but the willingness to do the hard work to get it done. Because the right way sometimes takes courage, or time, or is just a plain straight-up hack. But, gumption is what it takes to get the job done.

Kevin Potts:

While humble in scope and even more humble in adoption, RSS is a rock in their boots. RSS connects us without them. No matter our publishing platform, we can all boil our content down to a single common tongue.

RSS is an equalizer, not an advantage. An idea, not a patent. An open hand, not a secret handshake.

Apple:

What makes an iPhone unlike anything else? Maybe it’s that it lets you do so many things. Or that it lets you do so many things so easily.

Clever marketing pull from Apple. For me, it’s simply an extension to my life, a personal device just by its own. The iPhone is just dead simple to use.

These things will be nostalgic when they grow up.

This also gives me an idea of a cool photography project. We’ll see.

Marco Arment:

Now, we’ll be forced to fill the hole that Reader will leave behind, and there’s no immediately obvious alternative. We’re finally likely to see substantial innovation and competition in RSS desktop apps and sync platforms for the first time in almost a decade.

It may suck in the interim before great alternatives mature and become widely supported, but in the long run, trust me: this is excellent news.

Interesting thoughts from Marco on how Google Reader shutdown will catalyse the innovation of RSS clients. But I still find it surprising that Google is pulling the plug—I did not see that coming.

Alan Green:

We have just announced on the Official Google Blog that we will soon retire Google Reader (the actual date is July 1, 2013). We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We’re sad too.

There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.

No Google, you’re not doing this to me now. For someone who has been happy using Google Reader for a long time, this feels like a break-up somehow.

Here is a good read for those who is unsure of upgrading to iPhone 5. Not that I have one yet or am planning to any time soon (I’m giving it a chance for BlackBerry Z10 to come to Brunei—if that’s ever going to happen).

Om Malik:

Writing, painting, creating –creators don’t do it because they want to make money. Creativity is not a profession, it is a gift. It was, is and always will be a very selfish act.

Absolutely true. This is the exact approach I’m currently undertaking with writing, web design and photography.

ISO is the new home for my photographs and photography projects. Powered by Koken, the engine provides a seamless and user-friendly back-end system for a photo gallery platform—possibly the best I’ve ever seen and used so far. It also comes with very nice, minimal and flexible/customizable site themes and fortunately, the theme I’m using now is really tailored for my needs. All for free, I would highly recommend this (if you’ve got your own hosted website, that is). Read the review over at TwoEight.

Well that didn’t take long before I decided to host my photography work on my own server instead. But it really is a no-brainer move. It’s about time to exploit my hosting storage and bandwidth anyway.

I spent the whole weekend migrating the photographs over from Barefoot Pilgrims and Before Icarus to their new home. I’ve also published several photographs taken from Brunei’s 29th National Day event if you want to have a look.

Enjoy! :)

Rob Heaton (via MondayByNoon):

You can’t just show up and expect to get better. You can’t even just show up, work hard and expect to get better. You have to show up, work hard and deliberately focus on the specific things that will make you get better.

The best thing I’ve read today.

Jonathan Christopher:

I’m just not sure why this career in particular is deemed worthy of blanketing across all of humanity. I think it’s universally understood that writing software can accomplish some very far reaching things, but it’s not unique to programming. I also understand that anyone with access to a computer is capable of writing code, but why should they?

If everyone did what I do that makes me inherently “less valuable” and no one wants that.

Quality over quantity.

Amanda Palmer sliced the boundary between making people do stuffs and letting people do them, and how her experience being a street performer changed the way she looks at music and how she connects with her audience. This is something that is earned, and imagine the kind of meaningful connections with people she’s made through what she believes in.

Watch. This is incredible.