“It feels like a bait and switch: my loyalty in buying products that are better
for me as a user is being tested because shareholders need to see more services
revenue. … [I]t will feel a little bit scummier every time I go to download an
app or get directions.”
Nick Heer ,
The Ad Store
(Pixel Envy ,
October 26, 2022 )
posted 11/9/2022 8:00pm ∞
“Twitter wanted all of the credit for the innovation and none of the credit for
the impact, when the reality was the other way around. Time after time, they
came right up to the limit of acknowledging that, always to turn away at the
last moment.”
posted 9/17/2022 8:00pm ∞
“These people have always been this way. They do not seek to learn or grow,
despite the startup mantra about ‘always learning.’ They do not see personal
growth as anything other than buffing out the edges on their own sculpture —
they do not want to get better in any way that does not optimize their own
personal wealth.”
posted 7/5/2021 10:11pm ∞
“They wanted to add some custom hardware to an iPod and record data from this
custom hardware to the iPod’s disk in a way that couldn’t be easily detected.
But it still had to look and work like a normal iPod.”
David Shayer ,
The Case of the Top Secret iPod
(TidBITS ,
August 17, 2020 )
posted 3/26/2021 9:17pm ∞
“A client would come in to work out a billing procedure, and after Jackson had
put the relevant numbers on a sheet — in light pencil, so erasures could be
easily made — various questions would come up. For example, if the billing
procedure was based on a 15 percent interest rate, what would happen if the
rate went up to 18 percent? To find out, the whole sheet would have to be
redone. Each figure would have to be punched into a hand calculator and then
checked by one of Jackson’s employees.”
Steven Levy ,
A Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge
(Wired, Harper’s ,
November 1984 )
posted 2/19/2020 8:32pm ∞