Asking a Cube
To produce less, but better product
The reduction to the essentials has never led to any catastrophes
Dieter Rams talks about simplicity in design.
Leadership and Conformist
That’s really the great mystery about bureaucracies. Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. Just keeping the routine going.
(via The American Scholar)
Hence the lack of leadership in our country and institutions. It’s not that smart people doesn’t go up in the chain of management. But a lot of people that go up is a conformist. Without any new ideas to solve the problems that we have. Great leaders are the one who can think for the best of many, dare to change the current conditions for a better future.
Design is Horseshit!
Solve a real customer problem. If you’re an early
stage startup with no revenue, don’t even think about design! Think
hard about what problem you can solve that a customer will give you
$10 for and work your ass off at delivering that $10 of value as fast
and as cheaply as possible.
via Young Fook
The best advice on starting a startup.
✎ Thank You, SJ
Today (Thu Aug 25, 2011) marks yet another new era for Apple. Another era in which Steve Jobs is no longer CEO. But unlike the previous time, this time he’s not kicked out of Apple. Instead he’s becoming the King.
Actually he still has a job. As the boss of the bosses of the CEO. He was Prime Minister, now he’s King.
— Aulia Masna (@amasna) August 25, 2011
He will be missed by most of us who follow Tech industry. He will be missed because of his vision, because he is the different one.
If Steve is a superhero, I would say his greatest superpower is the ability to recognize talent and his Reality Distortion Field. For many he is viewed as a tyrannical leader, who’s micromanaging power and design intuition resulted in some of the best product of this time, whom many of us love. Gone are the time we wait for his Keynote, to experience the RDF in action, to mesmerize us with a ‘magical’ device. Next time it’ll probably will not be him showing us a new iPhone, or iPad or maybe some other new magical ‘i’Device.
I will miss you Steve. Thank you, for making computer personal, twice.
✎ JSLint Bundle for TextMate
Developer yang bekerja dengan JavaScript tentu familiar dengan tools JSLint buatan Douglas Rockford. Masalahnya biasanya penggunaan JSLint ini adalah dengan mengunjungi JSLint lalu melakukan copy-paste code di website tersebut untuk dianalisa. Untuk pengguna TextMate berikut ini adalah cara yang lebih nyaman untuk melakukan jslint terhadap code JavaScript yang kita punya. Caranya adalah dengan membuat bundle dari script JSLint ini di TextMate. Pembuatan bundle ini menggunakan bantuan dari engine HammerJS buatan Ariya Hidayat. Berikut adalah step-by-step pembuatannya
- Install hammerjs
1git clone http://github.com/senchalabs/hammerjs.git cd hammerjs cmake ./make - Copy binary
hammerjske PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin)1cp ./hammerjs /usr/local/bin - Copy
lint.jsdari folderhammerjs/exampleske PATH1cp ./examples/lint.js /usr/local/bin - Buat shell script untuk wrapper jslint dengan isi sebagai berikut
1#!/bin/bash /usr/local/bin/hammerjs /usr/local/bin/lint.js $1
- Pindah ke directory Bundle TextMate
1cd ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles
- Ambil jslint-bundle dari github
1git clone https://github.com/hendrasaputra/jslint-bundle.git
- Reload Bundles on TextMate
Too Much Hardware Choice via Marco Arment
But since then, very few non-geeks know about individual Android
handsets. They change so frequently, and are so numerous, that there’s
never much of an opportunity for a meaningful buzz to generate around
any of them. Nobody’s lining up to buy them. CNN’s not covering their
launches. Consumer Reports isn’t vigorously testing their antennas.
The Daily Show isn’t making jokes about them. So the mass market
doesn’t really respond to individual devices. Even if Uncle Joe brings
his fancy Android Something to Thanksgiving and your mother is
impressed by it and wants to buy one, by the time her contract expires
in two months and she goes to the Verizon store, it’s gone.
via marco.org
A great summary from Marco Arment about what is hindering Android acceptance to non-geek people. I think for Android it is good to have a flagship device like Nexus and use that as a marketing tools that will mainly attract non-geek people while still provide a page list of available Android based smartphone on the market that people can choose from. Kind of like what Nokia or Blackberry have on their product website.
Steve Wozniak to the FCC: Keep the Internet Free via The Atlantic
Imagine that when we started Apple we set things up so that we could
charge purchasers of our computers by the number of bits they use. The
personal computer revolution would have been delayed a decade or more.
If I had to pay for each bit I used on my 6502 microprocessor, I would
not have been able to build my own computers anyway. What if we paid
for our roads per mile that we drove? It would be fair and
understandable to charge more for someone who drives more. But one of
the most wonderful things in our current life is getting in the car
and driving anywhere we feel like at this moment, and with no
accounting for cost. You just get in your car and go. This is one of
the most popular themes of our life and even our popular music. It’s a
type of freedom from some concerns that makes us happy and not
complain. The roads are already paid for. You rarely hear people
complain that roads are “free.” The government shines when it comes to
having provided us pathways to drive around our country. We don’t
think of the roadways as being negative like telecommunication
carriers. It’s a rare breath of fresh air.
via theatlantic.com
I completely agree with what Woz said, Internet can be count as basic needs for most people already. Telco’s should stop charging people based on the bits that’s passed through their system. Charge flat + added value pricing would be more fair for customer.
✎ Trapped in Physics
Yesterday during our motorcycle commute from work, me and my wife get passed by a speedy motorcycle on an empty turn.
“That guys is speeding!”, she said.
“We can also go that fast, but the brake won’t hold up the weight of both of us. We can’t stop in time”, I said.
“What does weight got anything to do with brakes?“, she asked.
Now, this kind of question is always interesting to me. Because whether we realize it or not our lives is bound in physics laws. Movement, speed, momentum and friction is some of the things that came to mind when she asked that question. Immediately I remember the basic of forces in work when a body of mass is moving. For the same amount of force applied, when you double the mass you will get slower deceleration, means longer time it will take to decrease speed to 0. It follows a simple equation F = m.a. By understanding physics we become aware of our boundary and consequences. I hope at least we got that from our learning physics starting Elementary through High School. Even though we forget all the equations and formulas at least we can grasp the basic concept.
Why you should consider OS X
[The Mac Pro] is, by far, the most amazingly fast, spacious, capable, and well-designed computer I’ve ever used.
I have no doubt that’s a nice machine, and I am certainly glad his all-too- familiar, all-too-painful wait is over. That said, can one of the Fanbois explain to me what makes Apple computers any better than a PC set up by an intelligent user?
I think I’m qualified to answer this because, as you know, I was a great Windows user. I maximized Windows’ potential for many years, having only switched to Macs in 2004. I was such a good user that I didn’t even run antivirus software because I hated the performance penalties. I was just smart about how I used it.
Let’s start with hardware. Sure, it’s cheap, but PC hardware is crappy. It’s badly designed, it looks tacky, quality control sucks, and it flakes out too often. I can’t even begin to count the hours I spent in high school and college screwing around with my (or my friends’) PC hardware, trying to get custom hardware combinations to work properly together. And just try to find a PC case that looks decent and is comfortable to work in.
The software world is much more divided. The quality of OS X, and its third- party software, absolutely blows away anything on Windows. The difference is huge.
Mac software follows design principles that you rarely see in Windows:
Incredible attention to detail
Simple, clean interfaces
Justified, focused feature design (no “kitchen sink” apps)
Respect for the user’s time (no stealing focus, no unnecessary prompting)
Respect for the user’s intelligence (no “we’re protecting you from this choice”)
High quality (if it says it will do this and work this way, it will)
These principles are everywhere: from OS X itself and Apple’s other applications to the third-party shareware and freeware communities.
The attention to detail is particularly amazing. I recently tried a Windows Smartphone, and it was clear that nobody at Microsoft had ever actually used one of these. Apple hardware and software engineers will take great pains to ensure that a screw is centered or a form field positions the cursor to require the least user effort.
Admittedly, I haven’t used a Mac for more than about 10 minutes in as many years, but I’m failing to see what a Mac can bring me that I can’t accomplish for half the cost with an equivalent PC, and Ubuntu or the Linux distribution of your choice?
Cost isn’t as ridiculous as many people assume. Most Apple machines are very competitively priced with similarly specced PCs. But Apple’s specs only match the high end of most manufacturers’ lineups.
The Mac Pro ($2800) is very reasonably priced for an 8-core Xeon workstation. The MacBook ($1100) is very reasonably priced for a midrange consumer notebook.
It’s not that Apple machines are expensive — they just don’t have a low end.
I get (from what I can tell) just as bulletproof a machine, on great hardware (I use a ThinkPad), without the Apple tax, and with 90% of the eye candy thanks to Compiz Fusion. What makes a Mac so much better?
You can put visual effect layers on top of Windows or Linux, but it’s just painting a turd. Instead of ordinary frustration and time-wasting, you get pretty frustration and time-wasting. (And that’s subjective — personally, I find Vista’s Aero and the Linux “eye candy” add-ons to be garish, ugly, tacky, and completely missing the point.)
We don’t use Macs and Mac software because of the eye candy. We use them because of the design. Design and eye candy are very different — design is a combination of how it looks, what it does (and doesn’t do), and how it works.
Use a Mac for 6 months, and you’ll wonder why you ever used anything else.
via marco.org
An old post by Marco Arment, founder of Instapaper. Although this is an old post, but all the things Marco said here is still true. This is why I’ve replaced all my machine with Apple hardware.
✎ Endian
Getting short int and long int from a byte character on C can make you shoot your feet sometimes. Especially if you’re coding it in Little Endian machine and processing them on Big Endian machine. Suddenly you get a different result. For example take a look at this code
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 |
get_int32(unsigned int *dest, char *src)
{
unsigned char dummy[4];
memcpy(&dummy[0],&src[0],1);
memcpy(&dummy[1],&src[1],1);
memcpy(&dummy[2],&src[2],1);
memcpy(&dummy[3],&src[3],1);
memcpy(dest,&dummy,4);
}
get_int16(unsigned int *dest, char *src)
{
unsigned char dummy[2];
bzero(dummy,2);
memcpy(&dummy[0],&src[0],1);
memcpy(&dummy[1],&src[1],1);
memcpy(dest,&dummy,2);
} |
This code when processed in Big Endian machine can correctly translate a byte character to **Long** and **Short**. What it did is it assume that the **Most Significant Bit** is stored on the lowest address. but if we run this code on the Little Endian machine (such as your ordinary Intel machine) it will produce a different result because on Little Endian the **Least Significant Bit** is stored in the lowest address, and that can cause a bug in you application. To fix things lets change the code to the following
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 |
unsigned long int get_int32(char *src)
{
unsigned char dummy[4];
bzero(dummy,4);
dummy[0]=*src;
dummy[1]=*(src+1);
dummy[2]=*(src+2);
dummy[3]=*(src+3);
return (dummy[0]<<24) | (dummy[1]<<16) | (dummy[2]<<8) | dummy[3];
}
unsigned short int get_int16(char *src)
{
unsigned char dummy[2];
bzero(dummy,2);
dummy[0]=*src;
dummy[1]=*(src+1);
return (dummy[0] << 8) | dummy[1];
} |
This code is better because it doesn’t assume that MSB is stored in the lowest address, it just bit shifting and ‘OR’ing memory address value.
✎ Open File Descriptor Count .
Here’s an awk function I keep using to find out how many open files a username open on a unix system. You should replace ‘oracle’ below with the username you want to check
|
1 |
lsof | awk '/oracle/ {pidct[$2]++;pidname[$2]=$2;procname[$2]=$1} END {for (i in pidname) {printf ("%s %s %dn",procname[i],pidname[i],pidct[i]);}}' | tr -s " " | sort -t " " -n -r -k 3,3 |
City of Happiness
The least a democratic society should do,” he continues, “is to offer people wonderful public spaces. Public spaces are not a frivolity. They are just as important as hospitals and schools. They create a sense of belonging. This creates a different type of society—a society where people of all income levels meet in public space is a more integrated, socially healthier one.
via shareable.net
I could only dream a city planner like that design Jakarta, it would be a great place to live
✎ Simple Document Repository Using RESTlet
REST architecture basically utilized URI for a restricted set of operation done via HTTP vocabulary. The most common vocabulary is GET, POST, PUT and DELETE. In my current project we need to have a simple way to store and retrieve PDF documents via a web server.
You might ask why I choose to use REST and not simply code a simple PHP upload script. Currently where I work its often difficult to add or install application to a server. I have a web server on Server#1, in which storage is limited and I can’t use it to store files other than web pages/scripts. I have another server Server#2 which is a database and processing server that has large amount of free space but doesn’t have any web server on it. So I think why not make a simple web server on Server#2 and expose POST/GET API to store/retrieve pdf.
I use Restlets, a simple REST framework build with Java. Using Restlets every URI is represented with a Resources class which will return a Representation if called. For this project I have two REST URI
|
1 |
POST : http://server/docs/GET : http://server/docs/{documentName} |
Its very simple, if I want to upload a document I just need to do a POST with form and <input type="file">. If the operation is successful it will return the file name. For download I would just do a usual get to the specified URL e.g.
|
1 |
GET http://server/docs/sample.pdf HTTP/1.1 |
or I would just direct my browser to the specified URL. I add a simple listing if you direct your URL to http://server/docs/. The code is hosted on Github, you can fork it and enhanced it as you wish.
Apple’s Mistake
Should Apple care what people like me think? What difference does it make if they alienate a small minority of their users?
There are a couple reasons they should care. One is that these users are the people they want as employees. If your company seems evil, the best programmers won’t work for you. That hurt Microsoft a lot starting in the 90s. Programmers started to feel sheepish about working there. It seemed like selling out. When people from Microsoft were talking to other programmers and they mentioned where they worked, there were a lot of self-deprecating jokes about having gone over to the dark side. But the real problem for Microsoft wasn’t the embarrassment of the people they hired. It was the people they never got. And you know who got them? Google and Apple. If Microsoft was the Empire, they were the Rebel Alliance. And it’s largely because they got more of the best people that Google and Apple are doing so much better than Microsoft today.
via paulgraham.com
Another great essay by Paul Graham, in it he argue that until now Apple doesn’t realize all the App Store rejection is actually hurting them deep. I especially like the Star Wars analogy he put into his article in a company to developer relationship, because its so true.
Top 10 Bad Messages From Good Movies
- If you’re not born with special abilities, you’re never going to be any good at some things, no matter how hard you try (from the Harry Potter movies, and, of course, books).
- No matter how appallingly bad conditions on Earth get, so long as there is one tiny plant on the planet, it can still be restored to its former beauty and sustainability (from WALL-E).
- Technology is fundamentally evil (from lots of movies, including the The Lord of the Rings trilogy).
- Arrogance, brash self-confidence and having had a heroic father are much more indicative of a competent leader than are experience and knowledge (from the 2009 Star Trek movie).
- Kissing sleeping women you don’t know will wake them up and lead to them falling in love with you (from Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs).
- If you’re a really good person, but in a lousy situation, simply wait around and eventually good things will just happen to you (from Cinderella).
- Unconventional creative play is very, very wrong (from Toy Story).
- Even tough women who aren’t afraid to fight aren’t as important as the men they fight alongside (from the Star Wars movies).
- It’s OK to completely change your physical appearance and way of life for the person you love, even if he makes no sacrifices at all (from The Little Mermaid).
- If you’re not a member of the elite, you’re basically inconsequential, even if you die heroically trying to save your people and your way of life (from the Star Wars movies).
via wired.com
When we watch movies, unconsciously we try to get values from what we see. Even ‘Good’ movies sometimes give bad or wrong message if you look further. But again this doesn’t mean we must condemned the movie, as civil man we should filter out good from bad by ourself.