The Mindful Coder

Seriously @mastercard – why would you turn off customers in the first field itself?

The Fat Oracle — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:18:11 +0000

Weird money

The Fat Oracle — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 23:03:10 +0000

This falls outside the usually technical or at least tech related nature of my posts. But it’s something I don’t understand and I’m intuitively taking a very technical approach to learning about it.

I cannot comprehend finance. I truly cannot. I can build and understand complex software + network architectures but finance is a mystery to me and I always have felt pretty ‘thick’ when I hear my much younger cousins discussing their killing on the stock market or the latest ETFs or ask me about my portfolio (what portfolio?). If you are reading this, cousin PK and you thought we had an intelligent discussion, it’s because I am an amazing faker – it’s unfair that I can never list that on my otherwise hollow looking linkedin profile.

I have started looking into this new world of finance and don’t quite like what I hear. I have never been able to make purely profit based judgements of any matter big and small and this is getting to be an issue with the financial system as well. What does it produce? How can you create nothing but be able to make the most money in it? Simply put, how can money ‘create’ more money without any intermediate product or step as an outcome as well?

I need to start at genesis if I have any hope of understanding a subject and so I have started at the beginning – or atleast a recent beginning and this shit is crazy. In my mind, there is no such thing as perpetual energy – you cannot produce or consume anything without a by product or cost. But the last 30-40 years has seen the emergence of what is called ‘Financial Innovation’ or ‘Financial Engineering’ – which has made made possible producing money from money without any actual product involved!! How neat. Not really. That neatness has apparently translated into the global chaos we see now.

Co-incidentally, I listened to the ‘How money got weird‘ podcast on NPR’s Planet Money this week and something clicked for me – I wasnt the only one who thought this stuff would be funny if it didn’t basically mean armageddon. Apparently many people have clued into this a long time ago and I am just discovering it now because I am new to the subject.

Also watched Inside Job on netflix yesterday and it only re-iterated the ‘this stuff is ridonkulous’ message.

If so many ‘experts’ think it is fucked up now, how the fuck did we get into this mess??

Both Planet Money and Inside Job featured a commentator Satyajit Das – who seems to be one of those crucial spectators of the last few decades who both participated and observed the transition of Financial services from a service industry to a primary industry and is able to lucidly document and talk about it.

I just bought his latest book ‘Extreme Money‘ and it’s proving to a fascinating read as well.

So…I have totally digressed from my original goal of understanding the financial system so I can ‘diversify’ my portfolio (I’m just copying what my nouvea rich friends say). But this is far more interesting than making money any day – or at least till the day when I find my bank account empty again.

Also, I have a certain revulsion – immature according to my father – to making money without creating something or at least producing something. Far away from what I am learning about the global financial system, perhaps the stock market is about showing faith in companies that produce and helping them produce by investing in them. I hope so. But that doesn’t explain what many people around me do – this thing called ‘day trading’. What’s that about?

I’ve been told that my general engineering/knowledge-based approach to life and knowledge of various verticals makes me a potential money-spinner. When I hear that, I sit back in my chair, cross my legs, nod sagely but don’t reveal that I don’t even know where to begin – or if I want to. I don’t know but I am slowly cluing in and I recognize right now is that I need to understand this stuff a little more before I can even know if this is something that produces value.

Any gurus who can help me fast track my enlightenment so I can get started making money? Or I could just stick to my plan, work 20 hour days and create a company that makes me a lot of money (or not).

OK, must listen/watch list from this post:

Last week’s Planet Money podcast ‘Wierd Money’. Planet Money, This American Life and in general most NPR podcasts are delicious listens. Their accompanying blogs are equally tasty. Must must subscribe if you are a podcast sort of person. If you are not, these podcasts are a great introduction to podcasts.
Extreme Money, the movie. If you are on Netflix (Canada), you already have access. If not, go to your neighbourhood Blockbuster. Oh wait…(Snap!).
Another generally top notch and related podcast – Freakonomics radio.

Daring Fireball: Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot

The Fat Oracle — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:48:30 +0000

Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot

Thursday, 6 October 2011

After the WWDC keynote four months ago, I saw Steve, up close.

He looked old. Not old in a way that could be measured in years or even decades, but impossibly old. Not tired, but weary; not ill or unwell, but rather, somehow, ancient. But not his eyes. His eyes were young and bright, their weapons-grade intensity intact. His sweater was well-worn, his jeans frayed at the cuffs.

But the thing that struck me were his shoes, those famous gray New Balance 993s. They too were well-worn. But also this: fresh bright green grass stains all over the heels.

Those grass stains filled my mind with questions. How did he get them? When? They looked fresh, two, three days old, at the most. Apple keynote preparation is notoriously and unsurprisingly intense. But not so intense, those stains suggested, as to consume the entirety of Jobs’s days. There is no grass in Moscone West.

Surely, my mind raced, surely he has more than one pair of those shoes. He could afford to buy the factory that made them. Why wear this grass-stained pair for the keynote, a rare and immeasurably high-profile public appearance? My guess: he didn’t notice, didn’t care. One of Jobs’s many gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about. He knew how to focus and prioritize his time and attention. Grass stains on his sneakers didn’t make the cut.

Late last night, long hours after the news broke that he was gone, my thoughts returned to those grass stains on his shoes back in June. I realize only now why they caught my eye. Those grass stained sneakers were the product of limited time, well spent. And so the story I’ve told myself is this:

I like to think that in the run-up to his final keynote, Steve made time for a long, peaceful walk. Somewhere beautiful, where there are no footpaths and the grass grows thick. Hand-in-hand with his wife and family, the sun warm on their backs, smiles on their faces, love in their hearts, at peace with their fate.

Previous: Teardrop Skepticism

via daringfireball.net

_____

I would always hesitate to quote John Gruber on opinion but this is beautiful, insightful and hopeful http://oranj.us/4u

Perka aims to punch-out physical punchcards with mobile app – via The Next Web

The Fat Oracle — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:01:40 +0000

via thenextweb.com

Perka and similar alternative payments/loyalty startups always bring up a feeling of complexity because this space can be extremely challenging to get right. Trying to think through some factors that are crucial
- Geography which immediately implies the need for a sales force that needs to engage merchants across many diverse cities and markets.
- Which immediately makes scaling a factor of complexity
- Assuming you have a driven & creative sales force and an awesome loyalty product that somehow gains traction with some critical number of merchants in various industries, to make money you need to build into and integrate into the larger alternative payments ecosystem.
- Which means that at some point you have to deal with and integrate into financial institutions, merchant networks and the likes.

Towards dealing with and planning for this complexity, I would love to work for two types of companies in my future – alternative payment/loyalty companies and large scale computing companies. Both roles are towards preparing for complexity – one more engineering focused and the other more entrepreneurship focused. But both problems of architecture.

Choosing A Minimally Viable Co-Founder

The Fat Oracle — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:31 +0000

via onstartups.com

Sage advice on choosing a co-founder.

Why are we selling the iPhone 4S short so quickly?

The Fat Oracle — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 03:40:25 +0000

Initial Reaction :Meh

Post-Twitter-Meh-Rant Reaction: This device and update may have more to it than meets the eye – though undeniably the immunity to the iPhone magic juice is growing.

This time was different because the changes are as much in the software – ios5 as they are with hardware – the camera, processor, RAM, the new line up, the prices.
Because Apple had previously announced iOS5 and iteratively put out the iOS5 betas, we already have taken for granted iMessage, the heavy twitter integration, reminders, and the 10s of other pretty significant updates to the OS. As in Loius CK’s rant, we so quickly take something for granted that we did not have a few minutes back.
Apple is focused on usability – thats all they focus on sometimes to the extent that they will allow a pretty glaring hole in their products – remember iOS before copy&paste? – rather than put it out without making absolutely sure it has been implemented to perfection. I now place focus on this trust to assume that they have made sure to have gotten the Siri voice assistant feature down pat. Because if they have and if it works as advertised, this will be a monumental update that will eclipse anything they have done before because it might – ironically – make users talk into their phones again.
Do not lose focus on the fact that they now have an iPhone competing with the lowest cost Android and WP7 phones – the free ones – and although the lowly 3GS cannot perhaps compete with the Android & WP7 devices in their price-band, do not also discount the aspirational buyer who can now own an Apple device and enter the Apple ecosystem that has been just out of reach for so long. There is now an iPhone for most of the price-bands.

At the very least, I don’t know any Apple naysayer who will dispute that irrespective of what they think of the iPhone 4S. My point is merely that there may be actual valid reasons to buy the iPhone 4S.

The Marketing machine that is Apple will sells millions of these and they do not need our support or any more fan-boism than they already have in rabid amounts. However, when some pretty significant feature updates make me go meh, I feel I need to re-watch this. I’ll leave you with it:

Let’s make the web faster – Google Code

The Fat Oracle — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:47:52 +0000

Just found these gems on optimizing web content on Google Code.

Let’s make the web faster – Google Code.

“White labeled” solutions – Grow up because your customers have

The Fat Oracle — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:36:04 +0000

Heads up: I banged this post out after my morning pot of coffee so the thoughts are cluttered, I ramble and I repeat myself. I have a lot more to add here and I aim to put forth my opinion on the subject in a much more concise and refined form going forward. Look for future posts on the subject as I want to delve deeper …much deeper.

I recently visited a fairly well known agency/vendor at the request of one of our business partners who wanted to look at a mobile solution that the agency was working on that kind of intersected with the line of business our partner was in.

The solution, the agency made clear was quote, a ‘white-labeled’ mobile solution that they were trying to sell to not only our business partner but also to others in the same business domain. Fair enough. I immediately started asking what I thought were obvious questions regarding the points of integration and customization with our business partner’s existing mobile product. It quickly became obvious that ‘white-labeling’ to the agency *merely* meant that the UI could be customized – and that too only to the extent of changing the branding, colors etc. There were no other integration points – no API, no integration SDK, no ability to change layouts of the UI, no ability to choose components of the product and create a workflow that could be integrated with the client’s existing solutions. Which is also ok – as long as it’s part of your product roadmap. No, just the ability to make shallow changes to the UI and that was labeled white labeling. The obvious void in the room was not even visible to them. Nobody was thinking of building a platform, just a “take it and go” solution.

Another aspect I noticed was this. The engineering/technology lead I talked to seemed very talented and knowledgeable. He seemed to know the mobile space, the technologies established & emerging and seemed to have an overall solid engineering head on his shoulders. However, the roadmap the agency had for the product did not even plan for advanced customization points – why were they not even thinking of an API, a client SDK, of vertical integration??? Why was this not even obvious to them that a white-labeling should mean building a platform, not changing colours.

My opinion – this was the case because the agency’s product was being dictated by the marketing team, by marketing strategists – who would never be able to fathom that building a platform is a money making machine. Key take away: Product managers and architects need to step up and educate the marketing/sales teams on what a platform should be. In this day and age, there is no excuse when you have a roadmap that doesn’t even think about building a platform and has a feature set that’s shallow and dictated by the ask. Your job, dear Product Managers and Architects is to help your sponsors understand what they are asking for – not to do what is asked. Pick up your game.

When they start talking to their clients’s teams, it will emerge that allowing for the ability to tweak the UI is not going to be good enough. A shallow approach to a white labeled solution will initially appeal in the early marketing discussions but will quickly sink in the advanced conversations when the ill-fit with the client’s own technology or program strategy will become obvious.

Allowing clients to differentiate is critical. At the end of the day, a very good solution that the client may be interested in will die because you did not built a true “white labeled” solution, a platform. You built a facade and that’s just not good enough in this day and age. If your product is going to be used by multiple clients – many of whom may be competing with each other – you solution must allow for a way for clients to differentiate their feature sets by either

customizing the experience (note, I did not say UI),
extending your feature set by plugging in their own ideas
plugging in their own content which would be different and exclusive to them.
Integrating your feature set or only features of value to the customer into the customer’s own products.

White labeling does not mean skinning the UI. This agency’s solution in particular provided very limited UI customization but even if it did, it cannot stop at the UI.
Try to keep in mind that many clients already will have their own mobile or digital products and roadmaps. They have advanced programs, knowledgeable engineering and strategy teams that have thought through their technology platforms and digital touch point strategy. Your goal should be to come up with an offering that fits into that planning and program. Your product should be geared towards integrating with the clients solution instead of insisting on having your product offered as a separate offering from the client. You will get stronger buy-in and less friction if you position your product as a solution that seamlessly merges into the client’s programs (important to the marketing strategists) and architecture (important to the technology group).
In way too many such discussions and much too often when I ask how can I (the client) customize the solution, what I hear is “We will do it for you or we can work on coming up with a price that will including customizing xxx that you are asking for”. I am not asking you to customize anything. I am asking if your solution will allow me to take what you have an offer and customize it myself without depending on you or paying you for it. If you want me to adopt your solution long term, I don’t want to have to come to you or pay you whenever my future direction changes or I want to add a feature.
When you start with the goal of building a white labeling solution, you will kill your product even before its launched if you misunderstand it as “Oh look, I will allow you to change colours and your logo”. Grow up because your customers have matured. They understand that beauty is more than skin deep. It’s what on the inside. White labeling should basically mean a platform. A platform means

Being able to customize workflows of your product – including the ability to interface parts of your product workflow into the client’s existing product’s workflow
Being able to extend the UI and UX based on the client’s branding guidelines, human interface guidelines (especially important on multi platform experiences), and UI archictecture.
Being able to plug in the client’s custom content into your product – in addition to the content you are providing. Clients should be able to plug in various content providers because that’s how they can make it truly their own.

Here’s the gist of it. Show me an example of one recent successful product – *especially* a product that may be termed a “white-labeled” solution – that is not a platform, that cannot be extended, that cannot be integrated at the API level or the presentation level or the workflow level and I will show you a solution that is doomed.

Question from a recent discovery meeting: What are your views on the Flash vs HTML5 debate?

The Fat Oracle — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:21:07 +0000

That question came up (as it often does) in a discovery meeting with the very talented UI Team lead of a client and partner who was trying to place me on the competency scale.

The problem with my answer was that I answered to his question when I should have re-framed it. I told him that Flash was definitely going to lose ground while a combination of more core web technologies was going to replace it. It might take a couple more years but it would happen.

Except that is definitely not the correct picture is it? The truth is that the web is more than the presentation layer and honestly the set of technologies that is loosely termed as HTML5 is just another presentation layer. There is this rabid and staunch stand taken by many web evangelists that insists that HTML5 is the way forward – except each expert’s definition of HTML5 is different and when you drill down to it, the whole debate is not even that important.

Here is what everybody needs to get – and call me a blind moron but remember me as the blind one who saw it first (or at least one of the first) – we will start building for user stories rather than for presentation layers. A new application will build 2-3 presentation layers with significant differences in features but built for the user story and for the platform.

How is this different from what is already happening? Facebook has the web interface and an iphone app and an Android app right? Right. Except I bet their UI team did not start thinking in terms of “web” vs “mobile” stories. The web came first as and still remains the primary interface – all experiences – mobile or otherwise lead back to it.

Towards this thinking, consider instead the Google+ app. Their mobile feature set is still very web centric but has a feature (hangout aka messenger) that is not present in its web UI – though the web UI has a comparable feature that is built with a sharp focus on the web experience. That is an illustration of thinking that does not start with one interface and then cascades it to other interfaces. It starts with features cleanly sliced and diced between the mobile story and the online story – and other stories going forward.

What this also implies is that its hardly important whether the technology is HTML5 or a native iOS/Android app or Flash or a command line interface. It may be all the above – whatever works best for the audience in question.

Developers/ Engineers – and I am one -will often start with a technology – either from the ideological or familiarity standpoint. But as should become evident, stop caring about it. Build for user stories and make your technology decisions based on the user story and who your user is -not the other way around.

Interfaces will arise, interfaces will fall away.
There is no interface that is permanent.
So why are you thinking for one?
The user on the other hand – is always there.
Whether behind the command line or behind an app,
both matter.

I need to think through these thoughts a little more, I know. I hope to nuance this more as I think through a little more.

XCode 4 & The broken Application Loader

The Fat Oracle — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 03:13:51 +0000

I tried uploading an app to the App store from XCode 4’s Organizer and it would keep throwing up an IO error.

com.apple.transporter.util.StreamUtil.readBytes(Ljava/io/InputStream;)

Tried again and again to no avail. I suspected that it could be something to do with XCode 4 because the App loader was working fine a few days back. I hit up the issue on stackoverflow and looks like many people had faced this issue. Most had gotten the issue resolved by uninstalling XCode 4 and rolling back to 3.x.

I was too lazy to do that and decided to just roll back Application Loader from 1.4.1 to an older version. Downloaded 1.3 and installed it. Upload worked!!!!

Download Application Loader 1.3 from Apple here:

http://oranj.us/2x

direct link:

http://itunesconnect.apple.com/apploader/ApplicationLoader_1.3.dmg