Ralph Shao

workisnotajob: Devote yourself to an idea. Go make it happen....

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:52:43 -0500

Devote yourself to an idea. Go make it happen. Struggle on it. Overcome your fears. Smile. Don’t you forget: This is your dream.

Holy shit! Amazon noticed I wasn’t interested in their...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:09:25 -0500

Holy shit! Amazon noticed I wasn’t interested in their solicitations and automagically unsubscribed me!

It’s this sort of intelligent bacn’ing that will keep me a loyal customer of a company that does so much of its user outreach via email. Let’s hope other email-based companies start to follow suit.

Necessary evil, but I freaking hate Comcast

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:31:27 -0400

I let the cable guy use my computer to set up the internet yesterday and returned to find no less than 30 bookmarks for Comcast shit that I will never use. If I had any other options, I wouldn’t have gotten Comcast again. They are the scum of the earth in terms of their stance on net neutrality.

Now, as a web developer, I have no less than 4 (you could even consider it to be 5) different browsers installed on my computer: Firefox, Safari, Chrome, RockMelt, and Aurora (which is technically Firefox again).

Comcast (or Xfinity; stupid name) decided that it would install a folder into every single one of my bookmark toolbars with 10 sites each. Luckily, they are stupid and don’t recognize all browsers, so I just got hit with Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. My RockMelt was left delightfully untouched.

However, I am now wondering what other malicious shit Comcast has piggybacked onto my system…

Zynga To Delay IPO Because of Market Conditions

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:16:01 -0400

Zynga To Delay IPO Because of Market Conditions :

I can’t say I fully understand this. Can the market not bear a correctly priced Zynga? With Zynga’s amazing 4.4 cent ARPDAU, what does it matter if the market is rocky? At the end of the day, if Zynga’s revenues can be sustained, then it’s a great company to invest in.

There’s this huge and false misconception that if a company’s stock jumps after an IPO that it’s a good thing, but it’s not. It’s just hysteria! If a company cannot justify the financial performance of its stock price, then it deserves to have a dip. If Zynga isn’t prepared to deliver performance that warrants an IPO of $15-20 billion, then it’s not a good company to invest in regardless of market conditions. But if they can, then they should be poised to outperform.

Steve's magnum opus isn't Apple; it's the people he's impacted

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:51:00 -0400

My good friend Mark Bao posted his thoughts on Steve Jobs’ magnum opus — his life’s great work, which got me thinking…

Once every few months, someone creates something pretty cool that millions use.

Then once every few years, someone creates something adds value to the lives of millions and makes us all better off.

And then once every few decades, someone inspires millions to achieve things they wouldn’t have otherwise thought possible.

While Steve’s most renowned magnum opus will certainly be Apple, his more secluded legacy will be the innumerable people who no longer believe their crazy ideas are so crazy, the ones who challenge the status quo because they envision a greater future, the individuals who have been inspired to achieve something great because Steve has.

iPhone Mockup Frame (PDF)

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:09:28 -0400

iPhone Mockup Frame (PDF):

We’ve had to do lots of paper prototypes and mockups at The Tap Lab and I thought I’d share the PDF I whipped up that we draw all over.

If you make sure to print at 100% (let it clip, there’s just white around the edges), it’s 2 actual-sized iPhones per page with considerable margin for notes.

The Battleship is one of the most glorious, evocative and...

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:05:00 -0400

The Battleship is one of the most glorious, evocative and ultimately useless machines ever created by human beings.

TechStars Boston is ranked #5 in Top 15 U.S. Startup...

Fri, 13 May 2011 12:04:55 -0400

TechStars Boston is ranked #5 in Top 15 U.S. Startup Accelerators

"I had two Cokes today. Time spent with Ralph and Coke consumed are perfectly correlated."

Sat, 07 May 2011 22:07:54 -0400

“I had two Cokes today. Time spent with Ralph and Coke consumed are perfectly correlated.”

- Jonney, via text message

"Players are just going to expect that when you play games, there’s a social component."

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:43:06 -0400

“Players are just going to expect that when you play games, there’s a social component.”

- Wade Tinney, at MIT BiG 2011

Sharkbait! Hoohahah!

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 15:29:00 -0400

A few nights ago, I imed facebook’s infamous shark emoticon to my friend Heidi Allstop of Student Spill. She answered with perhaps the best possible response ever, which was “sharkbait hooohaha.”

Ever since then, I’ve had a hankering to watch Finding Nemo again, but alas, my Macbook Air has no disk drive and it’s not available on Netflix streaming. I might need to hijack the living room one of these nights and fulfill my want…

"At any rate, I hereby proclaim today the day for time travelers to bring it on. … I’m talking..."

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 22:00:13 -0400

“At any rate, I hereby proclaim today the day for time travelers to bring it on. … I’m talking to you future robot motherf—ers who send weird deliveries.”

- Chris Dixon, on his blog

Angry Nerds

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:09:00 -0400

Angry Nerds:

This is my favorite find of the day…

I especially like how the bomb bird is the founder.

Research: Redis? SimpleGeo? Foursquare?

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 18:19:00 -0400

My current conundrums:

Which in-memory store to use?
- Redis
- Memcache
Which places API to use?
- SimpleGeo
- Foursquare
- Google AJAX Local Search
Which checkin API to use?
- Foursquare
- Facebook
- Gowalla

And there’s others I’m not listing! Wahhh!

No More Keeping Secrets

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 23:55:00 -0400

No More Keeping Secrets:

The Tap Lab is a TechStars Boston 2011 company!

Resourceful hackage: hanging a power strip from the ceiling so I...

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:32:43 -0400

Resourceful hackage: hanging a power strip from the ceiling so I didn’t have to move my seat to plug my laptop in

New Blog = Fresh Start

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:30:00 -0400

My old wordpress blog has been inactive for some time now. I thought I’d give myself a fresh start on Tumblr. Shorter posts = maybe I’ll post more often? I suppose only time will tell. I’ll probably import a few of my old posts on other blogs into this one. Maybe.

I’m also going to try to get better at the twitters, but let’s take it one step at a time, eh? :D