What I'm announcing

Today I'm happy to announce the public unveiling of Which Film! I'll discuss how the site came about and what drives it, but I thought I would first explain what it does: it's a website to help you choose what movie you and your family/friends should watch together. What you do is you go to the site, enter in the Trakt.tv usernames of everyone who wants to watch a film together (so you need at least two people and kept data like your watchlist and ratings on Trakt), and then Which Film cross-references everyone's watchlists and ratings to create a list of movies that people may want to watch together.

The list of movies is ranked based on a simple point scale. If a movie is on someone's watchlist it gets 4 points, movies rated 10 ⭐ get 3 points, 9 ⭐ get 2 points, and 8 ⭐ get 1 point. Everyone who participates contributes points and the movies are sorted from highest score to lowest. The reason for the point values is the assumption that watching a movie most people have not seen is the best, followed by a movies people rate very highly. In the case of ties, the movie seen longest ago (if ever) by anyone in the group is ranked higher than movies seen more recently by someone. That way there's a bigger chance someone will be willing to watch a movie again when everyone else wants to see it for the first time.

None of this is very fancy or revolutionary, but it's useful any time you get together with a group of friends to watch a film and you end up having a hard time choosing to watch. It can help even between spouses as it will identify movies both people want to watch, removing that particular point of contention.

The story behind Which Film

Now normally launching a new website wouldn't cause for any backstory, but this project has been under development for about six years, so there's a bit of history to it.

One fateful night ...

The inspiration for Which Film stemmed from one night when my co-creator Karl, his wife, my wife, and I got together and decided we wanted to watch a movie. This turned out to be quite an ordeal due to disparate tastes among all four of us. Karl and I thought that there had to be a better way to figure out a film we could all happily watch together. It didn't need to necessarily be something none of us had seen (although that was preferred), but it did need to be something that had a chance of making all of us happy if we chose to watch it.

This is when I realized that at least for me I had all of the relevant data to make such a decision on IMDb. I had been keeping my watchlist and ratings up-to-date on the site for years, to the point of amassing a watchlist over of 400 movies. Karl and I realized that had all four of us done that we could have cross-referenced the data and easily have found a film we all liked. Yes, it would require convincing everyone involved to keep track of what movies they wanted to see and rating movies that had seen, but we figured that wasn't an insurmountable problem. And so we decided we should code up a solution since we're both software developers.

You need an API, IMDb

But there was trouble with this project from the beginning. It turns out that while IMDb is happy for you to store your data on their servers, they don't exactly make it easy to get the data out. For instance, when I started looking into this they had two ways of getting to your data in some programmatic way: RSS and CSV files. The problem with RSS is that it was capped at (I believe) 200 entries, so I couldn't use it to access my entire data set. The issue with CSV was that you had to be logged in to download it. And the issue with both approaches was they were constantly broken for for different things simultaneously; when I looked into this last RSS was busted for one kind of list while CSV was broken for another. To top it all off the brokenness wasn't temporary, but lasted for lengths of time measured in months. That obviously doesn't work if you want to rely on the data and there's no official API (and IMDb at least used to aggressively go after anyone who use their name in a project).

Luckily I found Trakt. It has an API, it was accessible on a phone, and it wasn't ugly. The trick, though, was getting my data from IMDb to Trakt. Luckily there was a magical point when CSV exporting on IMDb worked for all of my lists, and so I downloaded the data and hacked together csv2trakt to migrate my data over (there is TraktRater for importing into Trakt as well, but at the time I had issues getting it to run on macOS).

What platform?

With my data moved over, we then had to choose what platform to have Which Film on. We toyed with the idea of doing a mobile app, but I'm an Android user and Karl is on iOS (and the same split for our wives), so that would have meant two apps. That didn't really appeal to either of us so we decided to do a website. We also consciously chose to do a single-page app to avoid maintaining a backend where would have to worry about uptime, potential server costs, etc. It also helps that there's a local company in Vancouver called Surge that does really nice static page hosting with a very reasonable free tier (when they get Let's Encrypt support I'll probably bump up to their paid tier if people actually end up using Which Film).

Choosing a programming language is never easy for me

Since we had found a website we were willing to ask people to use to store data, I had solved my data import problem, and we had decided on doing a website solution, next was what technology stack to use. The simple answer would have been Python, but for me that's somewhat boring since I obviously know Python. To make sure we both maximized our learning from this project we endeavoured to find a programming language neither of us had extensive experience in.

Eventually we settled on Dart. At the time we made this decision I worked at Google which is where Dart comes from, so I knew if I got really stuck with something I had internal resources to lean on. Karl liked the idea of using Dart because his game developer background appreciated the fact that Dart was looking into things like SIMD for performance. I also knew that Dart had been chosen by the ads product division at Google which meant it wasn't going anywhere. That also meant choosing Angular 2 was a simple decision since Google was using Dart with Angular 2 for products and so it would have solid Dart support.

But why six years?!?

As I have said, the site isn't complicated as you can tell from its source code, so you may be wondering why it took us six years before we could finish it. Well, since coming up with this idea I at least finished my Ph.D., moved five times between two countries,and worked for two different employers (if you don't count my Ph.D.). Karl had a similar busy life over the same timespan. And having me spend a majority of those six years in a different timezone didn't help facilitate discussions. At least we had plenty of time to think through various UX and design problems. ☺

If you give Which Film a try do let Karl and/or me know on Twitter (if you just want to see how the website works and you don't have a Trakt account you can use our usernames: brettcannon and kschmidt).

At over 1,200 words, this is a long-ish post so just  a quick heads-up that I’ve divided it into sections (signified by the included Prisma-enhanced images) covering: an overview our holiday, my new fitness regime, what I’ve been reading, why I’m planning to use my wiki more, and how we can work together. 

It’s been a great summer.

One of the great things about being your own boss is the fact that, on a macro level at least, you’re in charge of your own time. That means I get to choose to be ‘away’ when it suits me — for example, during the school summer holidays, or in December when my Seasonal Affective Disorder sets in.

I’d been banging the same drum with my family, repeating the same mantra over and over again: “we’re going away camping for the whole of August”. My wife thought it was too long. Friends said that three weeks would probably be a better idea. But I stuck to my guns. I even shaved my hair off in preparation!

Well, it turns out that other people were right: spending more than a couple of weeks under canvas is hard work. In the event, we split the month into several sections — partly due to external circumstances, partly due to conscious decision-making.

The original plan had been to travel down the east side of France, go a little way into Italy, come back along the south coast of France and into northern Spain, and then wend our way back up the west coast of France back to the UK. It didn’t quite work like that because of….

Ants.

Thousands of them. And on the same night that our youngest contracted a tummy bug. Imagine being in a campsite on an Italian mountain with a five year-old up several times in the night to be sick, and ants swarming round you. It was me who decided enough was enough. We were going home.

My wife persuaded me to stay one night in an apartment (“just to get ourselves sorted out”) before the trip back. Now that Munchkin #2 was feeling better and we were in more salubrious surroundings, it all didn’t seem so bad. So we changed our plans, aiming to spend the money we would have spent on camping on hotels. We’d just have a shorter, more comfortable holiday.

To cut a long story short, we ended up making our way, via Avignon, Reims, and Orange to our favourite campsite: Municipal de Sézanne. We stayed there a week, enjoying the huge outdoor swimming pool, immaculately-clean facilities, and the fact it was (including electricity) only 15 Euros per night!

That final stretch of time on a single campsite, with a trip to Paris, leisurely walks through Champagne-producing vineyards, swimming, reading, and general messing about, was the best bit of the holiday. After returning to the UK via the Eurotunnel, we stopped off at the in-laws in Devon for a few days, then made our way back home via an overnight stay in Sheffield (where my wife and I met, at university).

It turns out that if, for a month, you do a lot less exercise than you’re used to, have pastries for breakfast every morning and an ice-cream every afternoon, you put on weight! Who knew?

Last week, I was the heaviest I’ve ever been. So I decided to do something about it. Luckily, I’d re-read most of the excellent Fitness for Geeks while I was away, which is a great addition to anyone’s shelf. In the last seven days I’ve lost half a stone, mainly through eating as little carbohydrate as possible, by starting running again (despite it increasing my risk of migraines), and by consuming the same things for breakfast (smoothie made from fruit, coffee, and various powders) and lunch (four egg omelette with cheese, tomatoes, spinach and peppers).

I’ve got another half a stone to go, but that should be gone by the end of September, especially seeing as our paused gym membership kicks back in today. One of the things I’ve had the children accompany me in doing is running up sand dunes at our nearest (National Trust) beach. My father used to get us down for pre-season training when he was manager of our football team, so I’m just passing on the baton. It’s hard work, I’ll tell you that!

Stepping out of the stream for a month is, unsurprisingly, a great way to reflect on your life, your priorities, and your habits. Something I’ve realised is how much I enjoy being up before everyone else in the morning. Not only does this give me a chance to read before the normal hustle-and-bustle of family life begins, but it gives me a chance to take my own emotional temperature before helping other people increase theirs.

One of things I like doing with my morning reading is to read things on repeat. My go-to for this purpose over the last few years has been the relatively-unknown work of a 17th-century Jesuit priest named Baltasar Gracián. Sometimes translated as ‘The Art of Worldly Wisdom’, the Penguin version I’ve got (both in print form and ebook) is entitled The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence. It contains 300 maxims about ways to approach the world and, in the Stoic tradition, is kind of a pithier version of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.

Over the last few months, and in the last few weeks in particular, I’ve collected eight books in total which I’m currently reading on repeat. I’ll swap out any when I feel I’ve fully digested what they contain. So in addition to the two above, I’ve also got as a Kindle ‘daily reading’ collection:

• Mason Currey — Daily rituals: how great minds make time, find inspiration, and get to work
• Peter Drucker — Managing Oneself
• Robert Greene — The Concise Mastery
• Michel de Montaigne — The Complete Essays
• Fernando Pessoa — The Book of Disquiet
• François de La Rochefoucauld — Collected maxims and other reflections

At the other end of the day, before bed, I tend to read fiction. Right now, I’m reading the excellent Saxon series by Bernard Cornwell. It’s set partly in Northumberland (where I live) and was recommended to me a few years ago by a colleague when I was at Mozilla. I should have paid attention as it’s great!

Since we’ve returned from holiday, I’ve settled into a new routine in the evening after putting the children to bed. I’ll put on some ambient music and read in the small ‘cubby hole’ (for want of a better word) that we’ve got next to our bedroom in our new-ish loft conversion. I’ve just finished Invisible Forms: a guide to literary curiosities, which I stumbled upon in a secondhand bookshop while I was away.

A quick note about my intentions for where I’ll be focusing my attention over the next few months. I’m wary of making grand pronouncements of what I intend to do because, as the saying goes, man plans and God laughs. However, I do intend to make more use of my wiki in the future.* Along with starting to use Feedly again (and its excellent ‘knowledge board’ feature) it’s time to spend at least as much time on the side of the river, curating, as it is in the stream itself.

Finally, I’m always looking for ways in which I can help people achieve their goals in a way that also helps me reach mine. I make my living as a consultant, which means I’m a knowledge worker, someone who advises, synthesises, and creates. If you, or someone you know could do with my input, please do direct them towards my Dynamic Skillset website, or towards We Are Open Co-op!

Center for Education Reform, [Sept] 04, 2016

The  Center for Education Reform appears to be unhappy about the  John Oliver video on charter schools aired last week. They're offering $100,000 to the winner of a contest called Hey John Oliver, Back Off My Charter school. "Here is a brief summary of Mr. Oliver's presentation," they write. "Some charter schools have been mismanaged. Ergo, ipso facto, presto change-o, all charter schools are bad, bad, bad." They want anecdotes: "We want to hear from parents and teachers and especially from students why they made the choice to be at your school! Why do they believe their charter school works better for them than their old school, or the one they would have attended?" View their  Twitter feed for more discussion. Here's  an article on the contest.

Troy Hunt, [Sept] 04, 2016

This article provides concrete evidence that DropBox has been hacked. So if you haven't changed your DropBox password for a few years, you may want to consider it (my own DropBox password is both recent and pretty secure so I'm feeling OK). See also Motherboard's report.

Dan Colman, Open Culture, [Sept] 04, 2016

It's Friday. Time for some weekend music. How about it being 25 years since the release of Smells Like Team Spirit? As Jason Kottke said on his site when he posted this, “ There’ s a freight train bearing down on those boys and they don’ t even know it.” I was never really a Nirvana fan (when the song came out it was tied to advertising for a deodorant, and the marketing campaign just turned me off). But I appreciate this gig, before it all started. A lot. The big song starts at 34:30 in the video.

Terry Dawes, CanTech Letter, [Sept] 04, 2016

In 2005 I  gave a talk at Northern Voice "deflating a few pet concepts of the blogerati, such as the value of the long tail and the utility of tagging." people actually shouted at me when I criticized the future of hashtags (well, it was Marc Canter shouting, but he counts as people). But maybe I was right? "A decade in... hashtags are widely regarded as useless noise, with Toronto infographic company Venngage going so far as to say that the hashtag has outlived its usefulness entirely, saying that 'for businesses, they are more trouble than they are worth. And honestly, at this point, they look unprofessional.'"

Daniel Peterschmidt, Medium, [Sept] 04, 2016

Readers of the  OLDaily Twitter account are receiving tweets from what is essentially a Twitter bot - sure, the posts are copies of what I write for the newsletter, but the rest of it is automated. This Twitter bot takes it a step further, creating new posts from a set of sample posts using what is known as a Markov Chain - this is a type of artificial intelligence that detects similarities in a base set of data and generates new and still similar content. It also generates nonsense, but that's half the fun, right? The thing wit Twitter bots is that they are  not always used for good. Consider the case of the author who tweeted about former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and  faced a deluge of hate tweets launched by a bot.

Terry Anderson, Virtual Canuck, [Sept] 04, 2016

Terry Anderson is right. I should have used the word 'education' instead of 'learning'. "In fact only a very tiny fraction of the “ learning” that has ever taken place historically and of course 100% pre-historically, has occurred in a classroom. Only beginning in  the 19th Century have a few children of rich minorities been  able to learn part of what they learned in life in a classroom. " (p.s. the possessive form of my name is "Downes's". :) )

He also writes, "Strangely, this overview chapter ends without a summary or conclusion." I thought about that when I wrote it. What would a good summary or conclusion for this material be? I decided that there wasn't one - the material is itself a summary, and to try to wrap it up in a single paragraph or so would be to take the abstraction too far. So I settled on what was essentially an ellipses...

Q: I have an antenna question that I am very curious about. I live in Philadelphia and can typically scan 43 channels using an amped Mohu Leaf 50, but the local ABC channel (WPVI) is very shaky. Sometimes, it’s fine. Other times, it’s choppy/pixelated. Still other times, no signal at all.

My question is about when it’s choppy. I can view signal information for each channel as I move up and down the channels. The info includes SNR measured in dB. All 43 channels show modulation of 8VSB, whatever that means.

The info shows that 40 of the 43 channels have SNR of 20 or higher and are very smooth with a status of “Lock.”

Here is the curious behavior. When I move to an ABC channel (6-1, 6-2, or 6-3), the SNR starts at 17.5 but quickly (split second) degrades to 16.5 to 17. Sometimes, the status goes from “Lock” to “Unlock” but only for two or three seconds. For that first split second, though, the image is quite sharp, as well as the audio.

Do you have any idea why the signal is good for that first split second? Is there any way to fool the TV into thinking it’s always in the first split second?

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A: The reason the signal goes in and out is most likely due to “multipath issues.” When a TV signal travels, it bounces off things it hits (such as mountains and high buildings), and those bounces can reach your antenna, confusing your TV’s tuner. If your TV tuner picks up multiple bounced signals, it will try to sort out the correct signal from the repeats, but sometimes the overlapping transmissions leave gaps in the signal, and the result is a signal that fluctuates and produces an erratic or choppy TV picture—it comes in clearly one minute as your tuner locks on to a signal, and it drops the next. Weather, seasonal changes, and dense tree leaves between your antenna and the broadcaster can affect these multipath problems.

The best solution is to place your antenna as high as you can, which will help it avoid the bounced signals. Check a service such as AntennaWeb to find out where broadcasters near you are located, and look for obstructions (trees, terrain, buildings, or whatever) between you and the signal. You may need to add a little more cable to your antenna—but don’t go wild, since a very long cable (over 20 feet) can also degrade the signal quality. Moving the antenna close to a window can help, as well, and you can even mount a flat Mohu Leaf antenna directly on your window.

The Wirecutter’s editors answer reader questions all the time (much more than once a week). Send an email to notes@thewirecutter.com, or talk to us on Twitter and Facebook. Published questions are edited for space and clarity.

Images courtesy the artist

While philosophical friction might exist between conceptual photographers who shoot landscapes with analog film, and digital artists who explore imaginary landscapes with software, some artists, like the Copenhagen-based artist Lise Johansson, prove that the divide can be happily—and fruitfully—fused.

In her new series Sehnsucht, which won the silver medal in the conceptual category at the Fine Art Photo Awards, Johansson uses analog photographs of real materials to digitally build dystopian landscapes. As she tells The Creators Project, Sehnsucht is defined as “the inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what”—a yearning for a “far, familiar, non-earthly land to call home.”

“The series Sehnsucht was created by photographing fragments of organic and non-organic materials,” Johannson explains. “These fragments were the building blocks for a universe that exists only in my mind, in between imagination and reality.”

Johannson says the series is also a result of an ongoing investigation into the use of shapes and textures from mundane objects and materials to create “dystopian landscapes of a forlorn world.” She does this by stripping the objects and materials of their original context, giving the digital manipulations a “realness” that helps blur the lines between the real or familiar and fiction.

“Desolate landscapes and distant horizons,” Johansson says. “Only a few souls are left, seeking answers that cannot be found. It is an eerily quiet meditation on abandonment and hope.”

While these landscapes and horizons are bleak, they may say more about the human mind than actual physical geographies. Because, whether intended or not, dystopias are always the result of human imagination and ambitions gone awry.

Click here to see more of Lise Johansson’s work.

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Ever since I was a PhD student, I tried as much as I could to make it easy for me to write my doctoral dissertation. But since I am so analog in the way I work (I take notes by hand, I edit by hand, and I highlight and scribble on the margins of printed book chapters and journal articles), I also spend much more time than people who are purely digital. This said, I have always used reference managers and have tested a few (EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, RefWorks) during the course of my PhD and as a professor. My good friend and co-author Dr. Oriol Mirosa (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) recommended Sente, which I saw in action and is way more powerful than any other reference manager I’ve ever seen. And at some point I plan to make sure to write a comparison of different reference managers. But I digress…

I am the first one to recognize that I don’t use Mendeley’s feature to its fullest extent (and I am also aware of the ethical implications of the fact that it’s now a paid service for many features, and that it was bought by Elsevier, etc.) Since I started using Mendeley 5 years ago, I am pretty comfortable using it as is and I don’t foresee I’ll be changing my reference manager any time soon. One of the things I’m trying to teach my students how to do is to write their papers with proper referencing and citation (we’ve had some highly visible cases of plagiarism in academic work in Mexico recently, so I want to teach my students better study and writing techniques). As a result, I’m combining my post on how to write effective memos with this one and the post I wrote on how to write a research paper in 8 simple steps during a workshop I’ll be giving next week.

I simplify how I write memoranda and my own research papers by integrating Mendeley’s Cite-o-Matic (the Mendeley version of EndNote’s Cite-As-You-Write) plugin. Microsoft Word and Mendeley connect through a plugin that allows you to insert a citation as you are writing. I always keep both Mendeley and Word open when I write memoranda or papers because that way I can cite as I write. I also open Excel because often times, I already have an Excel dump of all the quotations I need (see my post on how to manage literature reviews with an Excel dump). If you want to learn how to use Mendeley’s Cite-o-Matic’s feature you can do so by reading this website.

Because I often copy and paste large blocks of text quotations in my memoranda, I need to ensure that I avoid plagiarism and properly attribute them. To do so, I insert the block of text and immediately after, I insert the citation and edit the field with the proper page. Since this is a manually edited citation, you need to approve Mendeley’s manual edit every time you do this. But this process ensures that everything you write is properly attributed and cited.

Hopefully using an in-line citation process will work for you the same way it works for me, and what I’m also hoping is that my students will use this technique for their own papers!

While most Canadians were still asleep, Sony used its IFA Berlin keynote to announce two new additions to the Xperia X family — the Xperia XZ and Xperia X Compact.

We’ll cover the Xperia X Compact in a subsequent article. For the moment, this story is focused on the Xperia XZ, Sony’s new 2016 flagship.

Sony’s emphasis with the XZ is the phone’s camera. According to the company, this is its best phone camera to date. The Xperia XZ ships with the same best-in-class 23-megapixel sensor found in the Xperia Z5, still considered one of the best camera phones released in the past year. In addition, the phone’s back-facing camera will feature laser autofocus, as well as Predictive Hybrid AF to ensure it can capture blur-free photos. The camera also comes with an infrared RGBC sensor, which Sony says will help the XZ easily adjust white balance to ensure photos are true to life. 

Like past Sony smartphones, the XZ has a dedicated shutter button on its side. With the help of its Snapdragon 820 processor, Sony says the Xperia XZ can go from standby to ready-to-capture in 0.6 seconds.

The XZ’s front facing camera is no slouch either. It features a 90-degree wide-angle lens, and a 13-megapixel sensor capable of maxing out at ISO 6,400.

Sony also didn’t skimp on video functionality. The XZ features 5-axis image stabilization and 4K capture capability.

In terms of other specs, the Xperia XZ is a no-frills 2016 flagship phone. As mentioned already, it features a Snapdragon 820 processor. In addition, it will come with 3GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, 2,800 mAh battery, a power button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor, Android Marshmallow and a 5.2-inch Full HD display.

Sony says the XZ will be available worldwide at the start of October. We’ve reached out to the company to find out if and when the company plans to bring the Xperia XZ to Canada. Stay tuned.

Update: For the time being, Sony doesn’t plan to bring the Xperia XZ to Canada. “At this time there are no plans for the Xperia XZ or Xperia X Compact to come to Canada. We will keep you updated on future announcements about the Xperia lineup,” said a Sony spokesperson in a statement emailed to MobileSyrup.

This is a terrific television series. Norway discovers a great alternative to oil. The Green Party sweeps into office, and not only does Norway switch over to alternative energy, but Norway shuts down the North Sea oil industry. Lots of other countries are unhappy, and Russia steps in to restore oil production.

No one ever mentions the Second World War, but it’s always in the background. Good writing, good acting.

I’ve been a Tikit owner for several years now, and I’ve certainly been happy with the bike for its intended use: being able to suitcase the bike so that I can have my own bike on hand during trips. However, I’ve always wondered about the Brompton as an alternative, and for city use, I could see how the extremely compact fold would be an advantage. Last weekend, I participated in the Brompton Urban Challenge, and I was able to secure a loaner for that event. I was able to bring it home to practice folding and unfolding it. At the same time, this was a golden opportunity to compare the bikes side to side.

The loaner bike that I got was the six speed with straight bars and fenders. In Brompton parlance, this would make it an S6L, in red. Here it is, loaded up for the journey home from Curbside Cycle.

Since the primary use for my Tikit has been as a travel bike, the first thing to do was to see if the Brompton would fit my existing F’lite case, just like my Tikit.

I’m thinking how wonderful it would be not to have to partially disassemble the bike for travel. However, you can see that the Brompton will not fit.

I’m assuming that the Brompton hardcase is much more square in proportion than a typical suitcase.

Next up: a side by side comparison. Here I get another surprise: the Brompton actually has a longer wheelbase.

You can also see that the type S bars put my hands lower than they are on the Tikit.

From the side, the folded sizes don’t look that different.

However, looking from the front to back, you see that the Brompton is much more compact, even ignoring the fact that I’ve put custom handlebars on the Tikit that stick way out to the side.

Here’s a top view of the two handlebar setups.  If I ever do get a Brompton, I’m going to have to figure out how to get a similar bullhorn type setup on it. This will necessitate using a quick release to clamp the handlebars on the Brompton. The total widths of the handlebars are similar.

Back to back test rides confirm the impression that I got during my test ride at Kinetics: the Brompton stem (and perhaps frame) is significantly stiffer than the Tikit. This photo shows why: the diameter of both the frame member and the stem are larger on the Brompton. (for the record, my Tikit is a size M with the heavy rider upgrade)

The other differences between the two bikes that I felt:

• Braking was much better on the Brompton, especially the rear brake (which is very marginal on the Tikit). The braking was good enough that perhaps the disc brakes on a Kinetic Brompton would be overkill.
• Shifting was much better on the Tikit. Granted, mine has a belt drive 11 speed Alfine. Nevertheless, the 3×2 gearing on the Brompton was awkward, and I was also very concerned about how flexy the Sturmey Archer shifters seemed.
• The folding was more solid on the Brompton, and not only is the folded package a more compact shape, it was also significantly easier to carry.

Speaking of carrying, interestingly enough, the two bikes as specced weighed in at exactly 26.8 pounds (to the precision of my bathroom scale).  This included fairly heavy saddle and pedals on the Tikit, as well as the extra weight of the Alfine hub.

Interestingly enough, Bike Friday is launching another 16″ wheeled folding bike called the Pakit that breaks down to be more compact than a Tikit, and it also lighter. The question is whether the Pakit will replace the Tikit in the Bike Friday lineup in the long run.

Would I be tempted to buy a Brompton? Given my budget, I’d have to sell the Tikit to fund the purchase, so this would not be an easy decision. I’m going to hold off until I also see the Helix folding bike, which is due to materialize sometime in the fall. It has larger wheels and still supposedly fits into an airline legal suitcase.

The other issue of Brompton ownership is that it is a bit like joining a cult. Speaking of which, I did have a blast at the Brompton Urban Challenge. My report appears at the Dandyhorse Magazine blog.  However, I can show a few extra pictures from the weekend.

Have you ever seen so many ETRO 349 wheels in one place?

I really liked this number that belongs to one of the mechanics at Curbside. It has a custom paintjob from Velocolour that puts my Canadian flag themed Tikit to shame.

It is the lightweight version with a Ti fork and rear triangle. However, the low spoke count front wheel is definitely not stock.

Here is the rear triangle, showing also the Nokon cabling.

Carbon bars and a higher quality rear shifter.

The Brompton Urban Challenge was a great event, hanging with a very fun group of people. Thanks to Curbside for the generous loan of the bike. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad joining the cult. We shall see……

Here is a video of the event.

• Read more about Are ESBs Relevant in the Age of Microservices?

R.I.P.

mkalus shared this story from jwz.

It's hypocritical of Mark Zuckerberg to sing the praises of the web's founder when he's trying to monopolise the internet

I f there were a Nobel prize for hypocrisy, then its first recipient ought to be Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook boss. On 23 August, all his 1.7 billion users were greeted by this message: "Celebrating 25 years of connecting people. The web opened up to the world 25 years ago today! We thank Sir Tim Berners-Lee and other internet pioneers for making the world more open and connected."

Aw, isn't that nice? From one "pioneer" to another. What a pity, then, that it is a combination of bullshit and hypocrisy. [...]

It's not the inaccuracy that grates, however, but the hypocrisy. Zuckerberg thanks Berners-Lee for "making the world more open and connected". So do I. What Zuck conveniently omits to mention, though, is that he is embarked upon a commercial project whose sole aim is to make the world more "connected" but less open. Facebook is what we used to call a "walled garden" and now call a silo: a controlled space in which people are allowed to do things that will amuse them while enabling Facebook to monetise their data trails. One network to rule them all. If you wanted a vision of the opposite of the open web, then Facebook is it.

The thing that makes the web distinctive is also what made the internet special, namely that it was designed as an open platform. It was designed to facilitate "permissionless innovation". If you had a good idea that could be realised using data packets, and possessed the programming skills to write the necessary software, then the internet -- and the web -- would do it for you, no questions asked. And you didn't need much in the way of financial resources -- or to ask anyone for permission -- in order to realise your dream.

An open platform is one on which anyone can build whatever they like. It's what enabled a young Harvard sophomore, name of Zuckerberg, to take an idea lifted from two nice-but-dim oarsmen, translate it into computer code and launch it on an unsuspecting world. And in the process create an empire of 1.7 billion subjects with apparently limitless revenues. That's what permissionless innovation is like.

The open web enabled Zuckerberg to do this. But -- guess what? -- the Facebook founder has no intention of allowing anyone to build anything on his platform that does not have his express approval. Having profited mightily from the openness of the web, in other words, he has kicked away the ladder that elevated him to his current eminence. And the whole thrust of his company's strategy is to persuade billions of future users that Facebook is the only bit of the internet they really need.

Like I keep saying:

If you work for Facebook, quit. It is morally indefensible for you to use your skills to make that company more powerful. By working there, you are making the world an objectively worse place. I'm sure you can find a job working for a company that you don't have to apologize for all the time.

You can do it. I believe in you.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

I had Tweetro and Mail running on my Surface RT. I tapped on a link in Tweetro to open the page in the browser. I finished reading the article in Internet Explorer. I swiped in from the left edge. What app was I switched to? 

Tweetro, of course. I expected the swipe to be interpreted as a back to last app gesture, and that it was. Then I waited for a second or so. I swiped in from the left edge once more. Although not as confident as last time, I still expected to be switched to Mail, as an IE to Tweetro back to IE swiping sequence didn't make sense. 

I was wrong. IE was swiped back in. I needed to find out why and see if there's some underlying logic that determined this. I would have been disappointed if there wasn't. Fortunately, it became quickly apparent what the rationale was. And I wasn't disappointed.

See, on Windows 8, the app that's swiped in from the left edge depends on when you last did a left swipe to switch apps.  If like in my example you wait a second or more, you're returned to the previous app. The time delay results in an assumption made that you're continually switching between two specific apps. For example, you're writing an email but consulting a website/document/etc. as you write it. However, if you do a swipe within a second or so of the last, the switched to app is not the one you were on previously, but the next in the queue. The assumption here is because of the minimal time interval between swipes, your intention is to swipe through your running apps rather than jumping back to the last app. 

Confused? Watch the video (apologies for the poor production values).

This is pretty great. It makes multitasking even without snap frictionless; you can switch between two apps seamlessly without any interruptions. This is a stellar feature on Windows RT that demonstrates a commendable attention to detail. It's one of those things you may not consciously notice, and that would explain why I've not come across anyone heaping praise on it.

It's little big details like this that make the Surface RT an attractive alternative to the iPad. There are many points that the iPad beats the Surface on, but multitasking is not one of them. And multitasking is a big deal. It's no small win. And that's why Microsoft should really be making a bigger effort to emphasise the practicalities this win brings to the user.

Update: New post now added responding to Lukas Mathis' comments on the above behaviour.

This post has been updated. See the original here

(Eve is a new programming language, and this is our development blog. If you’re new to Eve, start here)

The majority of August was spent adding language features, fixing bugs, writing documentation, and listening/responding to community feedback. We did a lot this month, so this update is going to be a long one.

Platform

The Eve platform saw rapid improvements over the last month as we quickly responded to user feedback. As is the case when all projects are set loose in the wild, we encountered stability, performance, and usability concerns almost immediately. Let’s take a look at all of the work put into the Eve platform first.

Word Choice Adjustments

Surprisingly, one of the most difficult aspects of developing a language is deciding on the words and verbiage used to describe Eve concepts. Choosing the wrong words can alienate users and make things more confusing than they need to be. Therefore, we’ve spent countless hours looking through thesauruses and dictionaries for the perfect words. In presenting the language to new users, we’ve learned some of the choices that made sense to us didn’t make sense to others. For instance, we used to talk about “freezing”, but community feedback suggested that word didn’t provide an intuition for how that command actually worked.

For anyone following our development, but not following the Syntax RFC discussion, we’ve made the following adjustments to how we talk about Eve:

freeze   -> commit
maintain -> bind
object   -> record
bag      -> database

New Function Syntax

Whereas most languages use functions to accomplish code-reuse, Eve takes a different route; our records obviate the need for most functions. Therefore, we don’t fully support user defined functions at the moment. Nonetheless, functions are useful for primitive operations, like math or string manipulation. Thus, we adjusted our function syntax to look a little more like the record syntax.

Let’s look at the sine function:

y = sin[degrees: 90]

The first thing to notice are the square brackets. These are reminiscent of the record syntax, which also uses square brackets. That’s because a function call is really just sugar for:

[@sin #function degrees: 90 value]

which is a record like any other. The new function syntax uses the value attribute as an implicit return, so functions can be inlined into expressions.

The second thing to notice is that arguments are explicitly defined at the call site. This has several nice properties. First, it makes code more readable and self-documenting; any reader of the program unfamiliar with the function arguments can read them where the function is called, without having to look up documentation. Second, explicit arguments allow a nice mechanism to provide alternative arguments. For instance, we could use the sine function with a radian input:

y = sin[radians: angle]

The reader of this program doesn’t need to guess if the input is radians or degrees. One interesting thing you can do with this is add custom arguments to existing functions. In this example, we create a new coordinate system that takes angles in “fun-degrees”:

 match
    return = sin[angle: value? / 2 + 30]
 bind
    sin[fun-degrees: value?, return]

And then we can use the new argument the same way we use the default arguments:

 match
    answer = sin[fun-degrees: 40]
 bind
    [#div text: answer]

Finally, this syntax allows for optional arguments. For instance, in the case of count, the per argument is optional. So we can use count in the following ways:

y = count[given: students]
y = count[given: students, per: grade]

Databases

We’ve started thinking more about how modularity will work in Eve. For a while now, we’ve had a concept of “databases” (formerly bags), which are just containers of facts. So far, we’ve only exposed two databases: a default “session” database and a “global” database. The global database was exposed to users via commit global, which directed committed records to a global database accessible by any session on the server.

In the modularity branch, we’ve opened up the ability to send facts to and select facts from specific databases. For instance, until now a committed #div was implicitly directed to a special browser database. Now, if you want to render something in the browser you’ll have to tell Eve to put it there explicitly:

commit @browser
  [#div text: "some text"]

Databases are specified after one of the three actions: match, commit, or bind. If no database is specified, the database is implicitly a default session database. You can even work with multiple databases at once:

match (@my-database, @your-database)
  [#person name]
bind
  [#div text: ]

This would select every #person from two different databases, essentially merging two databases.

With this mechanism in place, we can start to talk about how modularity and libraries will work in Eve. For instance, I could create a custom math library, and what I would distribute is a database. Then anyone who wants to use my custom math would do the following:

match @custom-math-lib
  ...

We still have a lot of work to do here, so this feature is not available on the master branch yet. Stay tuned for an RFC coming next month on modularity.

Talking with the outside world

Eve cannot thrive in isolation, so we need a way to communicate with the outside world. We’ve done some work on this front, adding the ability to read/write files, handle JSON (opening up the ability to interact with any JSON compatible API), and handle HTTP requests. This work is available in the process branch.

What’s nice about our solution here is that interacting with the outside world doesn’t look or feel any different than interacting exclusively within Eve; you still match and modify records, except the facts in those records originate from external sources. If you’ve been using Eve, then you’re already interacting with the browser through changing the DOM and handling events like clicks and keypresses.

Eric has been working on a little HTTP file server written in Eve. It’s still a work in progress, but the functionality to accept requests and serve files is already in place. Take a look at how an HTTP request is handled:

Start path resolution

  match
     r = [#http-request]
     split[text: r.request.url, token, index, by: "/"]
     fr = [#root]
  bind
     [#path index: 1, file: fr]
     [#path index token]

Resolve a path

match
    [#path index: pindex, file: pfile]
    f = pfile.child
    child = [#path index: (pindex + 1), token: f.name]
bind
    child.file := f

After some more work to determine the requested file is available, then we can send a response:

match
    r = [#request-object extension file connection]
    ct = [#content-type suffix: extension]
commit
  connection.response := [
      content: file.contents
      status: "200"
      reason: "OK"
      header: [Content-Type:ct.type]]
  r := none
bind 
  r.completed := true

You’ll see here that we are interacting with both an external #http-request, and the file system through #path. Again, what’s notable is that despite interacting with data external to Eve, the code is written as if you were working entirely within the boundaries of Eve. You can check out the full program to see the rest of the implementation details.

Syntax Highlighting

We added syntax highlighting to the built-in editor!

Eve and Markdown

One key feature of the Eve programming model is that the order of statements doesn’t matter. A nice implication of this property is that we can write Eve code in an order that makes sense for a human, as opposed to writing code in an order that is imposed by the compiler or runtime. This idea is the basis for literate programming, a practice for writing programs introduced by Donald Knuth in 1981. The idea behind literate programming is to treat a program as a document of prose written to a human audience, with code interspersed throughout. In writing this way, a programmer can use prose and formal methods to reinforce one another, leading to programs that are (in principle) easier to maintain. We talk about some of the benefits of literate programming here.

Whereas other literate programming implementations require a “tangle” step to turn a literate program into a compilable program, Eve’s semantics mean a *.eve file can be rendered as markdown or executed by Eve without any additional compilation steps. We accomplish this by being CommonMark compatible; Eve programs are written just as you would write any markdown document, but code blocks containing Eve code are actually executable.

We’ve written a few literate programs this way. If you follow our blog, you’ve already seen some of them:

• Tic-Tac-Toe
• TodoMVC
• FlappyBird

Each of these blog posts are executable Eve programs “as-is”; just send them through the Eve compiler and they’ll run. As Eve grows, we hope more people will join us in practicing literate programming, but there’s nothing about Eve that demands writing code this way; you can write programs with as little or as much prose as you prefer.

Views

We’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of graphical tools would be useful for working with the textual version of Eve. One thing currently missing from Eve is the ability to explore the contents of the Eve DB. Without this ability, Eve is as opaque as any other programming language. After all, the ability to inspect your program as it executes is one of the core features of our language.

An idea we keep coming back to is the concept of “views”. Views are small graphical elements that represent records in the system. By default, they are just small squares, but a programmer can imbue them with properties (position, color, size, shape, etc.) to visualize the records they represent. For example, a graph can be constructed out of views by applying height and position properties to them, like in this example:

Here, we use #pixel (views used to be called pixels, so this would currently be accessed using #view) to inspect some records. Three views are displayed, one for each #clock-hand. In this case, since we’re inspecting records, the views display the attributes and values for each of the records. Then, we change to a different mode and look at the history of a specific attribute on #clock-hands, namely x2. This results in three graphs illustrating how x2 changes for each #clock-hand over time.

Obviously, this is just a concept at the moment, but the core idea we like about views is how flexible they are. We can package some default functionality, like the record inspector and history illustrated here. But even more importantly this functionality should be trivially extended by the programmer.

Community

I’m especially excited by the engagement we’ve seen from the community so far. It’s hard to know exactly how many people are following our development and using Eve, but so far we’ve received comments and feedback from users in Sydney, Copenhagen, Moscow, Finland, Hong Kong, the UK, Germany, and many other places.

Issues + Pull Requests

Thank you to everyone who submitted a PR or an issue report. Specifically, thank you to @btheado,  @bertrandrustle, @RubenSandwich, @frankier, @dram, and @martinchooooooo. Let me know if I missed anyone!

RFCs

The syntax RFC received a lot of activity this month, surpassing 100 comments from over a dozen users. Your comments have been well thought out, provocative, and very constructive, so thank you to everyone who has participated so far. Due to the feedback we received, we’ve already made several adjustments to the syntax, including changes to keywords and the general vocabulary of Eve (see above).

Documentation

Documentation is still in an early stage, but it’s improving daily.

Syntax Quick Reference

We put together a short syntax reference with all the necessary details to help you write Eve programs.

Eve Handbook

The Eve Handbook has received some work this month, particularly in the area of documenting the standard library. If you’d like to contribute to the development of Eve, this is the easiest way to get started. You don’t even need to contribute any content; just pointing out the shortcomings of this document will help in its development. Major areas of improvement include:

• Completeness - are there any missing gaps?
• Accuracy - is the handbook true to Eve?
• Exposition - is the document written in an order that helps people learn the language?
• Examples - many examples are needed, especially for the standard library

We’ll be improving the handbook and other documentation daily, so keep checking back.

Bill Gates once famously said “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” While it’s a poignant quote, it doesn’t mean unhappy customers are your goal (there’s only so much positive spin Silicon Valley can put on failure). Prevention, as always, is the best medicine. With that in mind, here are 7 of the most common customer feedback nightmares Product Managers face and a...

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As RSS subscribers will no doubt have noticed, I have not been writing much on here for quite some time. I will detail the why’s behind this soon, but for now I just want to update with links to some recent writing I've done and published elsewhere:

How does one increase or gain emotional fortitude?
I wrote an answer on Quora to this question, as it related directly to a much more comprehensive topic I've been writing about (behind the scenes) for several months. This is something that I would’ve benefited from reading when I was much younger. I hope it can be of use to people who are struggling with anxieties, depression, sickness, or simply the feeling of being overwhelmed by the complicated nature of social politics today and what it means to be a person.

Apple’s Taxes vs. Jobs Argument Is Not The One Corporations Usually Make
I still write about my old employer from time to time. In this case, it’s about the unprecedented “fine” of 13 billion euros the European Commission issued to Apple, and the inaccurate framing the media is putting it in. (Spoiler: both sides have a strongly valid point in this case.)

How Not to Talk to a Woman Who is Wearing Headphones
If you missed the utterly condemnable “how to” article on this subject, you’re probably much better off for it. But I couldn't resist satirizing it because it’s just that awful, much like when I satirized Dave Winer’s awful post on women programmers.

“Fixing Our Democracy” Will Not Fix Our Democracy
I posit an unpopular or uncomfortable perspective on why our focus on democratic changes to our systems of government is insufficient, and may very well lead to disillusionment when we finally do accomplish them. In short: fixing the flaws in our legislative systems is important, but it's not enough to fix many of the very real problems we are facing.

Short URL: http://farukat.es/p714

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Sonos will become just like Android handset makers. 

• Sonos has announced that it will support Spotify Connect and Amazon Echo in a climb down which sets Sonos on a path to becoming just another speaker company.
• Sonos makes great speakers which have proven to be very popular with audio buffs which combined with its ability to easily play music anywhere in the house has been a major differentiator.
• However, other companies are catching up and offering similar functionality with great quality speakers but at much lower prices.
• Sonos’ strategy to deal with this has been to lock its users into its ecosystem and only allowing them to use popular services such as Spotify, Amazon and so on via its own app.
• The idea was to create a compelling user experience such that users would choose a Sonos even if something of equivalent quality was available at the same price point.
• Unfortunately, this is where it has all come unstuck as Sonos’ ecosystem delivers a frustrating, buggy and substandard user experience that I think users would not use if they had a choice.
• The signs of trouble began late in 2014 when it had a disappointing holiday season which has been further impacted by the success of the Amazon Echo during 2015.
• This resulted in a round of layoffs in Q1 2016 strongly indicating that the current strategy has not been working and that something new was needed.
• By enabling both Spotify Connect and Amazon Echo Sonos has removed the requirement for users to use its software which I think is a sign that it is giving up on trying to create user preference around an ecosystem.
• Because Amazon Echo and Spotify Connect are keen to work with any speaker on the market, Sonos’ differentiation now becomes: audio quality, design and its multi-room function.
• None of these are sustainable differentiators and I see the competition quickly catching up with Sonos and in many cases, beating it on price.
• This is exactly the dilemma the Android handset makers hace to deal with and all of these, with the exception of Samsung, make 2-4% operating margins in the best instance.
• Sonos’ only chance is to either:
  • First: invest in cool new hardware features and stay ahead of its competition to maintain its price premium or
  • Second: to go for volume and gain scale advantages by significantly outselling its rivals.
• Unfortunately, I suspect that Sonos’ management is not dynamic and bold enough to quickly start down either of these paths with result likely to be weak revenue growth and low margins.
• This will leave Sonos’ investors pretty unhappy and likely to sell out as soon as the first decent bid comes along.
• Sonos would make a good tuck-in acquisition for any company trying to create a cross device ecosystem and its brand is very well known.
• I see Samsung, Apple, LeEco, Sony and Amazon all as potential acquirers.

Read this post by Dave from Agilebits.

“The reality is we could make Slack work for us but it would require constant policing. I simply don’t want to be that bad cop, and I don’t want to hire a police force either. Furthermore, Slack was not designed for the deep, meaningful conversations that are needed to move 1Password forward.”

One of the startling results of our survey is most organisations spend precisely 0 hours training their employees how to collaborate. Yet everyone seems to expect new colleagues to be great team players from day 1.

Consider that for a second. New employees learn who their colleagues are, how to do their work, where the break room is, and even how to safely lift heavy objects…but no-one tells them how to be an effective team member.

What tools should they use for which purpose? Who needs what information and when? How should information be delivered? What are the intricacies of the tools we should know?

If you don’t train now, you will need to police later. And policing isn’t fun.

No one comes to a product management job as a blank slate. Even if it’s an entry-level position, you must have done something beforehand to merit a company handing the fate of a feature or product over to you. That means you’re experienced, whether it was leading product strategy for another firm, time in the trenches building a product, or working in the industry your new solution will serve. And...

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Bill Gates once famously said “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” While it’s a poignant quote, it doesn’t mean unhappy customers are your goal (there’s only so much positive spin Silicon Valley can put on failure). Prevention, as always, is the best medicine. With that in mind, here are 7 of the most common customer feedback nightmares Product Managers face and a...

Source