smag

When your mortgage, everything you eat, the clothes your wife and children wear all come from one company, it is not hard to convince yourself that "this company might not be moral, but if I weren't here, someone else would be." And most people never even consider the ethics and morals of their workplace.

Yes, this is true.

When I was a kid I discovered ELIZA at a museum and spent hours chatting with her, trying to figure out how it worked. It was a lot of fun. Maybe I'll get a second chance.

I actually saw this happen at Google: no one could pinpoint the cause of the broken build for a while, and then it turned out to be a UX designer who broke the build. He was apologetic, like McFunley's example. But unlike the example, this guy never made another commit.

Money Stuff by Matt Levine is a gem. You don't need to work in finance to appreciate Matt Levine's insider take on the people and ideas that are in the news.

This editorial makes sense: once a company takes outside investment that demands outsized returns not in 10 years, but tomorrow, founders and employees will feel pressure to take larger risks and act in ways that might not be moral or ethical. VC-backing is definitely a factor in fraud, anti-competitive tactics, and unethical behavior. But what's the alternative to VC-backing? Doesn't seem possible for everything to be bootstrapped.

About me: Product manager who appreciates design and code. Helped to create successful new products at Google and startups. Looking for an organization where I can help create software that "augments human intelligence."

  Location: Austin, Texas, USA
  Remote: Will consider
  Willing to relocate: Not initially
  Technologies: Self-taught HTML, CSS, Sketch, Abstract, Origami, Processing, some basic Ruby, Jekyll, Git
  Résumé/CV: See https://ssmagula.github.io/
  Email: stefan.smagula[at]gmail dot com

This makes a lot of sense to me. Why don't we use this system? The main risk I see is that an individual might lose both the "computer card" (today it'd be your mobile phone) and the backup version of the look up table of pseudonyms and service providers / partners. Another question: if a bank needs to report interest or capital gains to the taxing authorities, would they report using a unique pseudonymous identity? If that's so, then how would the taxing authority know from whom to collect the tax?

Here's what it would take to get me to make bring my product design/interaction design skills to open source software: * Easy way to and keep track of 'what projects are underway now and which need HCI or UX expertise'? * Way to speak with the team over email or IM about what UX challenges there are, and learn the constraints * Confidence that designers will be adequately recognized for their contributions

Reading the thread here makes me realize that we're all so specialized--and this is a big part of the problem. UX designers need to learn to use a command line, need to learn to do at least some coding. Likewise, software engineers (including open source contributors) need to become more discerning about the basic principles of human-computer interaction and user interface design (not just visual styling). Once both roles start to become generalizing specialists, better collaborations will just happen.

Congratulations to everyone who helped create Drupal 7. I took a quick look at it, and the Admin UI looked much improved.