Thoughts on systems, engineering, technology, and life.

Rules for Ethical Reformatting: A Developer Manifesto

I’m glad to see Luca Passani et al. Rules for Ethical Reformatting: A Developer Manifesto. These rules (or guidelines) on ethical reformatting for mobile we are a must, and I hope that everyone shows their support for it now, and through their evolution.…

Naked-Eye Gamma Ray Burst – most distant object ever seen by human eyes without optical aid

The brightest ever gamma ray burst, visible by the naked eye, was observed on March 19th. “If someone just happened to be looking at the right place at the right time, they saw the most distant object ever seen by human eyes without…

Great tools for developers: Google Charts and Visualization APIs

Google continues to release very cool, functional, and more importantly, useful APIs. They have introduced a new Visualization API, and updated their Charts API. The updates to Google Chart include three new charts (Sparklines, Radar, and Map) and a more flexible usage policy:…

On Friedrich Nietzsche

A good friend of mine and I like to talk about late 1800s philosophers, including Friedrich Nietzsche. He is much more educated than I am on the subject, and recommended that I expand my knowledge and read some related books (i.e. it is…

On Startups: Blyk and Management-to-Developers Ratio

Blyk is a startup company. What they are doing seems pretty cool. They have an interesting management team, ex-Nokias and other. That said, I’ve seen and experienced startups that are management heavy. But Blyk is an extremely management-heavy startup… 30 folks? That seems…

M:Metrics 3 years anniversary, and some good metrics with it

Earlier this month, M:Metrics celebrated their 3rd anniversary; happy birthday M:Metrics. With it they released an interesting set of metrics that compares the last three years of device capabilities and growth: At launch, the mobile content sector was young and promising, with expectations…

The iPods rock the Space Shuttle, and single-bit soft errors

I found this article about an iPod that was spotted on the Space Shuttle… I wonder if the iPod is experiencing single-bit soft errors. In space, unless the electronic equipment such as computers (or iPods!) is “radiation hardened”, using techniques such as single…

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke 1917-2008

Arthur Charles Clarke, was born on 16 December 1917. Visionary, author and inventor. Passed away today March 19, 2008 at the age of 90. What a visionary person he was. He got right so many things; this is back in the 50s and…

Steve Jurvetson: The Joy of Rockets

I love Rocketry too… You can do small rockets just for fun, or fly it to the edge of space if that’s your goal; the latter being very challenging and very exciting. Check out this cool video of Steve Jurvetson speaking at TED:…

On 2D navigation on a mobile screen

Morten Hjerde (Sender 11) wrote a very good piece on 2D navigation on a mobile screen: Navigating large information spaces can be disorienting even on a large screen. On a small screen it should ideally be avoided, but that is not where we…