weiran.co

Weiran Zhang

Hi, I'm Weiran Zhang. I work as a Senior Engineering Manager at Capital One. I have a passion for technology and building thriving software teams. This blog is where I write about things I find interesting. You can follow me on Mastodon.


Swampash explains why Apple has to take Samsung to court:

The Fender Stratocaster was released in 1954 and totally changed the then-new electric guitar market. You can look at well-known electric guitar designs like the Telecaster and the Les Paul and just SEE that they were created before the Stratocaster was released. And you can look at a metric fucktonne of electric guitar designs and just SEE that they were created AFTER the Stratocaster was released. There’s a clear point at which the “before Strat” electric guitar industry became the “after Strat” electric guitar industry. The shape of the Fender Stratocaster - influenced by pre-existing stringed instruments like the cello, but still new and unlike any electric guitar made before - became what electric guitars look like.

Fender did not pursue the Strat-clone manufacturers in court; and then after attempting to trademark the iconic Statocaster contours decades later, a court ruled in 2009 that “the body shapes were generic and that consumers do not solely associate these shapes with Fender Musical Instruments Corporation”. The ruling went so far as to say “in the case of the [Stratocaster] body outline, **this configuration is so common **that it is depicted as a generic electric guitar in a dictionary.” (bolds mine)

Apple ain’t making that mistake.


Tesco demonstrating why you shouldn’t let your customer service team make sweeping statements on Twitter about your websites security.


Bad news: We failed. Hopefully there can be a true successor to OAuth 1.0 because the whole request signing process still gives me a…


John Siricusa writes the only 26,000 word review of OS X Mountain Lion worth reading. Make sure you do.


I wonder how you’re supposed to use Google Earth without an internet connection.


I was going to write a post about Sparrow’s talent acquisition by Google, but Rian van der Merwe did it for me: I paid full price for every…


I don’t think anyone saw this coming: While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide…


Not really, but the proliferation of “vintage” effects for photo apps is starting to make every photo on the internet look the same. The…


Matt Alexander posts his thoughts on Windows Phone: Boasting a colorfully angular interface, the promise of smooth transitional animations…


Matthew Panzarino speculates that Apple will drop the iPhone 4 rather than the iPhone 3GS when “the new iPhone” is released later this year…


Former Yahoo engineering manager Sriram Krishnan has some unsolicited advice for Yahoo’s new CEO: Make a huge sign with the phrase ‘the…