It Is Now Scientifically Proven: Haters Are Gonna Hate

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Sarah Kliff, at The Washington Post's Wonkblog writes:

To test out this theory, a team of psychologists asked study participants how they felt about a number of mundane and unrelated subjects that included (but was not limited to) architecture, health care, crossword puzzles, taxidermy and Japan. They wanted to figure out if people tended to like or dislike things in general. This was dubbed the individual’s dispositional attitude or, more simply put, checked for whether they were a hater who pretty much hates on everything that comes across their path. Haters are gonna hate.

Virginia’s Wallops Island to Launch Spacecraft To Moon On Sept 6

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Martin Weil, at The Washington Post writes:

The mission will not land on the moon, but it is intended to go into orbit around it. The robotic mission is to collect detailed information about the moon’s thin atmosphere. Sometimes thought to be nonexistent, the lunar atmosphere has been described as extremely tenuous and fragile, but present. According to the space agency, the launch will record many firsts. One will be the first launch beyond Earth orbit from the Virginia facility. Cool.

What Do You Think? - Warby Parker's Home-Try On Program

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I need new glasses. My current frames are beat to hell, and I've been using them with various lenses for over ten years now. This, plus the fact that Tiffany Arment and Casey Liss both spoke very highly of their experience with Warby Parker on a recent ad on Accidental Tech Podcast persuaded me to give Warby Parker a shot.

Taking Warby Parker up on their Home Try-On Program offer, I picked out five frames that I thought I'd like and ordered them. The Home Try-On Program is a free service in which they send you five frames, for free. You try them on, and within 5 days, put them back in the same box and drop them off at a nearby UPS store, where Warby Parker ships them back for free. You have nothing to lose, what-so-ever, by trying this. I placed my order on Thursday of last week, and they arrived around noon today. My wife agreed to take 5 quick pictures of me wearing the various frames. What do you think? Which one should I go with? I've written my thoughts about each pair of frames below the corresponding picture.


Webb in "Revolver Black Crystal"

Visually, I liked these a lot. You cannot really tell from this picture, but the frames have a clear backing along the interior edges which make peripheral vision very nice (no dark outline of a frame all around your eyes). These frames fit horribly though. They were too tight on the sides, too loose in the back and kept feeling like they are about to fall off the bridge of my nose. These felt a little more like a rounded rectangle rather than a circle as well, and were a tad narrow in height.


Fillmore in "Revolver Black These felt too tight along most of the stem. From the front they felt wide enough for me but overall I just didn't like the style - mostly the bridge. Because these hugged the side of my head so tightly, they were slightly lifted off the bridge of my nose and overall just did not fit well.


Wiloughby in "Revolver Black This was my oddball choice. I picked one very square frame just to verify that I wanted round. I thought I wouldn't like them, but had to try them on to be sure. I confirmed my suspicions. I definitely want round frames again. I had a pair of rectangles such as these back in the '90s and grew sick of them after a short while. The lenses are too narrow in height which results in my seeing either the tops or the bottoms of the frames in my view most of the time. This is annoying. These fit okay. They were a little tight in the middle of the stems but loose towards the back over my ears.


Begley in "Whiskey Tortoise" In the mirror, I felt these were not wide enough from the front. However, these felt too loose - almost as if they were going to fall off. The stems that extend over my ears actually get wider near the back of my head. Too wide. I like the shape and would probably choose these if they were widget from the front but narrower at the back.


Watts in "Sugar Maple" As soon as I put these on I could tell the difference. They fit perfectly, and felt it. These were not too tight or too loose. Also, you cannot tell from the photo, but the stem of each side of the frames curve inwardly, slightly, behind the ear and sort of wrap around the head behind the ear. This gives a comfortable feeling that they will not fall off. The lenses do not feel too large or too small when worn. They seem to be the appropriate width, and overall, I like this pair the most. The more I wear these, the more I like them. They also feel nice when wearing headphones (which I do for 6-12 hours a day.

Photos Of Possible "Graphite" iPhone 5S Rear Shell Surface

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Sonny Dockson, at his blog writes:

Up to this point, it has widely been thought that the iPhone 5S will only come in 3 colors: Gold, Slate, and white with silver trim. According to a new images we’ve obtained, however, it appears the iPhone 5S may also come in a 4th color – a grey or graphite color with a black trim. You can check out samples in the below gallery! Richard Padilla, at Macrumors writes: Sonny Dickson has posted new photos showing alleged parts from a "graphite" colored iPhone 5S, which could be a fourth color choice for the phone in addition to the expected black and white choices, as well as the all but confirmed "champagne" color option. The photos show the device from numerous angles with the back, front, and screen housing assembled, and also show it next to the champagne iPhone 5S and iPhone 5S screen assembly. These all seem quite plausible.

House Update: We Have A Structure

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Updated: Some of our family members who live close by to the new house drove by yesterday to take a look at it. They sent us a couple of pictures that shows the progress from Thursday.

Steffanie were out at the house this past Thursday. Almost 3 weeks prior, the builders had just finished pouring the foundation & the basement walls, but had not yet filled the dirt in around the house or started on the first floor. As you can see below, they've been busy over the past few weeks. [nivoslider id="4810"]

On Steve Ballmer's "Retirement"

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There's not much for me to say that hasn't already been said elsewhere, by better writers than I. But I feel compelled to pound out my two cents in anyway.

Google is famously managed by engineers with a strong emphasis on engineering as a company value (whether they actually live up to that is an entirely different discussion). Apple famously holds design and designers in high esteem.

Microsoft? For the past 10+ years Microsoft has been managed by their Salesman in Chief. Ballmer was a sales guy with an MBA. A lot of Microsoft's defenders love to point out how Windows is still the best selling OS in the world or how Microsoft's revenue numbers have done nothing but go up over the past ten years. To take these statements at face value and out of context of what the rest of the technology industry has done since Ballmer has reigned at CEO is extremely naive and short sighted.

Ballmer did what sales people do best: he sold their existing products. Sales people do not create. They take products that have been created by others and through social skills (which Ballmer arguably had) persuade others to buy. But when you then take a person such as this and put them in charge, it can have disastrous consequences. I would argue that people with a sales background are very badly suited to run a technology company. Now, that is not to say that a person with a sales background can't make a great CEO - I'm sure there are many who have founded and ran great companies such as Macy's, Sears, etc. No, my argument is that sales people do what they do best, and that primarily is protecting their existing territory while trying to sell as much of it as possible. Microsoft has essentially been playing defense since Ballmer has taken over. And their weapons with which they've defended with (Office & Windows) have slowly began to lose their effectiveness. Microsoft cannot defend forever, especially when Google and Apple are both on a warpath. Microsoft has been crippled for years. There are dozens of stories of creative products that began to get traction within the company, only to be squashed by the Windows or Office divisions as soon as that product started to look like a potential threat to their sales. Countless stories tell of political fights within Microsoft between those two divisions and how the bureaucracies of those two products would shut down or cripple any initiative that they perceived as a threat to their own budgets.

One prime example of this is the Courier project. In case you don't remember, Courier was Microsoft's early potential answer to iOS. A team within the company had developed a new touch interface that ran on a touchscreen tablet-like device. It was so far along that a demo video was leaked onto the web which received very high praise from most designers who saw it. When the Windows division found out about this, they used their political clout to have the project shut down because it did not run Windows. Most of the Courier team quit Microsoft to founded their own company. You can now see the fruits of their labor on the App Store, known as Paper. In fact, if you browse their company's about page you will see a who's-who of ex-Microsoft employees who all have innovative iOS and touch products to their name while at Microsoft who now no longer work there.

I do not know if Steve Ballmer is directly responsible for the fact that 53 exists, as a company, but surely if he is not, then his failure to prevent others within the company for driving employees like this out can be laid as his feet. Ballmer's corrosive policies has propped up the bureaucracies of Office and Windows at the expense of all other creative initiatives because he is too short-sighed or cowardly to attempt anything else for fear that it could harm their crown jewels.

The sad part is though, as John Gruber pointed out, all of the potential successors to Ballmer that showed any promise have all left the company in the past several years. From the outside it looked as if Ballmer himself was responsible for driving them out of the company for fear that they might replace him. And now, in the end, it looks as if even that couldn't save him from being forced out by the board. Good riddance.

If there ever was a time to bring in someone from the outside, and to not promote within, I think this is it. Ballmer has seen to that.

Cisco to Cut 4,000 Jobs, Blames Weak Economic Recovery

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Don Clark, at The Wall Street Journal writes:

Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO +0.21% said it would cut 4,000 jobs, or 5% of its workforce, despite reporting an 18% jump in profit in the fourth fiscal quarter. John Chambers, chief executive of the big Silicon Valley technology company, blamed the decision largely on a disappointing economic recovery that is affecting particular countries and product lines in different ways. Oh? It couldn't possibly be because the quality of Cisco's hardware has been in steady decline over the past decade as their customer service has also declined yet their prices have continued to be the highest among all of their competitors. Nope. Couldn't possibly be that.