Business on Forgeover

I Would Do This for Free

Sun, 31 May 2015 06:10:51 +0000

I just set up a Patreon.com page. If you haven’t heard of it yet, patreon is a service that allows content creators, artists, and musicians to accept the generosity of their adoring public (that’s you).

The concept mirrors the ideal that Amanda Palmer talked about in her awesome TED Talk. Do what you do for love, then ask for help. I suspect that this idea is as old as art, but AFP puts a new spin on it by making it distributed.

Farkwar is Born

Thu, 15 May 2014 05:00:15 +0000

When I was younger (let’s just say I was 10) my uncle would entice me to row him across what seemed like an endless [Muscongous] sound to Loud’s Island, by making up silly stories about a fellow named Barfoolean Farkwar.

Barf would do things like set out to sail without a sail. When he realised his blunder, he would split all of his underpants in half, and sew them together to make a stinky sail (Barf wasn’t much for hygiene).

And just like that… I'm plugged in!

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 03:18:20 +0000

I’ve always known that there is a flow to life. Swim with it and you move quickly towards your destination. Swim against and you may get where you think you want to go, but man do you have to work for it. After a year an a half of cruising, I was well positioned to stay in the flow, but it was surprisingly difficult to maintain my conviction in the sleepy months surrounding the holidays. The city was all but dormant, there were no jobs posted, no real professional meetups, and I was starting to think of forcing, and leveraging. In other words, I was getting desperate.

Who Am I?

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:51:36 +0000

I just got done reading Ashley Ambrige’s new e-book You Don’t Need a Job, You Need Guts. It’s an inspirational piece in the same vein as Chris Guillebeau’s Unconventional Guides. Both authors encourage their readers to do whatever it is that they are passionate about (though Ashley claims to be weary of the term passion). Every time I read one of these books I think, yeah, I can totally kick ass in that self motivated, self promoting, me against the big bad world way. Really, I’m perfectly wired for it… until.

Preparing for TED and India

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:37:02 +0000

3 days to go. I can’t remember ever being this excited for a trip. I haven’t packed a thing yet, but I spend every spare second thinking about what to bring (and perhaps more importantly what to leave behind). The anticipation of the people I’m going to meet and the places I’m going to see is nerve wracking and thrilling and overwhelming.

I’m buried at work. TED related activity, on both the TEDIndia and Jill’s Wish front have created a maelstrom of tasks and objectives. Beyond that I’ve got new and old projects coming out my ears. Come Friday, I will have to find a way to let all of those things go so that I can be free to lose myself in this experience.

Why Tweet

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:58:41 +0000

In a recent comment my buddy Dave asked:

“Okay. I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask, even see if you would write a blog post on it. This seems like an opportune time. Why Twitter? I don’t get it. Am I not understanding something fully? It seems like one more digital distraction in my day. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. But the rate at which people use it makes me think its not going away as fast as I once thought.

Humans Suck at Estimating Modern Odds

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:19:03 +0000

Bruce Schnier has given a similar talk in years past that I just loved. This one is Dan Gilbert talking at TED Global on the topic of how our ability to estimate risk/odds/value/etc. in our modern context just sucks.

I don’t easily stoop to using other people’s content on my blog, so please do cut me some slack on this one. Its just too important to paraphrase!

Trying Out SnapShots

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:18:24 +0000

UPDATE:
Based on feedback from @reese and Victoria, and my general sense that I was just doing this to avoid writing about something more interesting, I have removed the Snap plugin from this site. Phew. Read on if you must…

…I am trying out snap.com’s snapshots. Snapshots add seemingly cool mouseover popups to my links. . I’m interested to hear what my readers think? Is this intrusive, annoying, helpful. Please comment!

I Am A Radiant Being

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:16:09 +0000

Okay, I’m going to come right out and say this cheesy thing that sometimes runs through my mind. I am a radiant being. This is not to say that I am radiant and some other people are dull. I suspect that we are all radiant. In any case, that’s not the point of this post. This is the point. I want to believe that what I do for money is just one aspect of who I am, and what makes me valuable in this life.

Admitting Failure

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:10:29 +0000

I put this Title in my drafts folder on June 12th. Its been sitting there taunting me ever since. Then on Wednesday I attended a session at OSCON titled “Programmer Insecurity & The Genius Myth”. Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian Fitzpatrick talked to us about how our fear of looking like an idiot or not being taken seriously, or hubris, prevents us from admitting failure.

The following are my thoughts on this topic, which have recently been influenced and enhanced by Ben and Brian.

Simple Kindle Backup

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:17:31 +0000

This week Amazon pulled a surprisingly ironic move. It removed an unauthorized version of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal farm from all connected Kindles. Its important to note that these books were uploaded to the Kindle Store by a company that did not own the rights. Regardless, the move angered and frighted Kindle many users.

There are countless newspaper articles, blog posts and tweets on the irony, legality and fairness of this move, so I won’t say more about that here. What I will do is provide a solution to this problem. I’m not using (or supporting) Windows anymore, so this solution will only work for you if have a Mac or Linux box.

Forgeover: Now Available in 42 Languages

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:31:48 +0000

Thanks to the fantastic Global Translator Plugin, my site is now available in 42 languages. You can have the site translated to your language by appending your country code to the domain, or clicking one of the flags above. For example /es will give you the homepage in Spanish. The first time a page is translated it takes a while to build, so Global Translator gives you the google translation page while you wait. A Dutch speaking friend verified that that translation looked okay, if you are fluent in one of the 42 languages, I would love some feedback on translation quality (and mistakes).

My Free Kindle Book Recipe

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:59:50 +0000

I love my Kindle. I knew that I would, because I borrowed my friends for a few weeks and read a book on it. I was worried about the lack of a “Kindle Public Library” and the whole loaning and selling Kindle books thing until I rediscovered Project Gutenberg, and Feedbooks.

To be honest, while I knew about Project Gutenberg before, I didn’t really have a use for it until I had a dedicated reader. I mean, who wants to read a book at your computer. Even on a laptop its no fun. But with a svelte, light, non-backlit reader in my hands, the out-of-copyright and CC world are my oyster.

Apple Color Picker Magic

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:33:27 +0000

I often have trouble coming up with good color palettes for my themes, icons, and applications. I think I have a good enough sense for what looks good together and for finding tones and hues that match the mood of said app, theme, or icon, but it always takes me hours to identify the colors on the color wheel or spectrum.

Last night, quite by accident, I found a solution to this conundrum that may make my life quite a bit easier.