Steve Berry

Principal at Thought Merchants Joined over 9 years ago

  • 29 stories
  • 63 comments
  • 62 upvotes
  • Posted to How do you organize your Figma files?, Mar 03, 2020

    Like any normal person, using the best page titles I can think of at the time.

    0 points
  • Posted to Maze 2.0 | Go from prototype to UX report in minutes, Mar 11, 2019

    Whoa - very close to my Code Climate logo design from 2011. logos

    Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Glad to see the shapes still work!

    -22 points
  • Posted to Mailchimp Brand Refresh!, Sep 27, 2018

    Looks great!

    2 points
  • Posted to Microsoft to Acquire Github for $7.5bn, Jun 06, 2018

    Everyone is so sour on this. Why?

    It is one of THE core services for the web. GitHub mainstreamed the concept of open source collaboration at scale. GitHub is still not profitable and needed a corporate sponsor.

    I am no Microsoft fan and use Apple products. All Microsoft's previous acquisitions were in a totally different tech environment from a different era.

    LinkedIn needs massive funds to dominate the "professional profile." The product sucks because you only need the biggest audience, not features. I detest LinkedIn as an experience but nothing is replacing it because you need more cash than LinkedIn to buy that audience.

    Skype acquisition at the time, was the only widely used and available video chat technology. By the time Microsoft figured out what was going on, there were hundreds of alternatives. So like any company that doesn't have a clear product vision + leader, they captured and locked in their current customers and corporate clients. Yeah, it sucks but it is more expensive for those customers to change...so again crap product.

    GitHub needs to stay in the exact space it holds now otherwise it will lose all its market share. There are a bunch of feature similar alternatives. The market requires MSFT to not fuck it up this time. That is why I believe GitHub will be just fine.

    1 point
  • Posted to Is it Me, or the JIRA redesign is getting out of hand..., May 23, 2018

    Step 1: Don't use Jira. Step 2: Wipe hands on pants. Step 3: Enjoy being productive and happy.

    4 points
  • Posted to Design conferences are broken - but we can fix them, Mar 28, 2018

    Amen!

    0 points
  • Posted to Count: Real-time Shake Shack line counter., Jan 25, 2018

    Hi everyone! This is Steve and Dimitri, the creators of Count: a machine learning company looking to quantify the organic data inside photos, video, and sound. Anybody that has lived in Manhattan understands the dynamics of the Shake Shack line in Madison Square Park. We thought it would be fun to practice our craft quantifying the Shake Shack line in real-time as our first experiment. If you are interested in the technology or want to partner with us to quantify organic data sources email us at count@thoughtmerchants.com to start a conversation.

    Counting the number of people in a line outside is a challenge and there are a few steps to ensure an accurate prediction. First, the raw camera feed from Shake Shack observes the line, the park behind the line, and outside seating. The perspective captures a dense crowd with most bodies and faces obscured and therefore difficult to analyze with traditional machine learning models. In addition, the line is outside in the elements, with snow, inconsistent lighting, shadows, and even umbrellas.

    Count creates a density map predicting the likelihood of each pixel being a person, allowing us to then calculate the number of people in the entire frame. We then use another model to determine the line from the crowd: people waiting at the starting point, side by side. Being able to differentiate between a distant crowd and an actual line has its own set of subtle challenges.

    Feel free to read more about it on Dimitri's blog at http://blog.dimroc.com/2017/11/19/counting-crowds-and-lines/

    0 points
  • Posted to New Typeface. F37 Bergman - a revival of Hans Möhring’s Florida typeface. , Jan 08, 2018

    GIMME IT!

    0 points
  • Posted to iMac Pro Now Available, Dec 14, 2017

    I love this iMac Pro. Fantastic form-factor and performance for those that work with large-scale image manipulation.

    0 points
  • Posted to Chrome now defaults to rounded buttons?, Nov 10, 2017

    Any actual web professional should be using a CSS reset file. These sorts of changes from chrome have no impact on my workflow.

    11 points
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