Fiat Lux
Nothing looks different out here, but WP 2.5 is running now. That was pretty easy.
The new admin interface will take a little getting used to, though. I like most of the changes, but I do kind of miss having the ‘”Categories” option to my right when creating a new post. It’s not a showstopper, though. I’ll adjust.
Audio historians have found a set of French “phonautogram” recordings from 1860 that predate Thomas Edison’s recordings by more than 10 years.
On a digital copy of the recording provided to The New York Times, the anonymous vocalist, probably female, can be heard against a hissing, crackling background din. The voice, muffled but audible, sings, “Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit” in a lilting 11-note melody — a ghostly tune, drifting out of the sonic murk.
What’s even cooler, you can download the clip yourself and listen to it. The quality’s not great, but it’s clearly a woman singing. Very neat.
We all tend to see the world through our own lens, that’s a given. UX people think UX is the most important thing in developing a product. Developers think that great programming is the secret sauce. Entrepreneurs think that if you’re not at a startup, you’re a loser. Marketers think that without marketing, you’re toast. Others say that “Marketing is the price you pay for creating mediocre products”. And on and on it goes.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years in this business, it’s a sense of perspective. In this case, it means remembering this:
It’s not just about building insanely great products, it’s also about building an insanely great company.
And to do it, you need a balanced team with a firm grasp of not just the nuts and bolts, but also the bigger picture.
The history of the Valley is littered with stories of people and companies who couldn’t get the balance right — great ideas poorly executed, slick promotions that couldn’t save a piece of crap product, great products ground into the dust by badly-managed companies, and many more besides. Success is very, very difficult.
Fail to keep your sense of perspective, though, and it’s that much harder to achieve.
if you haven’t seen it, do so. This is the entire thing, not just the snippet you’ll see on TV:
Or at the very least, read the transcript.
I’ve spent the last 2 days in New York, celebrating the wedding of a very old and dear friend. I got caught up with several people who knew me when I was still a shy, gangly teenager and discovered that another old friend now lives about 10 minutes away from my in-law’s house. Good times.
One thing that struck me in the middle of the reception was how infrequently I spend time in the company of people who are not part of the tech business, and how I really need to do more of it. Listening to writers and lawyers and doctors and teachers talk about LinkedIn, Skype, and MySpace was fascinating — of the three, Skype got the highest marks, for helping a grandmother video conference with her grandchild. MySpace got a universal thumbs-down. Only one person used it, and he couldn’t understand how anyone found “real” friends on it because all he got was invitations from porn spammers. The rest thought it was ugly and couldn’t see why anyone would want to have a profile there. People were interested to hear about LinkedIn, but only one person was on it and wasn’t too sure it was even useful.
All in all, it was a powerful reminder to me — what we in the Valley take for granted is barely on the radar screen of people outside the bubble. More of us should remember that.