The Elves Leave Middle Earth - Sodas Are No Longer Free

precipitate mass exodus of your best engineers. We Hired the CFO Then the new CFO got up to give her presentation all kind of expected; Do you know how much our company is spending on free sodas and snacks? And to that the free stuff had to go. Were too big for that now was the shared opinion *Unintended Consequences changes that success and growth had brought to the company. A few engineers went to the see the CEO. from their desks and noticed the company was no longer the one they loved The best engineers quietly put the word out that they were available, and in What Happened? Humans seem to be [hard-wired for *
Wake Up Call As startups scale into a company, founders and the board need to realize that

Source: http://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/

ABC: Always Be Coding

in a vacuum and ultimately means nothing):

y = number of offers received

If your value is < 90, you should read this my car; I had $400 in my pocket and a job offer as a junior programmer for a For what its worth, my score from the above formula is 132. Less than 3% I considered rockstar candidates, and I remember all of But thats OK, it happens to the best of us The best I can do is tell you how you can be adequately prepared 1 3 6 But I should probably speak to some non-technical tips, 1 engineer, the best thing you can do is to ABC: Always Be Coding. *Today, I work for myself

Source: https://medium.com/tech-talk/d5f8051afce2

Tesla Repays Department of Energy Loan Nine Years Early

it has paid off the entire loan awarded to the company by the Department of For the first seven years since its founding in 2003, Tesla was funded for the ATVM program, because a requirement of that program was good financial I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the Tesla Motors' (NASDAQ: TSLA) goal is to accelerate the worlds transition to teslamotors.com Tesla Motors Tesla Motors

Source: http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-repays-department-energy-loan-nine-years-early

KdN - Kokes dot Net

KdN - Kokes dot Net

I would just like to know where this decided to design and build a ring for the girl, because doing things in the It starts off in Jan of 2013 where the idea for the ring was refined to what Having some help, I was able to obtain her ring size and the rest A bunch of stuff happens from Figure 0 to Figure 1 start to work-harden the cut I face it off and turn down the external diameter to 19.8mm. The center hole is initially drilled with a spot drill to keep the larger cutting edges of the tool A boring bar is used to form the final hole to 15.8mm Stage one is to use a 0.8mm spotting drill to pilot the holes. A plunge hole drill of 2mm is to clear through the body of the ring is stage Once complete, it is now necessary to separate the ring from the barstock A very small, thin and SHARP circle of metal accompanies the intended ring use a collet on the lathe to hold a the ring, and a match-fit mandrel to help The shelf will hold the strip of permalloy (which will be explained later) and would be difficult to keep the ring from deflecting and causing a pinch point. and the mill to use sharp carbide tools, the residual scratching was at a stones to the ring metal portion of the ring is completed. stone at the location of the slit I created a die with guides to assist in that effort. rest of the ring. epoxy was used to affix the LEDs and capacitor to the kapton tape placed over I increased the current I opted to use a single copper plane board for design simplicity and current and wrapped the external diameter in tape to hold in the epoxy while it cured. lot of holes in the block, I simply broke and knocked loose the segments, Soldering the large inductor coils to the transmitter circuit required a big The jacket test was to conceal the transmitter under the jacket so that it field allowing for more of the field to couple into the coils of the ring. metal ring, causing the field to cancel out of the intended inductor coil. Once the strip was fit and epoxied in, a final Of all the challenges presented in making the ring, affixing the stone is the Ultimately, I went with the epoxy method for attaching the stones. The first test was to try and heat the ring, expand the hold and drop in the Next I was attempting to deform the top of the stone mounting hole, The failure mechanism is that it CRUSHES the stone to dust Third in line for stone attachment was to use a punch to press holes in 4 Titanium apparently does not like to be stabbed, because the ring fractured >From the start, I had to learn AutoCAD, design and develop a circuit So, the original plan was to present this ring to the girl, then take her to a TechShop for having the tooling available to make it Last updated May 19_th, 2013 - Copyright Enfinicorp

Source: http://www.kokes.net/projectlonghaul/projectlonghaul.htm

My one talk with Marissa Mayer

My one talk with Marissa Mayer
Acquisition, they said they wouldn't do anything to tilt the table in favor of. But a few weeks after the deal they broke the But give the users a preference to set the address of our blogging thought, so the result was a conference call between me and an exec at Google, didn't do anything to change the BlogThis! button. saying what she needs to say to make the deal happen Symantec's Mac strategy." A few weeks after the deal I made a presentation to What was I going to do? What what they want to with it.
Source: http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/may/myOneTalkWithMarissaMayer

Why I left Heroku, and notes on my new AWS setup

Why I left Heroku, and notes on my new AWS setup

to spread the word about how we did it and why you should consider it if decided to use it for a few reasons: * Heroku had the promise of easy setup and easy scaling in cases of high traffic. up my app -- and this auto-detection stuff is the kind of thing that's very I verified that the server could send email, and all the necessary but I kept with it. after I scaled up the number of dynos. Whenever I tried to deploy, I got [ugly error Then, one April evening, I deployed my app, and Heroku decided to upgrade the down, after I had just sent the link to some potential partners who, for all I then on, whenever I deployed, I got a little nervous that something bad would Heroku offers a [way to Heroku for this blog, and I might use it in the future for small/throwaway the years, I had no idea how powerful Amazon's full suite of services really I also converted the After that instance had all my code/dependencies on it, I created an AMI from it ("Create Image (EBS AMI)" in the EC2 dashboard). Basically, Amazon constantly monitors the app servers, and if any of them reaches a certain CPU usage, Amazon will automatically launch X new server(s) and associate them with the load balancer when they're up and running Rather than have to deal with that, I changed the app to use cookie-based sessions, so that session data is stored in signed cookies rather than in memcache I fell in love with it the moment I scaled it from one to two availability zones with a couple of clicks on the AWS admin console See here for the relevant parts of my fabfile. Then I associated the load balancer with the new AMI, and each new app server from then on will use the new AMI Puppet to automatically install the necessary is just as easy to use as Heroku (once it's set up!), with the full power of

Source: http://www.holovaty.com/writing/aws-notes/

The One-Person Product

The One-Person Product

In 2006, I moved to New York and started working for David Karp doing web David Karp in September 2006, a few months after hiring me to build websites blog-with-tumblr) and her post [made it to the Digg front hybrid that has made it so compelling and unique. it was the right thing to do and since he had been paying me (and the hosting of new features and architectural improvements. Davids characteristically spotless desk in December 2007. and fears were proven wrong, and David was right. David and me in February 2008 David and I were like-minded in prioritizing user-, geek-, and designer- people went if they had the patience and writing output to maintain a David and I surprise-attended the [very first Tumblr Even though Tumblr was never a one-person company, it usually felt like a one- David would come in with a grand new feature idea, and Id tell him My infamous standing desk improvised from Coke cans and IKEA bookshelves, Hes a workaholic he truly lives and level, but David pushed me to do amazing work that I didnt think was possible. David working on a Dashboard redesign in November 2008. pushing the product forward meant that he didnt want to think about boring hold out a bit longer or try to become profitable, and hed convince me that front-end developer, and wall of hair. of growing the staff, so we just put it off for too long, in retrospect. Eventually, David knew that wed need to expand to handle the load, but his job product manager, start overseeing a lot more people, and delegate some of the David and me figuring something out in January 2009 After a rough start, David got the hang of being a manager Instead, he continued doing what he does best: driving the product forward, Ive only seen one other product person as good as David, and that was Steve David has an impeccable sense of whats best for Tumblr, and he doesnt need By June 2009, the staff had grown to include (clockwise from Jacobs wall of When I read the

Sources said that as part of the deal, founder and CEO David Karp would and I tested new shirts at Shake Shack in June 2010. support and maintenance roles off of Davids plate so he can focus on the Davids perfectly able to worry about money and operations, but I bet he better served if David can focus on his products features, design, and Shortly before I left Tumblr, in July 2010, the original corner of the office shows that Tumblr and Yahoo are seeing eye-to-eye on quite a lot already This is clearly what David believes is best for his product much better, faster, more stable, and more sustainable since Google bought it. to ruin it or shut it down like YouTube and Google, Tumblr will probably More importantly, it gives David, and the rest of Tumblrs team, the freedom to from the acquisition, and I wont be switching to dedicated day and night

Source: http://www.marco.org/2013/05/20/one-person-product

Choosing Minecraft Over Disney

Mom, can I play on the iPad? my daughter calls from the kitchen, where Im sure her hand is hovering over the device, waiting for my assent.

Its Saturday morning. My husband left early for a round of golf, and Im an okay away from a blissful hour sequestered with my writing book and favorite pen. Heck, I might even have a chance to finish this story instead of letting it tumble around in my head, spitting out phrases while Im cutting into the right lane to avoid the car in front of me.

My other option for her is TV, but Id rather have her on the iPad because shell be either playing Minecraft or watching YouTube videos of other people playing Minecraft. Shell build a world in creative mode with a swimming pool full of wool and probably a library. Her world will be blissfully threat-free until she switches over to survival mode, when the creepers, zombies, and pigs appear. There are also spiders, Mommy, she tells me, reading over my shoulder, and pig men.

To get ideas and inspiration shell watch YouTube videos of others playing Minecraft, like SkyDoesMinecraft, who recaps his quests as he saves villagers and cows. (I think the cows get saved; Ill have to ask.) Sometimes Ava will watch Minecraft videos authored by people I assume are the spawn of drunken sailors who drop f-bombs and m-f bombs, amongst their kill that ass-wipe quips, which Ill hear from the other room and say, Ava, choose another video please. So I prefer Sky, because he might have a clue that theres a bunch of third graders watching and he does not swear like aforementioned cliched sailor spawn on leave from morality.

But even the cursing Minecrafters are better than pre-tween-targeted sitcoms on Disney or Nickelodeon. Let my sweet impressionable kid spend a day with China on AntFarm or Alex on Wizards of Waverly Place and my parental battles erupt. Bad language is easy to curb, but stupid adult stereotypes, sarcasm, backstabbing behavior, and contempt are not.

I wish this wasnt true, because I love all of the Disney movies, and appreciate the recent releases with strong female characters, but I have yet to see an episode of any tween sitcom (as Ill call them) in which the adults are not morons and the dialogue between the young characters is not caustic.

I can tell Ava a dozen times a day to be kind with her words. I can tell her that how she says something makes a difference, that she has a choice of being hurtful or helpful. But in the end, I give in to her request to watch Minecraft so shell still believe adults are intelligent, trustworthy counselors who can provide a broader perspective.

I know a fight is coming and my ability to advise may dwindle as Avas teen years approach, but Im not willing to have my nine-year-old disregard everything I say.

I can hear Sky from the other room, where Ava is watching as he quests for, well, whatever he quests for on Minecraft. Gold? Butter? I dont know. But Sky, if youre reading, I hope you find it. Thanks for keeping the language PG.