AVI FLOMBAUM, dean of The Flatiron School, is my guest in Big Web Show Episode No. 89. A 28-year-old Rubyist, Skillsharer, storyteller and entrepreneur, Avi founded Designer Pages and NYC on Rails before creating The Flatiron School—a 12 week, full-time program designed to turn you into a web developer.

Listen to Episode No. 89 of The Big Web Show.

URLS, URLS, URLS

• The Flatiron School
• Huffington Post on Avi Flombaum
• Designer Pages
• NYC on Rails
• @flatironschool
• @aviflombaum
• Skillshare Master Teacher
• Avi Flombaum on Linkedin

Filed under: Career, cities, Design, development, Education, NYC, The Big Web Show

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THEY’RE SLEEPING in New York. They’re sleeping all over the world. Even here in Leiden, The Netherlands, they’re still mumbling and drooling in their beds. But not me. I’m awake and packing for my return home to NYC after three glorious days here in this ancient university town, where I was privileged to speak at the first Inspire conference. And all you got were these lousy photos.

• Holland 2012 Inspire – my Leiden and conference photos on Flickr
• Ready to Inspire – conference about web design, type and code
• Follow inspireconf on Twitter
• My Leiden – a Foursquare list
• City of Leiden homepage
• Leiden on Wikipedia

Related: Design Problem

Filed under: cities, conferences, Design, glamorous, people, photography, Travel, Zeldman

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HELLO FROM LONDON, where I’m visiting family and friends, speaking at Future of Web Apps, and exploring this magical city.

• Pete Zeldman
• London – a list on Foursquare (in progress)
• London October 2012 – photo set on Flickr (in progress)
• #fowa on Twitter
• #fowa on Instagram
• Future of Web Apps – London

Filed under: cities, conferences, London

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HEY, FRIENDS. I write from the magical city of Chicago, where I’m enjoying the first Happy Cog Summit. Next week, following our meet-up cum strategy session cum karaoke party, comes An Event Apart Chicago, three days of peace, love, and web standards (plus more Chicago magic).

I won’t be writing here much while these events continue, but I’ve started a Chicago 2012 photo slide show for your pleasure, and will add to it as time and aesthetics permit. You can also stalk me via my new Foursquare Chicago list.

Once An Event Apart kicks in, starting Monday August 27, and until it ends Wednesday night, August 29, I’ll post links and notes here—and you can follow the hot tweet-by-tweet action on A Feed Apart, the official feed aggregator for An Event Apart. Yowee!

• Stalk me! JZ’s Foursquare Chicago list
• Chicago 2012 photo slide show
• Happy Cog
• An Event Apart Chicago
• A Feed Apart

Filed under: An Event Apart, business, Chicago, cities, client services, conferences, Design, Happy Cog™

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TRYING A NEW breakfast place. I tell the cashier, “Extra crispy bacon.”

“Extra bacon,” she says.

“No, not extra bacon. Extra crispy bacon,” I say.

A fast-paced volley of shouted Spanish follows, between the cook, the cashier, and the server. A customer in line behind me chimes in. He is either describing my order to the cashier or telling her about a dream he had involving velvet chickens. I’ve got to learn Spanish.

The cashier turns her green gaze back to me.

“Extra bacon,” she says.

“Um, no,” I say.

“No bacon,” she says.

“Yes, bacon,” I say. “Spinach mushroom omelette, bacon — no toast, no potatoes.”

I will never be able to make it up to her, or to the other customers in line behind me. Or to the pig, quite frankly.

“Extra bacon,” she announces.

I say, “Thank you” and leave a tip in the jar.

Filed under: cities, glamorous, New York City

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HERE I AM at the Palace on Market Street for another thrilling installment of An Event Apart.

An Event Apart San Francisco features twelve great speakers and sessions. Following the two-day conference comes an intense learning session on Mobile Web Design led by Luke Wroblewski (author, Web Form Design).

Starting Monday, December 12, 2011, follow the live Twitter stream on A FEED APART, the official feed aggregator for An Event Apart.

Hum along to the interstitial AEA Playlist on Last.fm or Rdio.

Stay in the loop! Follow An Event Apart on Twitter or Facebook, or subscribe to our mailing list.

Filed under: A Book Apart, A Feed Apart, An Event Apart, cities, Design, Responsive Web Design, San Francisco

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My thrice-delayed, once-cancelled flight home has been resurrected and is boarding. No one was ever so happy to be flying coach to Newark.

Filed under: cities, glamorous

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WHILE ABC has conspicuously begun to celebrate the early jet age, the Port Authority has begun to tear it down.

Terminal 6 at Kennedy International Airport — a crisp island of aesthetic tranquility by the master architect I. M. Pei — is being demolished. The boarding gates are already piles of rubble. The main pavilion, whose white steel roof seems to float ethereally over cascades of diaphanous green glass, is expected to come down by the end of October.

via I. M. Pei’s Terminal 6 Is Being Demolished – NYTimes.com.

Filed under: architecture, cities, Design, New York City

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A STATE of emergency has been declared, but it’s a magical day in New York City. Any grownup who can do so is playing hooky to bask in the perfect sun and gentle breeze. Death, damage, and flooding are expected. We’re preparing for days, maybe weeks without power or water. Any fool could make a fortune selling flashlights today. But while we go through the motions of buying flashlights and stockpiling bottled water, somehow on this blue-sky golden day the threat seems unreal.

You’re a draftee during wartime and it’s your last night before shipping overseas. You’re on the porch, kissing your girl’s neck, but in 48 hours you’ll be smelling blood and gunpowder. The nearness of war makes your girl feel unreal, but your girl’s hair and perfume make the war seem like some strange practical joke.

So today in New York: a glorious Autumn day we glide through without quite seeing, because our minds are in Hollywood disaster movie mode, our carless bodies weighed down with water bottles and flashlights. It’s like that clear blue sky ten years ago, minutes before Hell flew out of it.

Filed under: cities, glamorous, New York City, Weather, Zeldman

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THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN has propelled a striking demographic shift: black New Yorkers, including many who are young and college educated, are heading south.

About 17 percent of the African-Americans who moved to the South from other states in the past decade came from New York, far more than from any other state, according to census data.

Many Black New Yorkers Are Moving to the South – NYTimes.com

Filed under: cities, New York City, war, peace, and justice

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