Author Archives: Matt Sherman

The ideas of conservative and liberal have become very confused, and in many cases exactly backwards. Let’s try to understand them — as adjectives instead of nouns — and strip them of some connotations. A conservative idea is one that … Continue reading →

We’ve got a few hundred folks using Better Bird, my Chrome extension for fixing the Twitter web UI, and I’m thrilled. I need feedback on what to do next. What do you think?

It occurs to me, as I look at my Google+ stream for the first time in two months, the reason I never use it: it never had a chance to grow on me. It’s beautifully implemented. It fills in niches … Continue reading →

Consider for a moment the logic of the leading paragraph of this article: Research suggests that consumers spend only about one second looking at nutrition information when making myriad choices. A parent dashing through the grocery store aisles with kids … Continue reading →

While “truthy” values in JavaScript can cause no small amount of heartache, one must admit they help readability. For objects anyway, it’s very nice to say if (object) {…} and get on with business. If the object is null or … Continue reading →

There are rumors afoot that Apple will offer TV channels as apps in an upcoming release. This might work as an interim idea, but it has no legs long-term. This idea is not new — for years, people have been … Continue reading →

You watch a movie. In order to get something from it, you have to enter the world that it presents. You must suspend disbelief. This is essential for the product to work correctly. If you are unwilling to believe, say, … Continue reading →

I created a Chrome extension to fix what I think are some rough edges and poor choices in the Twitter web app. Have a look: Some things it does: Moves the content to the left side, where it should be. … Continue reading →

As I’ve written in the past, there are several unique inefficiencies to the Manhattan apartment market. Many can’t be helped in the short term, owing to an endemically tight market. One that can be helped is information asymmetry. Brokers consider the … Continue reading →

I was chatting with my colleagues at Stack Exchange the other day and we wondered what it means to “own” a data type. The best recent example is Twitter. They effectively “own” the format of short, one-to-many messaging. Their “product”, … Continue reading →