Sam Soffes

Why the Facebook IPO Matters

Posted on

Facebook's IPO was today. Unless you're living in a cave, you already knew this. Facebook's IPO is a big deal.

A bunch of people not too far from here just became millionaires (or will be very shortly). All of these now super rich Facebook employees are going to spend this money. Housing near the Facebook office has been going up and up in price. Buying a ridiculous house is where I'd start, but that's only a few million.

What would I do after I buying a sweet house and a Tesla? Invest in some smart kids making something cool in San Francisco. The bubble is just getting started.

Continue reading →

WebKit CSS Variables

Posted on

CSS variables were just added to WebKit. This probably won't make it into a browser for awhile, but still really exciting.

The sad thing is the syntax is just horrendous.

Awhile back there was some discussion on the mailing list about copying how SCSS does it. It's a shame that didn't happen.

Continue reading →

Zendesk Careers Video

Posted on

Zendesk has a really amazing careers video. Best line:

These people are not a-holes. Zendesk does not hire a-holes.

If I was looking for a job, I would consider Zendesk after seeing this amazingness.

Continue reading →

The Balance

Posted on

The balance between shipping and perfecting the details is what makes things great. Last night I spent 3 hours on an animation for Cheddar. It was probably overkill to make a custom animation curve with CAKeyframeAnimation, but I really wanted it to look like what I had in my head.

Looking back at it today, I'm proud of it and glad that I learned more than I cared to know about animation curves. It might have been a better use of time to just use a default curve and finish the feature instead of spending the whole time on a single animation.

I'm still not sure if learning something new and perfecting it was better than finishing in this case. Usually whenever I spend hours on a particular detail (like fading in a slight shadow at exactly the right speed) I'm never sure which side of the spectrum it falls on. I think this feeling means you're doing it right.

Continue reading →