Episode 009: Writing, with John Saddington

In this episode:

Desk: tell me a story

We had a great conversation with Indie Mac Developer John Saddington (a hacker, a human, a doer) about writing and his new app Desk PM, which is now available in the Mac App Store. We talk about life, death and doing things that matter.

To start things off, Bryan brings up flash fiction and asks if limitations can actually help creativity. Sam puts on his software engineering hat as he asks whether or not programming should be considered a foreign language. And to close things up, Sean asks the group what the evolution of writing could look like.

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Show Notes & Links:

The websites we talked about and references to everything we said.

Intro: About John Saddington and Desk PM

• 
  
• Apple’s Best App of 2014
  
• About John Saddington
  
• Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Shoutout for Pressgram
  
• Stop Screwing Around on Netflix
  
• The Iron Yard
  
• Y Combinator
  
• @imyke: Hey guys. I quit my job today…
  
• BOOK: The Hard Things About Hard Things
  
• Paul Graham: The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups
  
• Origins of Desk
  
• Desk: Official Website
  
• VIDEOs: Desk Dev Docs, Marketing Videos, Demos, etc.
  
• MAC APP STORE: Desk - Writing, Blogging, Notetaking, Journaling, and Productivity for WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, MovableType, Typepad, Squarespace, and More
  
• Storytelling is a 10,000 Year Old Technology
  

Bryan Brush: Flash Fiction (Starts at 13:48)

• 
  
• What is Flash Fiction?
  
• What is a Haiku?
  
• The Psychology of Limitation
  
• Twitter’s Chaotic Creation
  
• Twitter’s 140 Character Limit
  
• Twitter’s “Botmaker†Filters Out Spam
  
• In A Creative Rut? Change Your Environment
  
• John Saddington’s Post on Quitting Twitter
  
• @Saddington
  
• BOOK: The Power of Less by Leo Babauta
  
• PODCAST: The ProGuide — Episode 057: John Saddington & Desk PM - Tell Me a Story
  
• Push Boundaries for Innovation
  
• VIDEO: Tightest Parallel Parking in 2014 for the Guinness World Records
  
• VIDEO: Breaking that 2014 Record for Parallel Parking
  
• Red Bull is a Content Marketing Juggernaut
  
• Sam’s Twitter Avatar
  
• @SamBantner
  
• Sam’s Tweet: Having $#!+ to do…
  
• Protecting Your Own Time
  
• Let’s Do This Thing
  
• Big Blank Canvas
  
• The Dash
  
• VIDEO: Khan Academy — Area Under the Curve
  
• Why Write Short Stories At All?
  

Sam Bantner: Computer Programming as a Foreign Language (Starts at 26:15)

• 
  
• Washington Post — States could count computer programming as foreign language skill
  
• Code as a New Foreign Language Requirement
  
• Stanford — Programming as a Second Language by Justin Solomon (2004)
  
• Translation Studies
  
• Translate Ideas to Code
  
• John Quijada, and Ithkuil — the Language He Invented
  
• Hour of Code
  
• More Hour of Code Courses
  
• Computer Science Is Not a Foreign Language
  
• Steve Jobs — “I view computer science as a liberal art.â€
  
• Digital Literacy vs. Digital Fluency
  
• English in Computing
  
• Object-Oriented Programming
  
• Wikipedia: Wiki Game
  
• GAME: 5 Clicks to Jesus
  

Sean Doran: The Evolution of Writing (Starts at 39:05)

• 
  
• PODCAST: The ProGuide — Segment “Working on Deskâ€
  
• VIDEO: Bret Victor — The Human Representation of Thought
  
• Writing: An Art or Science?
  
• The Paradox of Painful Art
  
• PHOTO: Design Like DaVinci
  
• The Cornell Note-taking System
  
• VIDEO: Everything is a Remix
  
• What Does Feature Creep Look Like?
  
• Arena Tech Night
  
• Socrates didn’t write a damn thing
  
• KICKSTARTER: The Hemingwrite
  
• About Hugh MacLeod
  
• Sublime Text
  
• Adobe Photoshop CS3
  
• Hugh MacLeod — “10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
  
• The Gettysburg Address
  
• James Joyce and his pencil
  
• Van Gogh's use of Colors. Pigments and Palette.
  
• DESK: Capture > Write > Publish
  

Outro (Starts at 53:12)

• 
  
• John Saddington’s Official Website
  
• Origins of John.Do
  
• John Doe
  
• Desk Writing Community
  
• 10 Days to a Better Blog
  
• Contact All of the Above
  
• We're on iTunes
  
• On Twitter: @AbovePodcast