All the Alex Bain you can handle!

Bill Simmons on Uncle Frank

Got a little misty eyed reading this.

The iPhone’s HDR feature doles some freaky punishment if your baby doesn’t sit still.

In my first job at Apple, there was a meeting between the sales folks and the ops folks every Tuesday that last anywhere from 2-4 hours. The goal was to look at sales trends and understand two things: did we have supply to meet demand, and did we have demand to meet supply. In other words: if sales were going gang busters, could the ops folks keep up, and if sales weren’t, what was the excuse.

It was my role in this meeting, as a forecaster, to explain two things:

If we continue on our current pace, where will the quarter finish.
If last week was a bad week for sales, could it be explained by seasonality (or some supply issue), or did leadership have to kick someone’s ass

I was just a kid, but I liked being the voice of truth. Tim Cook sat at the end of a long table, and I’d try to get there early and sit as close to him as I possibly could. Most folks had more skin in the game than I did, and tried to sit far away, so wasn’t exactly taking someone else’s seat.

For a while, I was focused on the education market, which tends to sell in large clumps, and has big swings up and down. Some weeks were bad enough that they could put the whole quarter meaningfully in jeopardy.

I knew when I joined Apple that Steve Jobs had a reputation for being quite vocal, at times screaming in frustration. I was surprised to see in these meetings that when Tim Cook was disappointed or wanted to get a point across, rather than getting louder and louder, he’d get quieter and quieter. Not like a wimp would, but like Jack Bauer would.

His record in driving the combination of sales success and operational efficiency speaks for itself… very quietly :-)

via Asymco

It’s also funny to remember the time when I came into work with both my eyes full of blown vessels (long story, but this is what I looked like). I took my normal seat by Cook, and went about my business. Over the course of a few hours we made plenty of eye contact and had plenty of discourse, but he never asked about it, never flinched, and never did any double-takes. That guy’s a pro!

Lisa and I were booking some flights for an upcoming wedding. The cross country flights showed up as ~$380 each, very reasonable. I clicked to purchase, and was alarmed to discover this warning.

It’d have to be one heck of a wedding to justify that kind of expense :-)

[It was a glitch; I logged out and logged in and got the original fare]

DC Earthquake Devastation - jmckinley’s posterous

Thanks to all of you for your kind words of support, as we look to recover from the devastation of today’s quake!

Thanks, Hiro, for passing this along. So well done.

jmckinley.posterous.com

Songs that start with a mistake

I can think of three songs off the top of my head that begin with a mistake: [Links open iTunes]

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day
Hard Knock Life - Jay Z (Unplugged)
The Boston Monkey - Otis Redding

I know there’s more. What am I forgetting. I feel like the Beatles have one, right?

We pose this question to Oliver from the back of a Sandra Boynton custom board book. He gets it right ~40% of the time.

instagr.am

You gotta be WAY more specific in Palo Alto

Randall: Where's Yogurtland?
Me: Next to that Greek place.
Randall [no closer to the answer he's looking for]: And where's Yoppi Yogurt?
Me: Across the street from Yogurtland

Do attractive athletes make more money?

I’d be more inclined to believe this if the notion that symmetry=beauty hadn’t been satisfactorily disproven for me in the Decline Effect article from the New Yorker a few months back.

I believe that there’s a connection between symmetry and pay, but not that it’s because symmetric players are more attractive.

Via Kottke

kottke.org

Interning at Facebook: Failing Harder (2)

Great description of what it’s like to work at Facebook. While I’m not an engineer, there’s a non-code parallel for everything in here.

Muphry's Law

OMG I love this concept. So true, although I didn’t even notice the typo in the name at first.

Effect of Alcohol on Emotional State

chartporn.org

chitwoodandhobbs:

Watching Mickey Watching Bird

I don’t want to spoil the story, but its only a few paragraphs. Do yourself a favor and give it a read…

chitwoodandhobbs

Date night, thanks to Lisa’s mom for babysitting. We love Joya. I imagine that, when I arrive at Heaven one day, God will have a plate of their yuca fries waking for me :-)

I never thought I’d be losing on Foursquare to a family member.

Nice work, Samantha!