I was too busy last week to post links. There sure was no lack of fantastic links. See for yourself:
Life
On Taking Risks, Long-Term Travel and Finding your Path in Life // Inspiring talk on long-term travel and how it changes your perspective on life.
The Personal Analytics of My Life // Stephen Wolfram: “I started [collecting all sorts of data about myself] long ago. I actually assumed lots of other people were doing it too, but apparently they were not.” Feltron Report writ large.
This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business // “Generation Flux […] is less a demographic designation than a psychographic one: What defines GenFlux is a mind-set that embraces instability, that tolerates—and even enjoys—recalibrating careers, business models, and assumptions.”
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter (NY Times) // In “a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference […] forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.” Regardless of the interesting scientific explanation, I am immensely grateful that my parents decided to raise me multilingually.
Hacking
Hacking is Important // Rands In Repose: “A healthy product company is, confusingly, one at odds with itself. There is a healthy part which is attempting to normalize and to create predictability, and there needs to be another part that is tasked with building something new that is going to disrupt and eventually destroy that normality.”
Introduction to text manipulation on UNIX-based systems // I wish I were more proficient in Shell scripting… this is a great resource for reference and learning.
[Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and why: The disappearance of one of the world’s most beloved computer programmers.](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/03/ruby_ruby_on_rails_and__why_the_disappearance_of_one_of_the_world_s_most_beloved_computer_programmers.single.html) // Nice writeup in Slate Magazine (I really like the idea that ). _why’s diseappearance was one of the few historical events I remember happening while I was vagabonding in South America. (Michael Jackson’s death was another.)
Codename: Obtvse (Hacker News) // Heated discussion on the value of ideas, the essence of invention, the morals of copying, and some insightful analogies between designing and coding.
iOS Dev
Migrating your code to Objective-C ARC // Comprehensive guide by @mugunthkumar.
Feature: The fall and rise of Whale Trail “You don’t just need a good idea, you need a marketable idea” and a nice story: “When we launched Whale Trail, we released a single at the same time – that was a great story.”
Why don’t we have paid versions on the Android market? // People keep asking when my iPhone app will be available for Android. When I read things like this, I’m thinking, definitely not in the foreseeable future. Corollary: I was pleasantly sursprised by how uncomplicated the process was with the App Store.
App of the Week
Byword // My favorite Markdown editor just got better, by auto-syncing documents between my Mac and my iPhone.
And also, the v1.1 upgrade to my own app, Memento, finally got approved in the App Store. Twitter sharing and a faster camera, plus many little enhancements and bug fixes. On sale for just 99¢ till Easter.