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I don't sit at the same desk anymore

So, as I think a lot of people know, Super Deluxe is being “folded into Adult Swim.” I feel like Super Deluxe was based on a fundamentally good set of ideas. I also think that we were learning as we went, and had demonstrated a great ability to learn from our audience, and make good decisions from that learning. However, companies as large as Turner make decisions that they have to make, and they make them based on a variety of reasons, not all of which are apparent or logical to someone outside the decision making process. I am sure that, for the senior management team, this was the right decision to make, and that’s their job.

I do, however, lament the fact that my amazing team of developers was dissassembled. For those of you who were on that team who might be reading this, you guys/girl were some of the finest people I have worked with in my career. I honestly felt like we could have built anything we were asked to. I wish that the senior management understood the value of keeping a development team intact, regardless of the product that they were working on. This is water under the bridge now, and I can only hope that I might teach my superiors to value development teams more in the future. Building a team, building process, and learning how to work with a large team of bright people is a challenge, and starting from scratch is a little discouraging, but I have so much learning to apply that it is also exciting.

I am working now for Turner Sports. I will be working on technology related to the NBA.com licensing deal. It's a pretty exciting project, with agressive deadlines already, and some new technology that hasn't even been created yet. There are going to be a lot of new faces here in the coming weeks, and I am looking forward to making the most of this opportunity to learn and do more.

Finally, to my Super Deluxe peoples, you folks are really unique interesting people as a group, and I just hope that I get to work with all of you again at some point in the future.

Wednesday Means I posted Every Other Day Post
Once a week minimum post.
  • I have been trying out the Evernote beta today. As a long time user of DevonThink and Yojimbo, and someone who has tested a variety of other options, I think it's great at the simple end. The advantage of being able to access all my notes via my phone is insane. Too many information managers. I still have a couple of invites, shoot me a note on Twitter.
  • Video: Using Skitch with Evernote
  • I spent some time today learning more about OpenID. This article, which is over a year old, helped me quite a bit. It's a lot simpler than you would think, and I am going to start using it for everything.
  • This video had me laughing quite a bit on Friday. "Just two men, cruising the Castro for delicious, salty nuts."
  • Rafe's Analyzing Git piece was along the same lines as I was thinking at the time. Hoping to get a chance to do a "deep dive" on Git this week. More importantly, I discovered The Thing About Git from the article. It's an excellent read.
  • You Look Nice Today is my favorite new podcast this week. It's definitely an acquired taste, based on me testing it in the car while Sue was with me.
Day of the Mystery Bag Links
Cool Links I found or stole.
Tidbits: Should Mac Users Run Antivirus Software?

Tidbits: Should Mac Users Run Antivirus Software? “I do not recommend desktop antivirus software for the average Mac user, but you need to take other precautions.”

I don't run antivirus software on any of my Mac OS X machines. In reading through the other things he says, I think that this article is something that Mac OS X users of all levels need to read. Most of this stuff is common sense to me, but it may not be common sense to you. The single most important thing to keep in mind, which he does not come out and explicitly say, is that you should not immediately trust anything online. That email that seems to be from your bank, or ebay or paypal probably is not. Look carefully at links before following them, and don't trust any source of information or software without first verifying that they are legitimate.

This can sometimes be very hard for a non-technical user to figure out, but I recommend that you err on the side of caution.

Post Tornado Weekend Links

The bump clubhouse was spared this weekend. It’s amazing how much damage the tornado did to downtown Atlanta and the neighborhoods directly East of it. Here’s some Monday surfing links:

  • Weekly Resolution: I am going to try and make a weekly resolution every week from here on out. This week's is to swear less.
  • Video: Internet Commenter Funeral Funny funny stuff.
  • The Pitfalls of Your Constant Complaining and How to Stop It
  • Things updated to 0.9. This has become my todo list manager, and this update added recurring tasks, which I really appreciate.
  • My Favorite new band of the week: Grand Archives
  • Return to Dark Castle Released The original Dark Castle game was one of the first really addictive Macintosh games in the late eighties. I am very tempted to buy this just to relive those dorm room days.
  • Pro Tip: Use Gmail to filter out that unwanted spam from your non-Gmail POP account. I was getting 900+ spam messages a day at my oldest active pop address. It's as easy as going to Settings: Accounts in Gmail and adding your account information under "Get mail from other accounts." So far Gmail's spectaculor spam filter is batting 100% on filtering out the spam.
Post SXSW Link Post 1

This will be updated a bunch today as I find more stuff going through the 13.5k articles in my copy of NNW. New Links at the top.

Monday before SXSW.

Oh Hai. So much going on here in Atlanta. I am neck deep in wedding planning. I am also going to Texas on Thursday for SXSW Interactive. Some links from my MarsEdit dashboard to start your week off with.

  • User Generated Web Video: FAIL I pretty much totally agree with this guy.
  • Harper Collins is offering one of my favorite books of all time, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, for free online during the month of March.
  • Actual Performance versus Perceived Performance. Really interesting analysis of file copies on Vista and XP.
  • New Nine Inch Nails released online. I paid the five dollars to get a copy, but they are being crushed by the traffic. The ohmpark article I linked to talks about the genesis of this "experiment." White people like experiments. Also amusing, the name of the company payments go to is "The Null Corporation."
  • I went to see Jose Gonzalez at the Variety Playhouse last night. Mini-Review: After missing his last three Atlanta stops, this show met up with all my lofty personal expectations. Jose is a marvel, and you should check him out.
  • I received my new point and shoot camera on Friday, and spent much of the weekend playing with it. It's an impressive little beast, and I am happy to have a point and shoot that offers most of the manual control that my SLR does as well as RAW file output. Unlike the previous models, where the Panasonic was the same as the Leica, this one has some Leica fiddling with the image processing. Look in my FLickr stream for some examples.
Yankees Fans and Red Sox Fans Can Love Each Other.
Engaged!

It's true. I am in love with, and now engaged to, a stupid Red Sox fan. I asked Sue to marry me this weekend on our four day jaunt to Puerto Rico, and for some reason she said yes. I don't post a lot about my feelings and personal stuff on this site, so I will keep this short. I am a lucky man, and I am very happy.

Thursday Links
  • I am totally addicted to the Items We Carry group on Flickr.
  • Shuttle releases a $199 Linux box. I love my ShuttlePC. It's the best desktop form factor in my opinion.
  • Kid Robot dropped the second series of Munny Zipper Pulls today. I never managed to find a TV one from the first season.
  • "BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine." This is hugely interesting.
  • Strobist tackles Film Noir lighting. It's in my top five photography blogs now hands down.
  • New Blog of the Day: WTFCNN?
  • Microsoft buying Logitech Dammit. I don't think that's cool for consumers at all.
  • Transmit updated to 3.6.4. Release Notes.
  • I am giving Things a test drive. Definitely an easy to learn application. Looking for some tips and tricks posts online, haven't found any.
  • The new Beanie Sigel (iTunes link) is really good stuff in a sea of stale commercial hip hop. In other music news, a Twitter from Merlin Mann has led to me listening to way too much Entombed this week. Wolverine Blues (iTunes Link) was one my favorite CD's of the Early ninties. Man was I a badass in my own mind back then.
Links for the Tuesday.