1.0 Fourth Annual Orgy of Caring

I might have mentioned that I quite like the “Silicon Valley” series.
What gets me most about it is the fact that even in the German “tech scene” – and to be honest, I am not as exposed to that as one might expect – I have met most of these people. And what might be even worse: I have met a lot of people who aspire so, so much to be like one of the guys in “Silicon Valley.”

Okay, maybe even I do. I mean Big Head’s “Rest and Vest” seems like a pretty sweet deal.

2.0 Company emails

Recently I signed up at some online service or another. It’s not strictly aimed at consumers and that’s how they communicate, too – basically their customers are their peers and what their peers are, are other technical professionals. So far so great. It is just weird, when someone new from within their company contacts me, because they forget one thing: they don’t introduce themselves.

Hi Dominik,
as you have probably seen, we have deployed a new version of our API, which is 100% backwards-compatible.
No action is needed on your part.
Bob

Uhm, hi Bob. We haven’t met, yet. Why do I need to wait until your email signature to find out that you work for that company? I know it is an automated email to all customers, many of whom know who Bob is, but still:

Hi Dominik,
this is Bob from Great Service Company. As you have…

would have helped me not to almost delete the mail unread. But maybe that’s just me and most people read all their email until the very end?

3.0 Oh, the pain

I have seen many of you use Runtastic and post their workouts to Facebook. I wonder what made you pick them over Runkeeper?
I actually want to know, so send me a quick reply if you’re a Runtastic user and maybe looked at Runkeeper as well.

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That’s all I have for today. Tomorrow is May 1st, so if you are so inclined, enjoy your day of sanctioned class war.
Speaking of comrades, if you are interested in our tech world and in history and generally like to watch a great talk, go here: Our Comrade The Electron
Dominik