nick peelman

wilwheaton: I really hope Yahoo doesn’t fuck up Tumblr like it’s fucked up … well, every single...

Sun, 19 May 2013 17:43:00 -0400

I really hope Yahoo doesn’t fuck up Tumblr like it’s fucked up … well, every single thing it’s ever touched in the history of the universe.

I see it going one of two ways:

1) Mayer will get her stake in the ground, and yahoo will begin a slow, grueling climb into mainstream use, snatching up users driven off by Google’s often-for-shit headings as of late. If they begin doing email for custom domains, as I posited in my recent post, I will jump with both feet, especially if they can do it for < $10/year/user.

2) Tumblr will (sadly) begin to lose direction in the name of securing profitability. Instead of becoming a social long-and-other-form complement to Facebook and Twitter, and a competitor to Youtube, Blogger, TypePad, etc, it will begin to hemorrhage users frustrated with having their experience crushed by apps, ads, and anything else done to “create revenue”, as they instantiate the model of “take a huge userbase built on the premise of free then attempt to milk it for advertising dollars until it collapses“, a model we have seen play out dozens of times on multiple time scales over the past decade.

I am hoping for the former of course; I was slow to warm to tumblr, but their progress and direction has given me nothing but encouragement. I will continue to think David wouldn’t have undertaken this move without seriously believing this to be the right next step for Tumblr. And Marissa’s moves so far have been in what I consider the right directions.

itsalwayssunnyinasgard: I doodled a thing. [x]

Sun, 19 May 2013 17:22:29 -0400

itsalwayssunnyinasgard:

I doodled a thing. [x]

danhacker: The First Promotional Spot For Marvel’s Agents of...

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:00:36 -0400

danhacker:

The First Promotional Spot For Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD

The official synopsis:

Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents from the worldwide law-enforcement organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Together they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary. Coulson’s team consists of Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage, Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) expert pilot and martial artist, Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker); brilliant engineer and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet).

From Executive Producers Joss Whedon (“Marvel’s The Avengers,” ”Buffy the Vampire Slayer”); Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” pilot co-writers (“Dollhouse,” “Dr.Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”); Jeffrey Bell (“Angel,” “Alias”); and Jeph Loeb (“Smallville”) comes Marvel’s first TV series. “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is produced by ABC Studios and Marvel Television.

Coulson Lives!

From Wikipedia:

At the 2013 South by Southwest festival, Joss Whedon confirmed that Coulson is alive in the series, despite his apparent death at the hands of Loki in The Avengers.[5] When describing his character’s return from the dead, Gregg said, “When Joss described to me the mystery… and the complexity and the unanswered questions about Phil Coulson standing there trying to deal with this, I found it so fascinating and so true to the world of the comics and mythology in general as I understand them that I was immediately in.”

Oh I can’t wait to hear this. I was disappointed by the way things played out in Avengers, and I have a lot of faith in Joss, but he had better have a damned good story to back this up.

"But, trusting teachers to tell us the truth is unappealing and there is money to be made by..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 01:59:25 -0400

“But, trusting teachers to tell us the truth is unappealing and there is money to be made by mistrusting them, so we’ll continue to spend our resources on a bunch of tests instead of on education”

- Doug Masson on ISTEP Testing

Worth a read.

Email Services...why must they all suck?

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:00:00 -0400

Like a lot of nerds, I use Google for email, and have since 2003. Until about 2011, I used a personal Gmail account, forwarded my @peelman.us aliases to Gmail, and had my family living on Dreamhost’s email service. In October of that year I finally signed up for Google Apps and moved everybody into that bucket, a move I regret more every time Google opens their press room and makes another announcement.

I didn’t undertake that move lightly. I researched several alternatives, including free services, paid services from Rackspace, etc., and even considered hosting my own server for a spell. In the end, the annual cost of the paid services was absolutely outrageous and Google was the only free service (at the time) that was a serious contender in allowing native third-party domain support. Outlook.com didn’t launch until a few months later, and doing a second move so soon after that one to an unproven service seemed like asking for trouble.

Yet, Google continues to disappoint:

Killing ActiveSync support (for new accounts)
Killing CalDAV
Never fixing IMAP (admittedly it has gotten somewhat better)
Limited to 10 user accounts, yet still having to endure ads
If you want 11 users you pay for 11 users, not 10 free + 1 paid
Contacts Sync has always sucked. (even with ActiveSync, it still sucked)

Outlook.com has several flaws of its own that make me not want to switch, even now. The biggest of which is that they support ActiveSync, but not IMAP. So one step forward, two steps back. Typical for a Microsoft product.

So here’s is my question: why hasn’t some Dropbox-ish or GitHub-ish startup started work on solving this problem?

As much as we all wish Email (in its current form) would die:

That’s going to be a long process
There’s always going to be a need for an async message protocol
The hypothetical service in question could/would be staged to switch protocols

Ideally, a freemium email service would:

Support third party domains
Support ActiveSync & IMAP
Decent webmail interface
Allow individual users to upgrade their mailboxes for a monthly fee And/Or
Allow the administrator(s) to upgrade mailboxes under their purview

I envision something akin to Dropbox or GitHub, where I can set up my domain, invite users, who can set up their account and attach them to my domain. Users could belong to multiple domains, have multiple aliases, etc., all going to a single inbox. Domain admins can configure lists / groups.

At this point, I’m hoping that Apple will do an iCloud-For-Domains service at some point in the near future, but I’m not holding my breath. Dropbox’s recent foray into email with their purchase of Mailbox gives me limited hope that they might wade into the hosting territory, but the pragmatist in me knows that is unlikely. Yahoo still does cool things with their offerings, so maybe they might develop a solution that solves some or all of these needs and wouldn’t be exuberantly priced. All I know for sure is that at this point, I’m stuck with hating Google, and I don’t like that.

Pre-post update: This post has been queued for several days now, and I just wanted to add this before it went live: at some point, before spring’s end ideally, I will be moving email hosting away from Google. The inability to set up push email for my account (and anybody else under my umbrella who upgrades their phone or device) is going to be the last straw. Having just replaced my iPad mini and soon upgrading to a new iPhone, neither device can/will be able to use ActiveSync. Its far from the only reason, but its the last one.

fishingboatproceeds: Butler has uploaded a video of...

Fri, 17 May 2013 21:31:26 -0400

fishingboatproceeds:

Butler has uploaded a video of my commencement address to the class of 2013, which one can’t help but notice…is longer than the 12 minutes I so confidently promised. I sort of quit working the last month and did nothing but write this speech, and I couldn’t even get the time right. (I guess I read a lot faster alone in my basement.)

SORRY!

I’d like to thank everyone who’s shared the speech, especially the Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Galleycat, and Entertainment Weekly.

If you’d prefer to read the speech, you can do so here.

John. Is. Awesome.

"She argues there’s another way to fight crime. “We ought to invest a lot more in our public schools...."

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:00:29 -0400

“

She argues there’s another way to fight crime. “We ought to invest a lot more in our public schools. You know, feed the kids breakfast, lunch, and dinner; have after-school activities; keep the schools open until nine o’clock in the evenings and on weekends; invest in things like the Boys and Girls Club and the Park District—I mean, everything, basically, to dramatically ramp up the investments in our children.”

But even in Democrat-dominated Cook County, it’s hard to imagine that happening. “I was at an event last week, a fund-raising event, actually, where somebody said, ‘All my neighbors are Republicans—people who live on my block who I like, who wouldn’t support the idea you were just promulgating,’” Preckwinkle recalled. “And he said the people on his block he knew would rather pay to keep somebody incarcerated than to support music lessons or soccer team memberships or basketball team uniforms for kids in poor neighborhoods. “We’ve got in this country such distorted values. In the last 30 or 40 years we’ve invested all this money in our prison system, and our schools are starving for money.”

”

- County board prez: Why are we closing schools and packing the jail? | Bleader

that first paragraph up there—the stuff about investing in after school activities and keeping the schools open until 9pm, etc. —I’m thinking about that in context to of the Emergency Managers in Michigan. And how if they were *really* invested in fixing economic problems rather than privatization, they’d be figuring out ways to do *exactly* what she is suggesting. Making the schools an essential part of the community means that youth don’t drop out and people don’t transfer to other districts. it means that people *move into* that district.

another example, what would happen if community groups were trained and paid to go to houses in the community and clean up lead? not only would it provide jobs, but when there’s a proven correlation between lead levels and low achievment in school—what effect would it have on student’s test schools and ability to focus and stay in school if their bodies aren’t being poisoned? there are seriously NO foundation grants for this sort of thing? why aren’t city mayors, councils, EMs, etc working their asses off to find foundation grants and corporate investment in cleaning up lead so that public schools can stay open—instead of building a whole new building to stick a charter school in?

(via iinventedeverything)

“people on his block he knew would rather pay to keep somebody incarcerated than to support music lessons or soccer team memberships or basketball team uniforms for kids in poor neighborhoods.”

Next time I hear that we should fight racism with cool, calm logic, I will be thinking about this.

(via jhameia)

Education is the silver bullet.

rainbowrites: welcome-to-the-initiative: I DON’T EVEN KNOW...

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:29:45 -0400

rainbowrites:

welcome-to-the-initiative:

I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO MAKE A NORMAL GIF

HOW THE FLYING FUCK IN A TIN CAN DO YOU MAKE THESE

HOLY CRAP

HOW DO YOU TALENT

jtotheizzoe: We never sit here under the weight of all this...

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:00:35 -0400

jtotheizzoe:

We never sit here under the weight of all this air, the 5 x 10^18 kg of atmosphere that sits above everyone on Earth, and say “Gosh, that sure is heavy!”

You don’t realize just how powerful that 1 bar (~100 kPa) of pressure is until a train car is filled with steam, allowed to cool, and then implodes ohmygod did that just happen?

For more implosion goodness, check out this awesome video from Veritasium.

Charges dropped against Florida teen over amateur science experiment — MSNBC

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:27:32 -0400

Charges dropped against Florida teen over amateur science experiment — MSNBC:

letterstomycountry:

Good to see the D.A. came to their senses. This young woman never deserved to be treated this way.

Would love to hear what fallout if any the school administrators and/or “resource officer” caught over this.

Google tells Microsoft to cease and desist its ad-free YouTube app | Ars Technica

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:29:05 -0400

Google tells Microsoft to cease and desist its ad-free YouTube app | Ars Technica:

So it wasn’t just McTube that got screwed. This is a shitty move.

crackerhell: beeishappy: TDS | 2013.04.18 welp The...

Wed, 15 May 2013 15:00:18 -0400

crackerhell:

beeishappy:

TDS | 2013.04.18

welp

The one-off images they come up with daily (sorry) are one of my favorite parts of the show.

This post brought to you by the assholes at YouTube

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:25:41 -0400

The most recent update to McTube removes the ability to cache videos.

Apple & YouTube executives/lawyers seem to forget that the blanket of wireless internet that covers Silicon Valley and mountain view doesn’t extend over the entire globe, and 4G data plans are capped and expensive.

ryan27times: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:00:37 -0400

ryan27times:

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

Clapping

Gravity - Official Teaser Trailer [HD] (by...

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:48:38 -0400

Gravity - Official Teaser Trailer [HD] (by WarnerBrosPictures)

Damn…this looks good.

bryan.io: Move to CocoaPods

Mon, 13 May 2013 19:55:46 -0400

bryan.io: Move to CocoaPods:

seesaengineering:

Last week Caleb and I switched the Seesaw iPhone app to CocoaPods. I’ve been hesitant for awhile, but I’m really glad we made the switch.

Git submodules are great if you understand how they work, but they can definitely be a real pain. The move to CocoaPods took a…

It took me a while to warm to it, and I still think it needs an Xcode plugin or something akin to Alcatraz to expose / lower the barrier to entry, but even with its flaws it’s still the best way to do dependency management for iOS app development.

edwardspoonhands: fishingboatproceeds: Whoa. (Created by...

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:00:30 -0400

edwardspoonhands:

fishingboatproceeds:

Whoa.

(Created by redditor valeriepieris.)

Reality check…

And for some reason I would have guessed that circle to be much smaller.

So anytime I hear a debate raging on the adaptation of books...

Sun, 12 May 2013 23:13:08 -0400

So anytime I hear a debate raging on the adaptation of books into movies, I think of this scene.

HP book nerds knew immediately that this scene didn’t happen in the book. And I know of no fan who thinks this scene shouldn’t be in the book. I almost bawled in the theater the first time through, and I still get teary eyed every time I see it. Easily, easily my favorite scene in the 7th movie. And there were some damned good scenes throughout.

By this point in the movies and the books, it is a foregone conclusion that Harry is in love with Ginny, and Hermione with Ron. But the friendship between Harry and Hermione, and his desire to ease her sadness, if only for a moment, is really quite touching in this moment. And hat tip to Emma Watson for another of many great performances; Hermione’s transition from sadness, to puzzlement, to annoyance and reluctance, to a brief happiness, and back to sadness is awesome.

Tim: [after the tour car falls upside down on them at the bottom...

Sun, 12 May 2013 21:59:00 -0400

Tim: [after the tour car falls upside down on them at the bottom of the tree] Well… we’re back… in the car again.

Dr. Alan Grant: Well, at least you’re out of the tree.

Source.

Vulgar Burnie

Sun, 12 May 2013 21:21:15 -0400

One thing my extended trip allowed for was some catching up on some podcasts, and one of those was the Nerdist Podcast featuring the gang from Rooster Teeth.

There is a well recognized side of Burnie, DrunkBurnie, that most RT Podcast fans know about. But I’ve noticed on several occasions that the Burnie who shows up to other podcasts, the Nerdist one included, is more like VulgarBurnie. VulgarBurnie used to show up on the RT Podcast in its earlier days, but it seems like in recent times he disappeared, and we get almost the Elder RT-Statesman Burnie, or as close to that as we’re ever going to come.

Just to be clear, VulgarBurnie is just as funny and awesome as RegularBurnie, I’m not complaining about either, but he just seems much more apt to say “fuck” on other people’s podcasts than on the one billed under the brand he created.

Anybody else notice that as well?