Monthly Archives: April 2012

programmable self , ,

Desire paths, habits and the power of observation

I can’t remember where I first heard about desire paths.

Landscapers are apparently the people who know the most about this phenomenon in modern life. But we all see it – the worn footpath next to the sidewalk bit that didn’t quite curve enough or the improvised bike path next to the stairs in a grocery parking lot. People find their own way.

There’s a critical new skill people are developing around quantified self. And I think that skill set lies at the intersection of desire paths, habit formation and self-observation.
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community , ,

Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in Portland, April 21, 11-3pm, P-I-E

We’re hosting an Edit-a-thon in Portland this Saturday. Join us!

Selena and Pete invite you to a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon! Join us and the Portland wiki community as we dive into editing the biggest, most fascinating, and most collaborative encyclopedia in human history. This informal event will help you get your bearings, create an account, and start hacking in this decade-old project.

Never edited a web page? Never fear! We will give you a background/overview of how things work, and suggest some easy first-timer edits. Or, if you’re an old hand, please join us and share your valuable knowledge!
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postgresql , , , 1 Comment

Facebook acquires Instagram (and a Postgres cluster) for $1billion

Today’s big story is that Facebook just acquired Instagram for $1 billion.

Instagram is a hugely popular image sharing app – until recently only for iPhone. Last week they released an Android version, which caused many of my friends to finally start using it. 😉

But you know what’s an even bigger story? Instagram runs Postgres. And, their engineering team has been posting juicy tidbits about PGFouine and pgbouncer over the last year.

I love that companies are succeeding with Postgres in a huge way.

We’re seeing Postgres become the default technology choice for new tech companies. As those companies grow or are acquired, we’ll see Postgres becoming an important part of many more organizations.

It’s no coincidence that Bruce posted this morning about “The New Postgres Era“. The quality of the Postgres community’s software products is recognized, and the developers who use our software are succeeding.