My thoughts on Apple Park

My thoughts on Apple Park

The most common questions people ask me about Apple are about Apple Park. Usually, did you work in Apple Park? Yes, for 6 months. What was it like?

Pros

Grounds

The grounds of Apple Park are essentially the most beautiful arboreteum in the world. So many things were done so well that I could write an entire article about it.

The building is essentially located at the bottom of the piece of land, with rolling hills going up in most directions. Even on the higher floors, you can get a great illusion of being in a landscape that goes on foverer. No highways or no other buildings. Very serene.

Unlike most corporate landscaping, everything is done in a fashion that makes it look very organic and natural. Things aren’t planted in rows or in large sections. The variety of plants is enormous.

The building structure

The structure of the building … READ THE REST

Death of the (+) in web search

Death of the (+) in web search

Many years ago, search engines supported using a (+) symbol next to terms that you definitely want to be on the resulting pages. This is similar to how using the (-) symbol before a term omits pages that contain that term.

I’ll use a search string I was using recently to illustrate:

  • Does diatomaceous earth kill aspergillus (normal search)
  • Does diatomaceous earth kill +aspergillus (the word “aspergillosis” is required in search results)
  • Does diatomaceous earth kill aspergillus -bacteria (same search but exclude pages with the word “bacteria” on them)

In June of 2011, Google launched Google Plus. In October, they removed the (+) symbol as a search modifier so that it could be used for Google Plus.

However, I recently discovered that it’s been replaced by using double quotes! When you quote a word or phrase, it not only searches for that word or phrase, but it mandates that it … READ THE REST

Codename madness

Codename madness

Although I only have my experience at Apple and those of my friends at other companies, but this appears to be the case:

  • Most companies use codenames from time to time
  • Most companies that do use codenames use them for ultra-super-secret projects
  • Most companies that use codenames are to protect leaks to the outside world, not leaks within a company
  • Apple is not like most companies

The only thing at Apple that doesn’t have codenames are other codenames. Oh wait, that’s not entirely true since some projects have multiple codenames based on which organization you are in, although this is not super common.

To complicate matters, there are not really resources to translate a codename into what it stands for or vice versa. So it’s fairly anecdotal and many people keep their own cheat sheets.

But early in my career at Apple I had an amusing codename experience in a … READ THE REST

Out of context things you don’t want to overhear

Out of context things you don’t want to overhear

It’s always fun to walk around and hear snippets of conversation coming from offices, conference rooms, or open areas. Sometimes you hear frightening things out of context!

My favorite overheard line came from when I worked on Aperture. We were in the same area of Infinite Loop as Finance, so we would frequently see the CFO, Peter Oppenheimer.

One day I was walking down the hall and Peter was leaning against a wall having a conversation with someone I didn’t know.

What I heard coming out of Peter’s mouth was:

I don’t see why we have to get the FBI involved

Do I want to know the context? Should I sell my stock?

WWDC 2019 keynote

WWDC 2019 keynote

I’ve written a lot about work/life balance, including this one: Slow down and improve your health and job.

Monday this week was the first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Jose, featuring a keynote address highlighting new products soon to make their way out the door.

But I felt like turning it off after the opening movie.

As background, there is a lot of concern about the intrusion of technology on our lives and how it affects us. Apple has recently claimed to care about balancing the use of technology and brought us great features like Screen Time to help:

Screen Time, these new tools are empowering users who want help managing their device time, and balancing the many things that are important to them.

iOS 12 introduces new features to reduce interruptions and manage Screen Time

According to the WWDC opening video, writing apps appears to … READ THE REST

This icon is too horsey

This icon is too horsey

There used to be a weekly meeting with Steve Jobs to go over user interfaces and workflows for macOS. He would get together with the higher ups as well as members of the Human Interface team. Sometimes first level managers would be there or individual engineers might be there to run a demo or answer questions. They were held in a room called Diplomacy on the Infinite Loop campus and typically ran for many hours.

After this meeting, there would be a “debriefing” where one or more of the attendees of that meeting would report to the underlings. Sometimes that included people like me.

That’s the backstory to what’s actually a very short anecdote. What was fun about these debriefings is that they were like a game of telephone.

  1. Steve might say something in the weekly meeting
  2. Someone would jot down what they think he said
  3. The notes might get
… READ THE REST
Nose hair trimmer for the apocalypse

Nose hair trimmer for the apocalypse

Just because it doesn’t have a keyboard, display, touchscreen, or run software doesn’t mean it’s not technology.

Like me, you have probably assembled a stash of items for the coming apocalypse. But in our modern age, everything needs batteries and that just won’t do. So in case you’re missing a nose hair trimmer in your emergency suitcase, here’s one for you.

It’s called the Groom Mate Platinum XLand has the following features:

  • The manufacturer only makes nose hair trimmers. Really.
  • It’s called Platinum XL there is no Gold or Silver and no sizes other than XL. I guess they feel like everyone has big noses.
  • It requires no batteries. Apocalypse points!
  • It’s an excellent conversation piece if you set it pretty much anywhere.
  • It trims nose hairs effectively if you follow the instructions of Amazon reviewer Scott McDonald: “Insert. QUICKLY Twist-Twist-Twist-Twist. Remove” 
  • It rips nose hairs out by the
… READ THE REST
My first experience with a computer

My first experience with a computer

My school district offered interesting summer courses ranging from pottery to magic to computer programming. I never took pottery but I took the other two.

The summer before kindergarten I signed up for the computer programming class. Everyone was within a few years of my age so it wasn’t like I was some crazy prodigy or something.

Turns out we only had one computer (a mainframe), a keypunch, a punchcard reader, and a printer. I didn’t know what to expect so it all seemed pretty cool to me.

We learned BASIC and set to work on writing a short program. I decided I wanted to ask the computer for the size of a baseball field and have it print out the answer. I showed my program to the teacher and he told me I needed to add a line of code to print out the answer.

I was deflated. The … READ THE REST

Project Papercut

Project Papercut

You may be familiar with the phrase “death by a thousand cuts” or variations on that. You may not know that it has a gruesome origin.

Lingchi (Chinese: 凌遲), translated variously as the slow process, the lingering death, or slow slicing, and also known as death by a thousand cuts, was a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly 900 CE until it was banned in 1905

Lingchi—Wikipedia

The modern version is sometimes called “death by a thousand papercuts” and does not result in actual death but perhaps the death of a product or company.

I couldn’t find agreement on what the phrase means in modern times, so here’s my version.

Let’s say you have a product and you are putting out new versions every year. Issues get reported and are prioritized. For obvious reasons, the most serious issues are more likely to … READ THE REST