I’ve spent a solid chunk of my life floundering against creative tools to breathe life into ideas. Bret Victor had the perspective to step back and reevaluate the very foundations of those tools. And start building better ones.
He reminds us how young and brutish the art of software design is. And circuit design. And animation.
Now I have a better idea of what it must have felt like to visit Xerox PARC in the 70s.
Now that I’m a little less blind, I feel obliged to help.
More thoughts forthcoming.
While you wait, why not explore his Kill Math series?
A week ago I tweeted a quick idea for iOS apps that let the user select a photo from the device:
Today, a new version of Tapbots’ popular twitter client Tweetbot added this very option. You have to hand it to them for just going with a good idea. And yes, they let me know before they…
I hope Tumblr adds this to their app next. Wonderful, simple idea.
With themes organized by category, realtime previews, and an advanced code editor, it’s never been faster or easier to make your blog yours.
Internet Explorer users will still see the old Customize interface while we wrap up IE testing.
Nice. Big nod to iOS. Goes above and beyond sixteen-year-old Ethan’s suggestions. Looks like they’re using Ace editor behind the scenes to power the new syntax-aware code highlighting. Seems to be the definitive choice for HTML editing in the browser.
One thing: I never quite understood why Tumblr pulls content from demo to preview themes instead of my actual blog. I guess the premise is you get to quickly see an assortment of post types?
Almost two years ago, I wrote my first guest post for tuneage. It was on Mumford & Sons. The band has since exploded - being nominated for a grammy, featured on major movie soundtracks and playing shows across the world.
A new (fairly high quality) Mumford & Sons track is making the rounds online. It comes from a live session the band did for a Colorado radio station.
The song is currently Untitled but I couldn’t help my excitement in sharing this beautiful track - Marcus Mumford’s crooning voice, heartbreaking lyrics and those fantastic harmonies have me hooked.
That’s right. I’ve decided to make the app free for the time being. The plan is to add some super awesome paid features in upcoming releases, but the core functionality of Listenr will remain available pro bono. Much thanks to everyone who supported me by purchasing the app over the last few months. Now on to the new features:
The two big ones this time are Last.fm Scrobbling and Search. Also, all avatars and post metadata is stored locally on your phone, so this should result in a snappier experience.
To enable Last.fm scrobbling, just head on over to the Settings App, and under Listenr, flip the switch to ON. The next time you open the app, you’ll be asked once for your credentials. Rest assured, Listenr never stores your Last.fm password.
Enjoy! Leave a nice review if you dig the app. And if not, pop me an email or a Tumblr message. I’m always open to suggestions.
Huzzah! And I’m working on reblog support, among other things, as I type this.
Today, Bump received a special delivery. It’s an Anybot. Above is a photo of our robot in collapsed mode, taunting the office dog. Pretty incredible and a bit absurd. You pilot the robots via the AnyBots website. They have head-mounted displays and speakers, so you can actually talk face-to-face with coworkers around the office while you’re controlling the robot. I recommend checking out their website during the work week to test-pilot an Anybot around the company’s office in Mountain View. The experience is very reminiscent of a video game. WASD to drive, click to shoot… your laser… pointer.
This is just the beginning. Imagine all the possibilities once these guys are dextrous.
I think we’re going to have a ton of fun hacking Bump capabilities into this guy.
