Untellectual Property

Profit and happiness, part 1: Embracing the hacker ethos

I was browsing through the blogs a while back and happened to click on a Six Apart Jobs banner. Looking through the available positions, I noticed an interesting line in their job descriptions:

Every Wednesday is a hackathon: free breakfast, lunch and dinner, no meetings, no interruptions, guaranteed--and the best hacks get shipped

”Design patterns are killing creativity”

Mandatory disclaimer: I don't have anything against design patterns in general, I just like discovering things by myself. Even if it's mostly by accident.

Greatest things I never did: Tattoo

I've always been pretty indifferent about tattoos; I have nothing against them but I've never felt the need to get one. But if I did, I know what I'd get. The main reasons that people criticize tattoos is that they're permanent: get something too much tied to current events or people in your life and there's a good possibility it'll look dated and just plain wrong in few years. For me, that would be just the reason to get one.

Profit and happiness, an introduction

As an independent IT consultant, I've had the fortunate possibility of getting a peek inside the daily work at different kinds of companies, both in advertising and IT world. Small companies trying to lure in the creative elite, big companies trying to achieve predictable mediocrity and middle sized companies trying to figure out what the hell they really want to be.

”I went to second base and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”

I've had many ideas for T-shirt designs during the years but never got around to actually getting any printed. So, in order to preserve that short moment of inspired lunacy, I've decided to have them here as small postings. Postlets. Whatever.

The great class battles of DOM

AJAX window managers that enable the "real application feel" inside the web browser have become all the rage in the last few years. I've written several windowing systems on top of Javascript/DOM myself, with mixed results. Usually they've worked well enough for my own use in some particular project, but I've never had the time to build anything more refined, modular and reusable. I've also tried to use the existing UI libraries but nothing's ever been quite suitable to my needs for one simple reason: they seem to be too trusting in the environment they reside in.

Taylor reveals the solidbody electrics

It's no secret that Taylor Guitars has been working on "proper" solidbody electric guitars for some time now, especially given the release of the hybrid electric-acoustic T5 model back in 2005. Now the result of that work is finally public at the Taylor Electric Guitars Website and if the Guitar World review (PDF) is to be believed, they've managed to actually create something new and unique. The model is simply called "Taylor Solidbody" and it comes in three flavors: Classic, Standard and Custom with street prices ranging from $1300 to $2300 and if it actually delivers, that ain't bad at all (especially given the current exchange rates for us europeans).

So, is this like proper blogging then?

When I started to think about blogging, again, I realized I've lost count how many different blogging solutions I've done from scratch during the years, probably something like 10 or so. I know I had three blogs earlier, all had some special niche or "thing" I just had to have to try and separate them from the bland masses. I wanted to be special, probably wanted to prove something too. Having access to multiple servers with all the necessary bits and pieces, databases and enough bandwidth to last a lifetime made me forget what it's all about. Not this time, I hope.