Hello Kitty To The Stars

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If this doesn’t inspire everyone, especially teenaged girls, to explore science I don’t know what will.

Besides the feeling of awe when watching this video, the other thing that jumped out at me was that she could do this at all. When I was in third grade we tied notes to balloons and let them go, seeing if anyone found them and would call to tell us about it. (We got at least one call.) But Lauren, the girl who conducted this experiment, got to watch the entire thing via mounted cameras at multiple angles. Ten years ago the cameras would have been too heavy to send into space. Five years ago, too expensive. Now? If their destroyed, oh well!

The joys of potentially disposable technology: great for our minds, bad for our landfills.

Opera Goes WebKit

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Interesting news yesterday that Opera is dropping their custom backend for WebKit. WebKit is the HTML rendering engine used by Safari, iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, and BlackBerry with its latest OS. From the press release:

When we first began, back in 1995, we had to roll our own rendering engine in order to compete against the Netscape and Internet Explorer to drive web standards, and thus the web forward. When we started the spec that is now called “HTML5”, our goal was a specification that would greatly enhance interoperability across the web.

The WebKit project now has the kind of standards support that we could only dream of when our work began. Instead of tying up resources duplicating what’s already implemented in WebKit, we can focus on innovation to make a better browser. Opera innovations such as tabbed browsing, Speed Dial and data-saving compression that speeds up page-load, have been widely copied and improved the web for all.

Some developers will be concerned that innovation will stop now, with all but two major browsers using the same engine. I’m not concerned about that. In fact I think quite the opposite will occur. We will see increased innovation on top of the consistent WebKit base as each Google, Apple, Opera and BlackBerry attempt to innovate on top of what is there already while maintaining compatibility for what came before.

As for developers, more consistency is a very good thing. For anyone who has tried to make their web sites compatible with Internet Explorer 6 knows… yeah, consistency is a very good thing!

Not Crushing It

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Great post by Elizabeth Yin:

I’ll be one of the first entrepreneurs to admit we’re not crushing it.  Building a business is hard.  Crushing it would mean that you are always on the up and up.  Crushing it would mean that you are always hitting all your goals.  But you know what, that never happens — whether it’s in business or in life.  I am never crushing it. We are never crushing it.

Oh, man, can I relate. January started my 16th year running Infinity Softworks. Year after year I hear about the hot new company. A few years go by and that company is gone. I don’t wish the end for these companies and believe at some point we will be a hot company again, but meanwhile it is one foot in front of the other.

How do I do it, you ask? Easy. I believe in what I’m trying to accomplish and don’t believe it will happen over night.

(By the way, what a stupid phrase, “crushing it.” It’s like we are all pro ball players hitting home runs or surf boarders or pop drinkers or something. This is business, not entertainment.)

Adventures In App Marketing

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My friend Patrick Thompson pulled off a great presentation last month at Mobile Portland. Patrick’s built an excellent indie company, accomplishing the goals he set out to accomplish, doing it his way. In this presentation he walks through how he built his company from scratch, describing in detail the things he learned along the way, including mistakes he made. He shared tons of data! Enjoy!

The Little Things

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I got my first job when I was 14. My job was to wash out golf carts a few days a week at the local college-sponsored course. In exchange, I received free green fees and a locker to store my clubs. I didn’t get paid in cash for that job — I was actually too young for that by state law, I believe — but to a 14 year old who probably would have spent most of the money playing golf anyway, it was a heck of a deal.

At the end of the summer my mom and stepdad moved us to Florida and the next summer I came back to Ohio to stay with my dad. That summer my dad talked to a friend of his who painted houses and got me on his crew. I worked hard that summer. It was grueling, physical labor with very long hours. I’m sure my dad got me the job partly to show me what life would be like if I didn’t go to college.

But that wasn’t the only thing I learned. I also learned a little about working with people, in particular managing them. My boss, a friend to this day, worked us from early until late every day but at the end of every day, he never failed to say thank you as we each left for home and dinner. It wasn’t a complex gesture, just a simple one, but it always made me feel wanted and respected.

I try to do the same thing to this day.