By all indications the first course at Big Nerd Ranch Appsterdam was a smashing success. I have every reason in the world to be biased, but the studentsarehappy and the boss is happy, so I’m happy too. The next Big Nerd Ranch Appsterdam course will be December 2-9.
Now I can say without reservation that if you miss this weekend’s Appsterdam 2 Launch Party Weekend, you’re missing the nerd party of the year. I would say the nerd party of the decade, except at this rate I’m assuming we’re going to have an Appsterdam 3 Launch Party Weekend next spring.
This is important: we’re about to blast this information to the media, so the quickly dwindling available slots are going to run out fast. We are expecting the events to fill up quickly, so you need to act now and be sure to RSVP. If you’re not on the list there’s a very good chance you’ll be waiting outside.
You’ll notice I always refer to App Makers and App Making. When Apple responded to Intellectual Venture in the guise of Lodsys, they referred to us as App Makers, and I liked the respect and legitimacy it engendered.
As for App Making, it goes back to what my journalism mentor, R.G. Gould, once said about the First Amendment: “You owe your living to it. You better damn well capitalize it.”
If we’re going to be successful in defending our industry from extortionists, we need to focus on extortion. If we spend our energy bickering with each other over our personal agendas, we will fail.
Apple is not a patent troll. Neither is Microsoft. Neither is PixFusion. Patent trolls, by definition, produce nothing but lawsuits. Using the legalized monopoly power of a patent against competitors is how the system is designed to work. Whether that system should exist at all is a separate issue. Whether this company or that company is being a dick is a separate issue.
We are going after one type of behavior: obtaining patents for the sole purpose of extracting licensing fees. That this is a burden to all technologists is something we should all be able to agree on, and is therefore something that we should all be able to work together to change.
If we start equating Apple to Intellectual Ventures, or if we try to eliminate software patents entirely, we are going to find ourselves up against the platform vendors, and we are going to lose. Save those battles for another day.
Today, as I began carefully sifting through the emotional minefield of my inbox, I got this:
Clearly the person tasked with sending this email was so distraught over the news that they accidentally typed the thing foremost on their mind into the subject field and forgot to fill in the other fields before, overcome with grief, they hit send.
I understand completely.
Inevitable Update
Today I received the inevitable follow-up to what was obviously someone’s goof.
These guys also reached out to me personally to let me know how incredibly sick they were at their mistake. The good news is, it was just an honest-to-goodness error and not something more sinister. This is why we always assume positive intent.
The rain started in Amsterdam early, early this morning. The city seems to shake and groan as water pours down from above in sheets. This is not happy rain. This is not the kind of warm rain you take a romantic and fatalistic walk through. It’s the kind of rain you must simply accept, washing over your entire life, whose only promise is that this too must pass.
Nobody can claim to be surprised by this weather, after enjoying so many days of glorious sunshine. Over the weekend every street cafe was open, every boat was on the canal. We all knew, all told each other, that the sun wouldn’t last, that the rain would come. We told ourselves that, steeled ourselves against the coming winter.
There are places that deny the weather, where it rains all the time, but nobody ever carries an umbrella. In this place, people are always aware of the weather, always aware that though the sun may shine, rain is always just over the horizon. Nobody considers this morbid, a dour pessimism that sours the smell of sunlight.
Rather, it is the memory of rain that drives us to soak up the sun every opportunity we get, the knowledge of it that drives us to try to stay dry. If we let the rain surprise us each time, or if we live in constant denial of it, we will never understand the weather, the atmosphere, or our place within it. We will simply be wet, and dry, and wet again.
If we prepare, if we are ever cognizant of the impermanence inherent in nature, we can be ready for the rain when it comes. You can keep your clothes warm and your hair in order. What it seems like you can never avoid, which perhaps we should learn to savor as being part of this planet, is the feeling of raindrops running down your face.
