Sunspots: The Interface Tan edition - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

Sunspots: The Interface Tan edition 37signals 04 Apr 2006

10 comments Latest by Derek Moore

CTO at Microsoft: "Complexity kills.": Ray Ozzie, chief technical officer at Microsoft: "Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges and it causes end-user and administrator frustration."
"Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning": Tips for happiness from Harvard Psych Professor Tal Ben-Shahar including: "Simplify!...Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much."
Use Textpander to type more efficiently and more accurately: Textpander listens to what you type and inserts text snippets on the fly whenever you enter their corresponding predefined abbreviations.
Why Cameras Are Ruining Everything: A Manifesto: "If your burning, aching need for the validation that comes with proving you were at a concert gets the better of you, just take a few pictures at the beginning and then enjoy the show."
Soleil Sun Alarm: An alarm light that simulates a natural sunrise (for instinctive waking) by gradually increasing in intensity.
Sherwin-Williams Color Trends 2006: 2006 Color Trends (including "Interface Tan").
Out of three million entries at ESPN, four picked the correct Final Four: The chances of being one of the people who correctly picked the Final Four (which had no #1 seeds and the surprising George Mason) this year were about 1 in 750,000. Last year roughly 1 in 700 brackets included the correct four teams.

Sbarro and the hubless wheel: A wheel with no center hub, just a clean empty hole. The wheel itself acts as the outer race of a very large bearing.
David on self-publishing for tech books: "Easier, more profitable, and better: Pick three": What do you get from traditional publishers? "Not all that much." Tim O'Reilly offers a counterargument in the comments section.
Book: "Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big": "The owners he interviews speak from hard-won experience about resisting the pressure to simply keep expanding or sell the company to the highest bidder and staying true to their original visions for excellence."
A Snapz Pro alternative: Screenography is a program to capture your screen to various image, movie and Flash formats.
Beyond The Type: Using the Basecamp API with Ruby on Rails: A tutorial showing how to get started using the Basecamp API in Rails applications.
Interesting photo treatment at "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" by David Byrne: Click on the black and white photos and they open up over the text. The transparency is annoying but it's interesting how the photos expand in place.
Firewheel is digging the inline ads on Campfire's free plan: "This is a poster child [for potential ad-revenue model]...If you think you can build a webapp, slap up some Google ads, and call it a business, think again. That may get you some pizza money, but it won't sustain a business."
Things may get tricky for YouTube once it starts selling ads: Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney says YouTube's "beg for forgiveness" approach -- taking copyrighted content off its site only when faced with a complaint -- may not hold up once it starts selling ads.
YYY's guitarist Nick Zinner's singles out "the bloggers in the front row": After a show in front of a lackluster audience, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' guitarist blames bloggers via his, um, blog. Predictable blogger backlash ensues.
Alex Bunardzic on Ryan's "Making Painful Software is Mean": "If a person builds a robot, or a software program that will do those same [mean] things to others, than that person is also guilty of exhibiting mean behavior." He suggests focusing on: 1) Respect 2) Nurturing environment 3) Regard for human priorities.
Ch'i Gong breath work: A relaxation breath exercise.
Lumen tree light: Stainless steel oil lamp projects shadowed images of trees, birds, etc. Pretty.

10 comments so far (Jump to latest)

Icelander 04 Apr 06

I don’t know about you, but the moment just after dawn is when I’m groggiest. Gimme my good ol’ foghorn alarm to jolt me awake. One shot of adrenaline is better than five shots of espresso.

Rob Sanheim 04 Apr 06

I like the camera rant. It only getting worse as digital cameras and camera phones spread. Put the camera down and actually experience what is going on, instead of saving it for posterity and flickr.

Jason 04 Apr 06

The first two having to do with simplification are enormous for me. I’m glad to see the 37 signals crew bringing apps like basecamp and keeping it focused. I smell kindred spirits.

Then there’s RoR. Helping others to do the same. I smell kindred spirits and intellect.

Is GE done with “we bring good things to life”?

Thanks for the signal snips and don’t throw the big ideas mails out with the spam!

daniel 04 Apr 06

OMG and WHY isn’t it the “Peach Fuzz” edition?

Britney 05 Apr 06

I am with you to Icelander I need something strong in the morning when I am the most Groogiest, thanks God there is a Starbucks right down the block !

Noah 05 Apr 06

The hubless wheel is nothing new, those have been around for Years and years.

Bryan C 05 Apr 06

I disliked the camera rant. Some people, you know, just enjoy doing stuff and taking pictures of things. Maybe because it’s fun to them. Imagine that. They may even be able to enjoy listening to music and taking pictures at the same time, as inconciveable as that may be to some. I’d prefer folks with cameras didn’t fire flashes, but otherwise it’s no skin off my nose.

Derek Moore 05 Apr 06

Interface tan and Jargon jade. What great names for colours. My kitchen is painted in Lush Bog.