It’s appropriate that I should revive this site for the first time in years to post about politics, I guess. We are entering dangerous waters as a nation. That’s why Bezos’s decision and editorial this past week was one more disappointment on top of so many others. I was sketching …
Fatmixx has moved from Pair.com to micro.blog for hosting. This also means we’re no longer using Wordpress and are now hosted on Hugo. Old URLs should redirect to the new ones, images should be working if they worked on the old host. If you see anything weird, let me know. If you want more …
Hi folks - hope you're having a good Friday! I've decided to consolidate the tech things I'm doing onto my other site, Useful & Clever, which is where I was putting some of the fun projects I'm working on. There's a little more to this move that I'll share later, but if you're a long time reader …
Update: There aren’t APIs for most of the services that I’d want to use here, so I’m putting this project on pause for now. I’ll probably hack something together for my own use, but trying to turn this into a service doesn’t seem possible given API usage guidelines from …
Just as a public service announcement: I deactivated my Facebook account to see what it’s like to not have a Facebook account. I suspect I’m going to run into places where it’s impossible not to have one, but let’s see what it’s like. Over the past year, especially …
The motto of the United States is not, in fact, “Fuck you, I got mine.” It was, and should have remained, “E Pluribus Unum” — out of many, one. We’re all Americans. We all deserve the blessings this country can provide. This one is willing to pay his taxes for the benefit of the many. Source: John …
Like many of you who vehemently opposed a Trump presidency, I've been walking around in a bit of a stunned stupor these last few days. I'm gathering my thoughts on what I want to do next, and how I can do the most I can to help bring about a more respectful world. There has to be a better way for us …
But I tell you what, though. [Long pause.] I’m named Barack Hussein Obama. I’m African-American. And I’ve been elected twice to this office with the majorities of the American people. So something is working. Vanity Fair Wonderful interview with President Obama. Such a decent man with a deep …
Workers in the experimental group were told they could work wherever, and whenever, they chose so long as projects were completed on time and goals were met; the new emphasis would be on results rather than on the number of hours spent in the office. NY Times
By most accounts, American Football1 started out with humble beginnings: a college sport that branched off association football (rugby) that spawned a bunch of disorganized professional organizations that eventually coalesced into the NFL and the college football behemoths we know about today. The …
So, I may have a headphone problem the way some people have shoe problems.[footnote]though my wife swears I have a shoe problem, too…[/footnote] It's not quite as bad as what I see with hard core audiophiles, but still, it's bad. Headphone addiction is kind of like they way people get hooked on …
A year ago, I wrote that the Twelve South SurfacePad was my favorite iPhone case. After a year, I'm still very happy I bought the case. I love knowing that I can leave the house with just my phone knowing I have the two most important cards with it.[footnote]Interestingly, in the US, that's my …
In my previous post, I mentioned that I was looking at reducing my dependence on free services as an experiment to see if I can improve my privacy. That post was about changing my behavior as a consumer. This time, I’m looking at the services I use in my personal development work, especially those …
I recently moved nearly all of my email off of Google’s services over to Fastmail, with MailRoute in front of it to block spam. [footnote]My @gmail.com address can’t be moved, and I’m keeping it. While I'm shifting most of that email to my main address, I'll still use it for some things.[/footnote] …
I’ve been using the new MacBook as a personal travel laptop for the last month or so. I’ve been coding and writing blog posts with it and I wanted to share my experiences. If you care about these sorts of things, I’m sure you’ve read countless reviews of the device. So I won’t try to cover …
Living in India has given me a new perspective on a lot of things. Professionally, I’m constantly learning a lot just by seeing how differently people use their phones, and how different the market and ecosystem around mobile is here. Intex? Karbonn? Spice Mobile? Oppo? The biggest eye opener has …
I can't believe I'm recommending this, being a Bose-hater for most of my adult life, but the Bose QuietComfort 25 Headphones are now my favorite travel accessory. Overpriced, yes. Average-ish sound quality, sure. But the noise canceling is uncanny. Flip the switch and the silence is surprising. …
We're flooded with fitness oriented wearable devices from the step/activity trackers like the Fitbit and Up to smartwatches like, of course, the Apple Watch. Some phones even have dedicated activity tracking chips. The sad reality, though, is that most of devices are basically the same. They do step …
I found myself watching some players on Twitch.tv this weekend playing Vainglory. It's pretty much the only game I play these days and has been for months. This was the first time that I could remember actually watching Twitch streams naturally - not checking it out because it was in the news or …
One of my recent obsessions has been RC flying. So far, I've played with relatively cheap quadcopters and helicopters, but I've managed to crash every single one enough times to end up with a pile of damaged copters. So, I basically gave up on the hobby thinking I didn't have the time (or budget) to …
For the last two years, I didn’t use a case for my iPhone. I really love the look of the 5 & 5S, and didn’t want anything to cover it up. Of course, by the end of the year, the screens had dozens of fine (and one or two not-so-fine) scratches. Really annoying. So, for the iPhone 6, I decided I’d …
(Note: This will likely only be of interest to my local friends and social network buddies. It's a response to Concerning The Suburbs, Their Raison D’etre, And How It Is Reflected In Their Planned Public Spaces, prompted by a discussion on Twitter earlier today. If you're curious, or want the …
I tweeted this earlier … we’ve stopped using @trello at @fanzter, but I still love the product. The new board view looks great: http://t.co/fhvRuFN87X #fb — Sujal Shah (@sujal) June 18, 2013 … which prompted a few people to ask, "Why'd you stop using Trello?" The answer is pretty specific to us …
I was a guest on today's episode of Where We Live on WNPR. The topic was on Connecticut Startup Culture. Give it a listen, and let the mocking commence ("Check it out, it's awesome!" groan). One thing we didn't get to on the show (and, let's be honest, there are probably a dozen conversations …
Over Christmas, I hacked together my first hardware/software project. It's been a long time since I've picked up a soldering iron, let alone built something worthy of sharing. It turned out to be a fun little project. Cause, effect, agency I got the idea to do a project over Christmas while looking …