Yesterday I released a new iPhone app into the App Store. It’s a local guide to Los Altos, California, the town where I live, and a bit more: with a few simple discussion and sharing features, Townie is an app for community.
Townie
January 29, 2010 — iphone, losaltos, townie
It Doesn't Grow On Trees, But I Found Some On The Sidewalk This Morning
November 23, 2009 — life, losaltos
This morning I was walking downtown to my favorite local wifi work spot. As I rounded the corner from my side street to the main road downtown, I was surprised to find a folded bundle of cash lying on the sidewalk with the number “50” peeking from the corner of one of the bills. “Someone’s going to miss that,” I thought as I picked up the folded bills and counted three twenties, a fifty, and a one dollar bill.
Reluctance
November 03, 2009 — books, life, poems
Sometimes I miss midwestern autumns and winters. Here's a poem for November by Robert Frost.
The Way It Is
September 04, 2009 — books, life, poems
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
—William Stafford
Forgiveness is Better than Permission
August 26, 2009 — app store, iphone
...yet another take on the App Store
There’s lots of talk going around about the iPhone App Store and Apple’s tight control over it. This week Joe Hewitt and Chris Messina weighed in with their thoughts. People in the iPhone community have been complaining about this for a long time, and although there’s no sign that anything is changing, more attention to this topic can only help.
A couple of weekends ago, I had the pleasure of hanging out with Larry Wall. Larry is famous for creating the Perl programming language, for running the large open-source team that’s grown up around Perl, and for freely mixing his personal thoughts into his professional work. When we talked, Larry said something to me that seems fit for the App Store and also seems like a pretty good way to live.