Grand Larseny

Daring Fireball is losing its edge.

For those who may read this who don’t know, there’s a website that’s become very popular with folks who love technology called Daring Fireball. It’s been available for readers since 2002; I’ve been a regular reader since about 2004. It is authored by one man, John Gruber. I doubt he’ll ever read this.

I have loved reading his site mainly because he states what I’m feeling about technology in good, concrete terms, and elaborates on what subtle movements by companies can mean in the long term. He is seldom wrong in his predictions. I don’t think he can handle not being the underdog, though.

Over the past few months I’ve been following along with both is writing at Daring Fireball and his regular talk show, appropriately titled The Talk Show and there is a greater undercurrent of carelessness than usual. I’ve found his writing to always be brave and honest; part of being honest is stating things as directly as possible and part of being brave is only caring about the listener you have in mind. John seems to be exceptional at this part; only caring about being honest for his intended listener.

My problem is that he seems to be caring about less and less these days. Either that or I don’t care about what he writes as much. To me, it’s an interesting case of being a victim of good fortune.

Everything John does revolves to some extent around Apple. Apple has become the largest corporation in history. Apple is now the incumbant. When you are the incumbant you are treated differently; rebels take on a different shape when they assume power. John has been a very successful rebel online, writing honestly and bravely about the up-and-coming Apple. Now that Apple has the power, the shape of John’s writing is changing in my mind.

Windows and Intel are shrinking dramatically. Yep. And?

RIM is history. About right to me; this is old news.

And then there’s the Claim Chowder¹ that just keeps rolling in. Very, very old. People say stupid things, this is not news.

So now that I’ve sufficiently buried the lede, let me tell you what I think should happen. John should do what I think all successful entities should try to do: be honest and brave and open about the future. Where does he see Apple going and why is Apple going to be the best? The pieces that still resonate with me are future oriented; subtle stings at ailing companies don’t make me laugh anymore.

Psychologically speaking there are different positions you have to take when you are the majority versus when you are the minority in order to resonate with people. The minority states its case as loudly as possible and never acknowledges the opposition’s points as even potentially valid. The majority acts magnanomous in victory and emphasizes its plan. I believe in the past John’s posts followed the minority position very well.

Daring Fireball is no longer a minority blog, it’s time for it to accept success.

My Idea: digital pencil. Partnering with an existing eBook app, like the Kindle app for iPad, create a digital pencil that can sense when it’s being held and notify the app to interpret any touches as notes, not page turns or interactions with the UI.

Really, I think the idea of integrating a touch sensor in a stylus would really be amazing in terms of its usefulness. The big advantage of writing in the real world with a pen or pencil is that most of the time you can just pick it up and start writing. You generally can’t do that with an iPad. If you had a sensor in the stylus, you could.

For a while now I’ve thought that ideas are fun to have, but really not worth much. Of course, they are worth something because they are generally used as a place to journey from on your way to a cool product or service. Plus, I generally have a lot of ideas that I think are pretty cool and I want to share them. 

So, I’m putting them down here. Anyone can run with these, I’m just the idea man.

Yes, that’s a pun. Don’t judge me.

Buying roasted coffee honestly isn’t terribly more expensive than buying good green coffee in bulk from a well respected source such as Sweet Maria’s. All the little value-adds that a roaster provides such as sourcing¹, roasting², and packaging are actually done really well, in such a way that the difference between high quality green coffee beans and buying from a roaster really are just a few bucks. When you get right down to it, high quality coffee beans themselves are what make for good coffee, so it only makes sense that the source of those beans sees the benefits of their labor. No, the cost that I just can’t swallow is the shipping.

Shipping is going to be expensive, and there’s just no way around it. More than that, due to the nature of coffee as a fruit you’re going to have to ship frequently if you don’t have an amazing roaster in your town. At best there will be two shipments per month with a few months where you might be able to swing just one coffee shipment. Multiply that by $6, the best standard price per pound of coffee, and you’re looking at around an additional $20 per month, just for shipping.

That’s insane, and there’s no way around it. It makes me angry just thinking about it, because there’s no way around it, the cost is just there. The delivery company should be paid to take produce hundreds or thousands of miles. There’s no way to buy in bulk to cut down on the number of shipments because then the coffee goes stale before you can drink it. Game over, man. Game over.

However, sometimes the only way out is through. You have to delve deeper into coffee by roasting your own to win. See, green coffee has a shelf life measured in months, not weeks, so you can buy in bulk to cut down on the number of shipments. And since you’re roasting yourself you can make sure your coffee is always fresh. Just make sure you roast new coffee while you still have a couple days supply of the old roasted coffee available to drink while the fresh roast degases. And if you’re a nerd, and let’s be honest here you most certainly are, getting to play around with the fiddly aspects of roasting coffee is right up your alley. Because boy, howdy, are there ever some fiddly aspects to roasting coffee³.

Let me make a prediction, if you do decide to roast your own coffee you will experience some of the worst, strangest flavors as well as some truly great, rewarding coffee. It’s a game, nerds, and you can figure it out.

Lastly, even though your roasting your own you’ll want to occasionally get it from the pros. Memory has the stability of Silly-Putty, so you need to keep being reminded what others are doing to get a feel for what’s possible. Don’t be afraid to go outside of your usual suspects, either.

There’s a lot of good coffee out there, and I’d be happy to try some of your tasty, tasty coffee to tell you what I think. You know, I’m just thoughtful like that.