CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-18 17:59:28 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

Whenever people compliment me on having more gray hair, I like to return the favor by telling them they look fatter.

2013-06-18 01:09:51 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

It's at times like this, when I look down and see the whole beautiful city spread out below, that I wonder if I'll actually jump this time.

2013-06-17 21:43:26 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 33 +1s)

From an article in the local paper. They try to answer the question in the sub-headline, but all Dads know the real answer:

Because Being At the Office is Way Easier

2013-06-17 16:25:30 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

I got ping'd by a recruiter today about some company:
- Founded in 2002
- Pre-IPO

I'm thinking that if your company is eleven years old and hasn't gone public, you could just take a leap and call it "private"

2013-06-16 20:01:39 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 24 +1s)

Mothers Day is about feeling grateful for everything mothers do.
Fathers Day is about pretending fathers matter.

2013-06-15 20:13:49 (3 comments, 7 reshares, 80 +1s)

My son: Can I download a demo of BioShock?
Me: Sure
...
My son: Never mind. It's rated mature and it won't let me download it.

Thank you, XBox, for being a better parent than me.
I'm going out now, I'll be back late tonight. Just have the kids in bed whenever and tell them to eat dinner sometime.

2013-06-15 01:34:26 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 41 +1s)

Facebook popped up my phone number today and gave me a friendly green button that said "Add To My Timeline". I was thinking that the following UI would have made me more likely to click on the button.

2013-06-14 21:06:57 (3 comments, 6 reshares, 22 +1s)

Friday: time for another DevBytes (link to the blog post about this episode)

2013-06-14 21:00:43 (6 comments, 7 reshares, 23 +1s)

+Chet Haase is back with another episode of Devbytes!

#DevBytes : Animating ListView Deletion
Animating changes to ListView items can be tricky, with views getting recycled as the contents of the ListView change. This episode covers one approach to animating swiping of items out of the list and animating the views around that item to close the resulting gap.

An earlier version of this technique was described in the talk "A Moving Experience" at Google I/O 2013: Google I/O 2013 - A Moving Experience

YouTube:
DevBytes: Animating ListView Deletion

Code: http://developer.android.com/shareables/devbytes/ListViewRemovalAnimation.zip

#androiddev  

2013-06-14 18:10:34 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

A thing of beauty is a joy until she files a restraining order.

2013-06-14 13:53:16 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

In honor of Flag Day, please take a moment and think about whether there was a single time when you actually did anything to commemorate Flag Day.

2013-06-13 22:31:07 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 28 +1s)

Dear American Express:

The word alert is great when used with, say, fraudulent charges, or possible credit card theft, or even mildly suspicious activity.

But a monthly statement being ready? Not so much.

I'm sure it's exciting to your Statement Preparation Department and all, but it doesn't really trigger my buttons. Until you put alert in the email subject line and scare the bejesus out of me when I scan my inbox headers.

2013-06-13 21:31:40 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

The first episode in a new series of fireside chats where +Reto Meier and +Ian Ni-Lewis will interview some of your favorite members of the Android team. 

Our first guest this week will be none other than +Chet Haase himself. If you've got questions specifically about Graphics and Animations, Chet will be answering them live on air. Please leave your questions in the comments below, or you can even join the live Hangout that we'll be creating. 

See you then!

2013-06-13 13:50:12 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

I love this headline.
I can't figure out whether it means that he held a Confirmation for a group of gay people, or whether he was commenting on the new throw-pillow arrangement in the entrance to St. Peters.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/pope-confirms-gay-lobby-work-vatican-19377466

2013-06-12 23:55:05 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 23 +1s)

It's at times like this, when I'm sitting perfectly still and not moving an inch, that I remember how much I hate traffic.

2013-06-11 17:35:47 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

My 5th grader's pronouncement on the sex ed unit at school: "Disturbing"

Sounds about right.

2013-06-11 01:11:54 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 22 +1s)

It's times like these, with the Sun in my eyes and the wind in my hair, that I wonder when my hat fell off.

2013-06-10 21:16:10 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

Twitter's website feature that tells me there's a new tweet, and then has me click on the link to actually see the new content is excellent. It reminds me of a similar feature in Eclipse whenever it tells me that the file is out of date, refuses to actually show me the old or new contents, and makes me run the command to manually refresh it.

Are these features supposed to make me appreciate the apps because I'm engaging with them? Is auto-refreshing just too easy? Would we otherwise take them for granted and not respect them as much?

2013-06-10 21:02:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I enjoyed listening to the +Nerdist podcast in the gym this morning. I mean, I normally enjoy listening to it anyway, and it was a good show with comedian/actor Aasif Mandvi (from The Daily Show and, most recently, The Internship). But I particularly liked this quote:

The best Indian food on the planet, I'll tell you where it is.
I used to say it was London. But now, it's the Google campus.

We should totally get an entry in Zagat's for the cafés here.

(Or maybe it was just because the food was free and he's, like, an actor. And it was free. And it was food. And free.)

2013-06-10 14:34:09 (8 comments, 5 reshares, 21 +1s)

If you enjoyed A Moving Experience, the talk on animation that +Romain Guy and I gave at Google I/O this year, you might also want to check out an earlier talk on cartoon animation principles that we gave at Devoxx in 2009. It's not an Android talk specifically, but is rather an exploration of Disney's "Twelve Rules" of animation, as explained in the awesome and back-breaking large book, The Illusion of Life.

Some of the ideas around cartoon animation in our I/O talk came from this earlier talk, so if you want to know more about these principles and how they may apply in UI design, see our earlier talk.

Animation Rules at Devoxx 2009: http://parleys.com/play/514892260364bc17fc56be02

A Moving Experience at Google I/O 2013: Google I/O 2013 - A Moving Experience

2013-06-10 02:33:47 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

ALTERNATE DEFENDER OFFICE

I'm trying to figure out how this would work. I mean, do they have a first string defender and then the lawyer that subs in occasionally when the other one's tired? Or do they tag-team it in the courtroom in real-time? Can the defendant ask for a second opinion if they don't like how their first lawyer's working out?

Or maybe the alternate defender offers up other excuses during trial: "No, that's not the way it was, judge. See, our client was nowhere near the place. Yeah, that's it. In fact, he wasn't the guy at all, he was someone different, see? In fact, he was a she then, right? And she wasn't even in the country that day, 'cause she had a thing, see?"

American justice: Court-side drama at its best. And second-best.

2013-06-09 19:32:02 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

sewage: I like sound of this word, mimicking as it does the sound you might hear if you mistakenly walked through a pile of it.

2013-06-09 16:56:29 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

I went to a Bar Mitzvah yesterday. It struck me that there is no parallel ceremony (to my knowledge) in other cultures/religions. It's a time for the community to step back and reflect on the person and their accomplishments, and for the child to present to the community in a way that demonstrates a level of commitment and responsibility that is rare at that age.

The closest I've seen to this in Christian/atheist/agnostic households is the annual Christmas card, in which the goal seems to be to make the readers feel bad about their own children in comparison to the achievements described therein.

So the next time you groan as you read some tedious holiday diatribe in which the parents brag about their amazing children, just take a moment to reflect that it takes far less time to read that card (or, let's be honest, throw it away) than it does to sit through an entire Bar... more »

2013-06-09 02:22:09 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

I just got the latest statement from my broker. I think I need a better investment strategy.

2013-06-08 15:05:00 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

"Martinez Bocce Federation"

I am so glad they federated. Next step: secession.

2013-06-08 14:26:51 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

children "nearly rhymes" with business? And people?
I do not think rhymes means what they think it means.

2013-06-07 22:20:56 (21 comments, 2 reshares, 31 +1s)

I'm trying to get my co-worker to change their opinion on scotch.
I've tried these sales pitches so far:

“It's much better after the first bottle”
“It's the best drink I’ve ever thrown up”
“It’s much smoother on the way back up”

They're not budging so far, can't tell why.

2013-06-07 18:43:50 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

It's better to light a candle than curse the DAMMIT! HOT WAX!

http://chetchat.blogspot.com/2013/06/things-i-believe-thoughts-for-friday.html

2013-06-07 16:25:46 (12 comments, 29 reshares, 43 +1s)

It's Friday: time for another DevBytes. This time:
Custom Activity Animations

It's been a while, but they're back. At least until the queue runs out again and I write another glut of demos to talk about.

This episode, and most of the upcoming ones (teaser alert!) are around demos/code that we showed in A Moving Experience, the animation talk that +Romain Guy and I gave at #io13 .

Custom Activity Animations:
Window animations provide an easy way to animate transitions between activities. The animations can be customized to some extent, but there's only so much interaction between the launching and launched activities that you can take advantage of with the standard window animations.
This episode covers a different technique for fully customizable animations.

Video: DevBytes: Custom Activity Animations
more »

2013-06-07 13:27:42 (19 comments, 3 reshares, 46 +1s)

When did television get so boring?
I have TV in my car, but there's only one channel and nothing ever happens. Plus, I have to drive in reverse for it to even turn on.
Maybe I should have sprung for the dvd player.

2013-06-06 13:23:33 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I don't know art, but I know what my creative sufficiency algorithm likes.

"The application is designed to determine whether a poem has the characteristics of a professional poem"

http://www.poetryassessor.com/poetry/

2013-06-05 13:35:14 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

The zombie dust reached the top of the hills this morning. It's only a matter of time, now. 

2013-06-03 18:30:13 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 16 +1s)

Waterfelons

I have no idea why G+ decided to show me old photos from my blog when I went to the Photos section of my account. But I figured it was time to reshare this one.

This picture came from a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia. It was a beautiful summer day and I guess the fruit was acting a little crazy and needed to be locked up.

(Perhaps more significantly, this picture was the turning point when I decided that maybe I really need a comedy blog to post stuff that maybe wasn't quite as technical as my usual articles. http://chetchat.blogspot.com started the following month.)

2013-06-01 02:03:39 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 50 +1s)

I was thinking, as I opened my beer, that we need a word to describe that feeling when you realize the lid that you've been trying to unscrew with your hand isn't a twist-off cap after all.

Then I realized that we already have a word for it: "OW"

2013-05-31 21:25:57 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 20 +1s)

Some people like to accessorize their beds with decorative pillows, or ruffles, or large doilies, or fancy linens. This is what our bed looked like this afternoon. It's so.... perfect.
(Missing from the device pileup - the Kindle which resides in my endtable)

2013-05-31 17:28:03 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

All you need is love.
But I need money, too. And donuts.

2013-05-30 13:36:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Okay, so the story itself isn't funny. But I did enjoy this one quote. In a story about someone setting off a small explosion in Mickey's Toontown:
"Others said the sound is a rarity in the area."

Well, one would hope.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/29/travel/california-disney-explosion/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

2013-05-29 20:45:32 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 55 +1s)

Just spent some quality time in the studio here recording more DevBytes episodes. Stay tuned...

2013-05-27 22:47:52 (28 comments, 7 reshares, 85 +1s)

I dedicate my latest royalty check to all prospective authors who plan to get rich writing programming books.

Good luck with that.

2013-05-27 22:19:52 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 25 +1s)

My daughter, on seeing a picture taken a few years ago: "We were all so much younger then - your hair was all one color!"

I pointed out that it nearly is again, albeit a different color.

2013-05-27 17:26:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I would have felt much like my dog feels when his nose is forced into his latest pile of Bad Dog.

2013-05-25 18:56:01 (17 comments, 7 reshares, 102 +1s)

My wife and daughters are away for the long weekend, so it's just us boys at home.
I feel like this is my chance to teach my son what it means to be A Man in our society.

My algorithm is something like this:

while (!womenAtHome) {
    getTakeout(); // Food.BARBECUE, Food.CHINESE, Food.BURRITOS, Food.BURGERS
    watchSciFiFlick(Movie.STREAMING);
    playWithLaptops();
    loseDeathmatchToSon(Game.HALO);
    watchSciFiFlickT(Movie.THEATER);
    discussOutdoorActivity(); // Activity.FISHING, Activity.CATCH, Activity.HIKING
}

Then we'll cap it all off by forgetting to clean up after ourselves.

2013-05-24 23:58:21 (8 comments, 7 reshares, 57 +1s)

Definition: recursion
See recursion

2013-05-24 19:30:18 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Live every day as if it were your last.
In a hospital bed.

(Reposting after G+ decided it wanted to delete the original post. Grr.)

2013-05-24 14:23:14 (3 comments, 4 reshares, 40 +1s)

Starts with a donut,
Ends with a beer.
Thank you, Friday,
For being all year.

2013-05-23 14:56:14 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 27 +1s)

"Chet, see the commencement speech Richard Branson would give"
"LinkedIn, STFU"

2013-05-21 20:05:06 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Was Benjamin Franklin really struck by lightning? Or was it just historical friction?

2013-05-21 18:19:12 (16 comments, 7 reshares, 83 +1s)

Google I/O: Behind the Scenes

It may not be obvious from the other side of the microphones, but these conference presentations are fragile high-wire acts composed of bailing wire, duct tape, and chewing gum. Besides the expected issues with any high-strung dramatic performers (enormous egos, drug-addled binges, and the inevitable visits to and escapes from rehab), we have to contend with unpredictable illnesses coupled with the-show-must-go-on-deadlines.

For example, my co-presenter +Romain Guy sported some bad timing when he decided to get sick last Monday, including a sore throat which might have killed his ability to participate in our sessions (apart from his usual and critically-acclaimed French Mime act).

Fortunately, our production crew went into high gear and created this video representation which we would have used in a pretend "video conference" with... more »

2013-05-21 03:11:23 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 43 +1s)

"NEW EASY OPEN"

Apparently not.

2013-05-21 01:25:27 (1 comments, 15 reshares, 49 +1s)

There were over 30 #Android  sessions at #IO13 , about half of which where live streamed, but all of which were recorded. Those videos are now available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure - and all have been collected here in this handy playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWz5rJ2EKKc9WGUwq2gQ-coU3fSyexgOx

We've also created a few smaller, more easily digestible playlists including:
Android Design:
 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWz5rJ2EKKc-qVhMuAprIFYFbCotdgJKq
Android Development:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWz5rJ2EKKc9rkwO9yBosRvkQBJd5utmR
Google Play services:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWz5rJ2EKKc_1yoh25u-OilR1YAL_374S
Android Distribution:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWz5rJ2EKKc-1WjgQqL0B4OQtbLfhMlB2