When Rocks Falter

I’ve never been a rock. I’m about as passionate as someone can be when I choose to do something. Unfortunately that means I tend to throw myself (my raw unadulterated self) at my interests. It’s just who I am and who I’ve always been. This has positives and negatives associated with it (especially from a personal perspective).

Throwing yourself at a passion has enormous benefits. You get a lot done, you can truly touch people’s lives. You can really change the world. But you also take on a lot of risk. Putting yourself out there is the easiest way to get burned. When you’re passionate, it’s hard to not take things emotionally. It’s hard to not care. After all, caring is where you draw your power from.

I have always been held up by those that I knew were rocks. I always leaned on people who I know weren’t just abiding a flight-of-fancy, but who could wear the tide. But what happens when you start to see those who you thought were rocks, falter…?

FUD and Flames And Trolls, Oh My!

Last weekend I gave the opening keynote at PHPNW14. The talk was recorded, and no, the video isn’t online yet. The basis of the talk was centered around community and how we can come together (and how we are drifting apart). But there was one point that I mentioned that I think requires further thought and discussion. And that point is that there is far less trolling going on than it may seem at first glance.

Google Glass - A First Impression

This past Thursday evening I picked up my Explorer edition of Google Glass. I was lucky enough to have my #ifihadglass tweet chosen to receive the chance to pay an arm and a leg to get them. Needless to say, I did choose to pony up the cash, and on Thursday evening I walked home with my brand new piece of technology dangling off of my right temple. Since first impressions are often strong, but can be misleading, I chose to wait until I had used them for a few days before writing my thoughts. So here they are:

Our Failure As An Industry

In the April issue of the PHPArch magazine (also published on her blog), Elizabeth Tucker Long wrote a really interesting editorial piece coining a concept she called Security-Driven-Development. She (quite correctly) identified a problem in the current development community where security has become an after-thought (if it’s thought of at all). This isn’t a new concept, in fact it’s a concept that I and many others have been preaching for quite a while now. However I’ve been coming to realize that I’ve had it wrong the whole time. And I think the entire industry is getting it wrong today.

On "Wealth Inequality In America"

There’s been a viral video that’s been circulating the internet recently called Wealth Inequality In America. It’s actually been published for quite some time, but it’s crossed my plane of vision a few times in the past few days. While I don’t believe that the content is wrong (in fact, it is actually quite right), I believe that the point the video makes and how it makes it are both misleading. The video tends to imply some nefarious plot to keep the poor down. But in reality, all it is showing is the natural tendency for any system of sufficient complexity to trend towards having a power-law distribution.