Just Looking: Luke Francl's Weblog

Sat, 16 Dec 2006

According to prophesy...
David Horsey, November 14, 2006:

NPR: Border Fence Firm Snared for Hiring Illegal Workers, December 14, 2006

A fence-building company in Southern California agrees to pay nearly $5 million in fines for hiring illegal immigrants. Two executives from the company may also serve jail time. The Golden State Fence Company's work includes some of the border fence between San Diego and Mexico.

Posted at 19:18 Permanent Link

MinneDemo in the PiPress
Leslie Brooks Suzukamo: MinneDemo: 'Woodstock for geeks': Techies gather at a Minneapolis bar, hoping to dazzle one another with software ideas.

Nice! This ran on the front page of the Business section, along with one of my photos.

Networking among local techies isn't new. The Minnesota High Tech Association, NetSuds and The Collaborative all sponsor events that promote the state's technology industries, which have a combined annual payroll of $8.4 billion, according to the high tech association.

But those events require polish and stiff entrance fees. MinneDemo is a reaction against that.

MinneDemo's organizers -- Luke Francl, Dan Grigsby and Ben Edwards -- said their event grew out of a desire to create a network for software developers that was less focused on impressing financial backers and more "true to the technology," according to Grigsby....

[T]he MinneDemo organizers believe their showcases can unleash the passion of local developers.

"You can't buy a spot at MinneDemo," Francl said. "You've got to earn it."

Posted at 19:12 Permanent Link

Fri, 15 Dec 2006

Wisconsin Man Runs Over, Eats Seven-Legged Transgendered Deer
Headline of the week!

(I think it should say 'hermaphrodite' instead of 'transgendered' though, as being transgender is a social condition, and this dear had both male and female reproductive organs.)

Via Chris Dykstra.
Posted at 17:54 Permanent Link

Wed, 13 Dec 2006

MinneDemo 2 Recap
On Monday night, nearly 200 geeks, coders, and entrepreneurs descended on the Acadia Cafe for MinneDemo 2.

"Whew!" is all I can say.

It went off great! Dan and I learned from the first event and found a venue that could accommodate networking and demos. I was worried that no one would want to watch the demos, but that was completely unfounded! The demo room was packed, and so was the bar.

We have to give a big thanks to our sponsors, the presenters, and Ted at the Acadia Cafe for making this event possible.

We had a really diverse crowd of people from all kinds of backgrounds. Justin Kruger and Bob Waldron -- who are hard-core into BarCamp -- even drove up from Milwaukee (and crashed at my place), and a couple of guys from Souix Falls's Electric Pulp who were in town showed up.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see all the demos, but what I did see was promising (though next time, we're going to have to enforce the no PowerPoint rule with a cricket bat). The Doomtree Reactive Video utility was pretty much the awesomest thing I've seen in a long time.

The coolest thing about MinneDemo and MinneBar is the community that they foster. After three events, faces and names are starting to be familiar. People I met at MinneBar are friends, and people who came to the first MinneDemo are part of the tech scene. I think it will just grow from there. I'll be disappointed if we don't get some startups happening out of this...

Photos on Flickr.

MinneDemo thoughts thread on Google Groups.

Graeme Thickins: 'MinneDemo 2' Was One Hot Ticket!

Posted at 20:14 Permanent Link

Thu, 7 Dec 2006

The REST Dialogs
Duncan Cragg probably thought he was clever when he started his REST Dialogs verus an imaginary eBay architect. But then Dan Pritchett, a real eBay architect jumped into the fray.

This promises to be interesting!

Pritchett makes a good point about caching: "Caching dynamically generated content is considerably more difficult than you think. There are portions of our results that can be cached but rarely the entire result set from a single request. We already to caching where it can be done and still provide correct results to the interface. Bear in mind that you are talking about a system with more than 5,000 state changes per second."
Posted at 09:39 Permanent Link

Wed, 6 Dec 2006

Nice picture, Chapstick!

Heh.

Posted at 15:20 Permanent Link

Mon, 4 Dec 2006

MinneDemo 2: Dec. 11, 2006
Friends, geeks, fellow-nerds: lend me your bandwidth!

I'd like to invite you (and your friends) to attend the second MinneDemo event. MinneDemo is the Twin Cities' version of DemoCamp, which condenses the un-conference fun of BarCamp into a single evening. MinneDemo will be held at the Acadia Cafe in Minneapolis. This venue has great beer, plus separate areas for demos and conversation.

Holiday MinneDemo Monday December 11, 6:30 - whenever (demos start at 7:00) Acadia Cafe 1931 Nicollet Ave S Minneapolis Mn 55403 http://barcamp.org/MinneDemo

We'll have 6 or 7 software demos and 20 or so beers on tap. The first 75 people in the door get a couple free drinks.

To sign up, visit the wiki page and add your name to the bottom: http://barcamp.org/MinneDemo

Hope to see you there! Feel free to pass this invitation on to others.
Posted at 09:06 Permanent Link

Fri, 1 Dec 2006

Dog saves lives, gets boot
AP: Fargo hero dog up for adoption

FARGO, N.D. -- He's a hero, but now he needs a home.

A black lab named Hunter is credited with waking up a North Dakota family in time to get them out of their burning home early on the day after Thanksgiving.

But now Melisa Sherrard and her two sons are looking for someone to adopt Hunter. She says they can't keep him in the hotel where they'll be living for months until their home is repaired.

Sherrard says Hunter and another family dog named Riley are being boarded at a West Fargo kennel until they can be adopted. She tried keeping Hunter in the hotel for two days -- but says it just didn't work.

I think if my dog saved my life and the lives of my family, I'd want to keep him!
Posted at 15:12 Permanent Link

Mon, 27 Nov 2006

Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work
Hah, I've never used any of these before!
Posted at 09:29 Permanent Link

Sun, 26 Nov 2006

Volleyball
Jenny and I flew home this weekend with the University of Minnesota Gophers women's volleyball team. Haven't I seen this film before? I was worried...it seems like every time a plane crashes, it takes out an assortment of All American Athletes or a Peruvian soccer team. This was a bit too close for comfort, but we made it home safely.
Posted at 22:43 Permanent Link

Bruce Schneier Profile
The Pioneer Press profiles Minnesota-based security expert Bruce Schneier. Certain facts are missing, though.
Posted at 21:31 Permanent Link

Tue, 21 Nov 2006

Twin Cities Code Camp Recap
(I know I promised this over a week ago, but hey, it's not like I get paid for this...)

The first Code Camp went off well, and Jason Bock deserves big props for setting it up and running the show. The event was well attended. I heard there were about 200 people there. And there were some great prizes (including two XBox 360s and two iPod Nanos) from the sponsors.

I went in knowing that it was highly .NET/Microsoft centric, and it was. Probably 80% of the people there were .NET developers. They even had Windows laptops! It was amusing to see the "different" (but, really, more typical) Dells, IBM, Sony, and HP laptops.

What about the content? When I first heard about Code Camp, I wondered how it would differ from BarCamp. I wrote at the time, "The difference from BarCamp seems to be more structure and a code-only focus." That turned out to be true. BarCamp is very ad hoc and diverse. Code Camp was more structured and more narrowly focused. Also, due to the venue, there wasn't a whole lot of room for social interaction, which is one of the best parts about conference. Indeed, the BarCamp model is to take the between sessions conversations and stretch them out to the whole conference.

My take on Code Camp is much like Jon Dahl's constructive criticism. In the future, I'd like to see more varied types of presentations and separate tracks for different technologies. It sucked getting stacked against Charles Nutter's JRuby demo. It'd be cool if there was room for everyone to socialize at lunch and during breaks. And some of the rooms didn't have projectors, but instead everyone got a monitor that mirrored the "instructor's". This was awkward because everyone is looking down instead of at you. (But having done some venue-hunting for MinneDemo I know that finding a place that accommodates all needs is murder).

That said, I think my perspective is a little different as a speaker. We had our own room for decompressing and socializing. I had a good long talk with Nathaniel T. Shutta (who I will just call "Nate" from now on to save typing...), catching up from RailsConf in Chicago, and finally met erstwhile Ruby developer Jake Good, who promises he'll come to a Ruby Users of Minnesota meeting real soon now. After my talk, Jinesh Varia from Amazon and I talked in more detail about REST versus SOAP. The speakers were also treated to an after-conference beer at a nearby sports bar.

But wait, presenters shouldn't have a different, better experience than attendees, the BarCamper says. Everyone should be a participant!

That's the biggest problem with the presenter/audience format. On the plus side, the content is more central, which leads to learning more.

The Talks

I attended Jinesh Varia's Amazon Web Services presentation, Cory Smith's XBoxFriends talk, Nate Schutta's Foundations of Ajax, and of course my own session on REST. Here's some thoughts on those.

Jinesh Varia, Build Innovative Applications Using Amazon Web Services

I figured I had to go to this because I was talking about Web Services, too. Jinesh talked primarily about Amazon S3 and EC2, which I was familiar with. However, he really opened my eyes to the possibilities here. For example, I didn't know that Smug Mug is now hosting all their photos on S3, and saving a bundle on bandwidth, too. I also learned that developers can create EC2 machine images (like a VMWare image) that can be loaded (and unloaded) on new virtual machines on demand...that's pretty cool.

Cory Smith, XboxFriends...Under The Covers

XBox Friends is a AIM-like application that tells you (from your PC) which of your XBox buddies are online, and what they're playing. So if they break out the Gears of War, you can join them. Being neither an XBox owner nor a .NET developer, this talk didn't hold much for me. I went because Jake Good told me to go to Cory's talk instead of his. :)

However, I will say that it was an entertaining talk, and Cory did a great job of presenting in a PowerPoint-less manner. He showed us real code, examples from his program, and talked about the challenges of getting XBox Friends to work (screen scraping, yeck!).

Nate Schutta, Foundations of Ajax

Nate's written a couple of books on Ajax, so I didn't want to miss this one. It was primarily a compression of the Ajax overview that he gives for the No Fluff Just Stuff tour, and as such was pretty polished. He gave a similar presentation at MinneBar in May, but this one had updated content as the state of Ajax has matured quite a bit since then.

Luke Francl, REST and Its Discontents

My own talk was mixed. I tried to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of REST versus SOAP, but my understanding of SOAP is somewhat feeble as I've never used it in a real project. I could have done a much stronger job explaining why the audience should care about REST.

I also was about 5-10 minutes short on material and didn't have a class handout sheet, which I like to do, but I didn't devote enough time to the presentation to finish these things. I think if I gave the talk again it would be much stronger.
Posted at 20:56 Permanent Link

JavaScript/CSS tool tips for links
This is nice looking JavaScript/CSS tool tip code for HTML links.

I've been thinking of doing something like this for Central Standard Tech.
Posted at 11:21 Permanent Link

IBM embraces REST for SOA
Greg Flurry, IBM developerWorks: Interactions with WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere ESB using Representational State Transfer

This is good news for people who want to integrate with IBM's "Enterprise Service Bus" but would like to use a REST-style architecture.
Posted at 08:56 Permanent Link

Thu, 16 Nov 2006

Curbly
I want to give a shout out to my friends and fellow Rubyists Ben Moore and Burno Bornsztein for launching Curbly, their DIY design social networking site (sort of Real Simple meets MySpace).

If that's not enough, they also threw together a little local news aggregator site called acu.mn. Oh you kids and your "domain name hacks"!

I'm not sure if I'd call them "Ruby on Rails Rockstars," though. :) Aren't rockstars usually trashing hotel rooms and doing lines of coke off a stripper's ass? Instead, Burno and Ben seem to enjoy hanging out, drinking beers, and talking politics. At least, that was my impression from RubyConf!
Posted at 16:13 Permanent Link

Wed, 15 Nov 2006

Backup your data
A co-worker shared this story on the importance of backing up your data:

A criminal group showed up on Thanksgiving weekend and cleaned us out. They backed up a truck to our loading dock, disabled our alarm systems then went through the office and took all the laptop and desktop machines. Fortunately for us, the unix servers were left alone. Even though these guys had defeated our internal lock systems and could have taken them, they must have considered them too difficult to fence. Our release was delayed by quite a bit because the PC developers had all the best desktop machines (which had all been stolen) and all their source code was on their machines. So they basically had to go back and re-do that last month's worth of work.

D'oh!
Posted at 15:43 Permanent Link

Sun, 12 Nov 2006

CodeCamp Photos
I've posted my photos from the Twin Cities Code Camp on flickr.

I will try to post some notes on the event as well as my slides tomorrow.
Posted at 21:32 Permanent Link

Ad trains
The Mondy Strib editorial hits at one of my pet peeves: LRT cars covered with ads so you can't see in.

Metro Transit has shrouded most of its light-rail cars in advertising. Whole trains -- windows and all -- have become gliding billboards for supermarkets, sports teams, discount stores, you name it. Commuters on platforms can't see into the cars; riders inside can see out, sort of, but only into what appears to be a murky, depressing city.

It's especially annoying when there is a big game or event downtown and most of the seats are packed -- you can't tell which car is best to get into.
Posted at 20:36 Permanent Link

Fri, 10 Nov 2006

33-No Fun? (part 2)
The City Pages has posted their account of the shut down of the 331's live music.

Two things struck me about this -- first of all, the Como Avenue Jug Band is in some small way responsible for the citations, as they were playing the night the inspector dropped by to enforce Minneapolis's anti-fun policies. What's more, I was there!

The other thing is that the reason this is happening now is that the city has switched to a new inspection system, and the 331 just got a new inspector:

[331 manager Jarret] Oulman claims that, until recently, he'd had little problem with the liquor-licensing department. "When I had the big events, the outside events, I'd go down, apply for my permit, and then totally separately, I'd write to Diane [Hofstede, Third Ward councilwoman]. She'd tell me what her concerns were, things that were useful and insightful, and I'd address those with her." But then he started working with a new inspector, Dan Niziolek. "We didn't have individual territories until September 1; before that, inspectors were city-wide," explains licensing inspector Niziolek, whose newly assigned beat includes the 331 Club. "Another inspector passed me a complaint that burlesque was being presented, and I went to investigate it on September 16. There was burlesque and amplified music, both."

Dan Niziolek? Ah, that explains things. Until last year, he was our worthless Ward 10 city councilman. How's that saying go again? "Those who can't govern, inspect"?
Posted at 10:03 Permanent Link

Take control of your interview
Reg Braithwaite: Take control of your interview

Good advice.
Posted at 09:54 Permanent Link

Thu, 9 Nov 2006

Digital River backdating?
Uh-oh, this is not good news for local eCommerce company Digital River: Digital River shareholder suit alleges backdating.

Digital River was one of nine firms Glass Lewis cited recently as having a pattern of both being late to file stock-option grant reports and having a material rise in their stock price in the time between the purported grant date and the date of the SEC filing....

The suit alleges that a statistical analysis showed a 99.5 percent likelihood that the pattern of stock-option grants being followed by stock-price increases was not the result of random good luck, thus suggesting that backdating occurred....

For example, in 2001 one set of options was dated Jan. 2, at $2.59, the stock's low that year. Immediately after, the stock spiked to as high as $8.75 before settling back to $5.125, when another 1,390,000 shares were granted to different executives. The stock rose a couple of dollars after that, before settling in the $4-to-$5 range for several months. By December, the stock traded as high as $19.60.

Posted at 21:13 Permanent Link

Twin Cities Code Camp, Saturday Nov 11, 2006
Don't forget the Twin Cities Code Camp this weekend. I'll be speaking about REST.

The schedule is available here. I think there's a lot of .NET stuff, but a little something for everything.
Posted at 21:04 Permanent Link

Passport + Postcard
Today, I got a postcard from a friend in Thailand and my passport! He got there a few days before the coup, but says it's fine. (It's good to hear from him, I was worried after the coup).

I think it's an omen.

P.S.: Yes, it is one of the new RFID passports. I guess I waited too long to get one. I'll have to see if there's anything I can do about it.
Posted at 20:47 Permanent Link

Tue, 7 Nov 2006

Pareto politics
On election day, here's something to think about.

Policies that are economically optimal, like "free trade", are often promoted as beneficial to the whole public. However, these policies have winners and losers. Theoretically, the losers could be compensated by redistributing some of the gains of the winners. Then no one would be worse off, and the economy as a whole would be better off.

However, winners have every incentive to fight this redistribution and are more often than not successful because they are more powerful than losers, practically by definition. This means that the best course of action from the would-be losers' self-interested point of view is to try to prevent the policy from being instituted at all.
Posted at 14:44 Permanent Link

Fri, 3 Nov 2006

Robocall
I just got a political robocall from my own phone number. How do they do that?

I've heard of caller ID hacking. Did they do this on purpose (it's hard not to answer your own call), or was it a bug?
Posted at 15:39 Permanent Link

A scientific look at label placement on forms
Matteo Penzo, UXmatters: Label Placement in Forms.

Wow, this is great. A user experience article backed up by real numbers! (And no, I don't think Jakob Nielsen's "buy the full report" teasers count.)

Matteo analyzed four different layouts of the same web form and discovered that users had the easiest time with a vertical form layout, with form labels above the fields.

This type of analysis is very useful, so I was hoping UXmatters had more of the same. Unfortunately, it seems the site is lacking more of that sort of writing. However, the introduction to color theory ( part 2) was worth reading.

Posted at 13:48 Permanent Link

Thu, 2 Nov 2006

33-No Fun?
Wha, wha, what? No more music at the 331?

City inspectors may pull the plug on live music at the 331 Club in northeast Minneapolis, which was transformed from an unremarkable dive bar into a hip nightspot two years ago when folk, country and rock bands started playing there.

Owner Jarret Oulman, who took over the club in 2004, said he received a cease-and-desist order Wednesday from the city prohibiting "amplified" music after Nov. 15.

Man that sucks! The 331 is one of my favorite places to catch a show (not coincidentally because the Como Avenue Jug Band often plays there). Sure, the sound system sucks and it's really crowded, but it's a fun atmosphere, and no cover!
Posted at 18:07 Permanent Link

We go to Borat movie-film!
Jagshemash!!! You come to see Borat movie-film opening night, very nice, I like!!!

Please to join me, my donkey, and our wife to watch "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" Friday, Nov 3 at Block E at 8pm.

Buy tickets early, hard currency only, nice.

Tell your friends!

Chenquieh!

I just got back from picking up tickets at Block E. Damn, this movie's going to be big.

BORAT

There were a ton of people lined up with passes to tonight's preview showing. It looked like it would clearly be full.

It's gonna be awesome.
Posted at 18:02 Permanent Link

Oracle Buys Stellent
Fellow Rubyist Nick Sieger sent me notice that my former employeer Stellent has been bought by Oracle for $400M. Too bad I don't have any stock.
Posted at 17:50 Permanent Link

Tue, 31 Oct 2006

Critical Habitat Plates Contest
Vote for your favorite.

I like the walleye

walleye plates

and the heron

Heron plates

Posted at 19:13 Permanent Link

Happy Halloween
I got an email forward from a relative titled "Why Dogs Bite". Here were the best pictures:

Cerberus

Spider Pug
Posted at 16:15 Permanent Link

Optimizing Page Load Time
Aaron Hopkins: Optimizing Page Load Time. Fascinating investigation into how to make your pages download faster.
Posted at 11:29 Permanent Link

Nappy time:
Kurt Kleiner: The modern world killed off the nap: A tribute to the soft pleasures of dozing, backed up by hard science.

As a species, we seem designed to nap. Sleep researchers have long known that our natural circadian rhythms show two distinct dips in energy and alertness. The major dip starts in the late evening, helping us get ready for a good night's sleep.

But there's another significant dip in the early afternoon that, in a saner world, would have us all dropping off. From an evolutionary point of view, this pattern makes some sense — our ancestors evolved in the tropics, where a desire to sleep during the hottest part of the day probably helped ensure survival....

MetroNaps sells naps as a productivity-enhancing experience for office workers, one that will send you back to your high-powered job with a better attitude and a better ability to get the job done.

If that's what it takes to pry a little room out of the day for more napping, I'm all for it. But for me, the productivity enhancement is almost beside the point. It's as if someone were arguing that I should eat lunch so that I could work harder.

I always feel a little sleepy after lunch. Maybe I should stop fighting it.
Posted at 11:18 Permanent Link

In a New York Dollar
New York Magazine discovers that in New York City, a dollar is worth 76.2 cents.

The authors compare the cost of living in New York city not only to the national average, but to "a city with a statistically average cost of living yet some semblance of a cultural life": Minneapolis.

There's some interesting comparisons (read: relevant to me).

Prix fixe dinner at top restaurant
La Belle Vie . . . . . $80 a person
Per Se. . . . . . . . . . $210 a person

Museum admission
Walker Art Center . . . . . . . . . $8
MoMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $20

Movie ticket
The Prestige, St. Anthony Main Theater . . $8
The Science of Sleep, BAM . . $10
Posted at 11:13 Permanent Link

Thu, 26 Oct 2006

Ideas in Spring
Empathy Box: The Ideas in the Spring Framework.

I think this is a really great essay about the Spring Framework and I think the author gets it right. Spring has some good and not so good ideas in it.
Posted at 16:03 Permanent Link

The Worst Boss I Ever Had

One time, I overheard him telling Josh about a book he was writing on building development teams. (!)

Suuuure, I think he'd say anything to impress anybody.

What's the title, anyway? "The Software Development Team as a Stalinist Regime?"

-- Former Co-Worker
Posted at 08:56 Permanent Link

Wed, 25 Oct 2006

Creating a new community
John Gladding, A List Apart: How to Be a Great Host.

Interesting advice on creating an online community.
Posted at 14:23 Permanent Link

BT buys Counterpane
BT bought Counterpane, the company of erstwhile Minnesotan and security guru Bruce Schneier. Looks like it was at least $20M.
Posted at 14:13 Permanent Link

Tue, 24 Oct 2006

Planet Venus
Planet Venus now has docs. Maybe it's time to try again to migrate CST to it.

I'm still having problems with Planet barfing on my cache directory for unknown reasons. Planet doesn't report which feed is broken, or why the DB is screwed up, nor does it (usually) continue after barfing on one of the feeds.
Posted at 09:45 Permanent Link

Sun, 22 Oct 2006

Twin Cities Code Camp: REST and its Discontents
I signed up for a slot at the Twin Cities Code Camp (Nov. 11, 2006) to talk about REST. Please come! It's pretty Microsoft centric, so it'd be nice to see some Ruby and Java people there. However, there are a number of talks I'm interested in seeing, so there will be plenty for us non-Microsofties:

Foundations of Ajax
Quick and Dirty Functional Testing with Selenium
Object/Relational Mapping with Hibernate
JRuby: Ruby on the JVM
The State of Languages on the CLR
Build Innovative Applications Using Amazon Web Services
Integrating Ruby on Rails and .NET

Here's the abstract for my talk.

REST and its Discontents

Representational State Transfer or REST has gained a lot of mind share as an alternative to SOAP-based web services. REST describes a resource-based architecture that mirrors the web. "It's just XML over HTTP" is a common refrain. But as you did deeper, REST becomes more complicated. Debates about the "right" and "wrong" ways to do REST get hot and heavy fast. What are the advantages and disadvantages of REST? Who's doing REST right and who's doing it wrong? We'll cut through the chaff, and show you how you can use REST in your web services.

Posted at 13:15 Permanent Link

Sat, 21 Oct 2006

Whisker Sparklines patch accepted
Geoffrey Grosenbach accepted my whisker sparklines patch into his library. Cool!
Posted at 11:01 Permanent Link

Fri, 20 Oct 2006

RubyConf 2006
I'm at RubyConf. Nick Sieger is doing a good job of live blogging the presentations. Check it out if you're feeling left out.

I did get a chance to talk to Geoffry Grossenbach about putting my whisker sparkline implementation into his Sparklines library. Hopefully he will accept the patch.
Posted at 14:12 Permanent Link

Thu, 19 Oct 2006

Best Essay Ever
Unknown: Planes, Trains, and Plaintains: The story of Oedipus.

"This kid was apparently high when he wrote and turned this paper in."

The sources cited page makes me laugh every time I look at it.

(Via reddit.)
Posted at 17:23 Permanent Link

Indecision and Software Development
Rob Walling: How To Burn $6,540 a Week: Indecision and Software Development.

Ugh, don't I know it.
Posted at 17:11 Permanent Link

Coffee
Tom Moertel: A Coder's Guide to Coffee: "Although coffee is commonly considered a utility beverage, it is an amazing drink when well prepared. Given its ubiquity in software and creative circles, it's likely that you will be drinking a lot of it. So why not prepare it as it was meant to be? Why not enjoy a truly good cup of coffee? If you buy fresh, high-quality beans, grind them on the spot, and brew with hot water, you can't go wrong."

I do not drink much coffee. I can't stand the bitter brew that's commonly made, so I never really got into it. These days, though, I am starting to appreciate a good cup on the weekend. Jenny and I have been enjoying the fruits of a nice french press we got for our wedding (thanks!). I'm trying to get my hands on a Zassenhaus grinder, but it's proving difficult.
Posted at 16:26 Permanent Link

Wed, 18 Oct 2006

Off to RubyConf
I'm leaving tomorrow night for Denver and RubyConf 2006. Or as I like to call it: "199 of the world's best Ruby programmers...and me".

Denver's a city I've never been too, so I hope I'll get a chance to explore it a little, but the fundamental rule of computer conferences (with the exception of CodeCon) seems to be, have them in the most boring suburban location possible. I won't have a car.

The conference looks very interesting though. I'm looking forward to Dynamic Graphics with Ruby, Zed Shaw's talk, and John Long's presentation about Radiant. Nathaniel Talbott's Barn Raising talk at RailsConf was inspiring, so Open Classes, Open Companies sounds promising. And I wouldn't miss Tim Bray's Unicode talk for the world.

All in all, it should be a good time. A few other RUM members are going, too. I'll try to update this blog and my Flickr page while I'm there.

P.S.: For a trip, check out the branding between RailsConf (slick, professional) and RubyConf ("I barely know HTML and I don't care"). I think this gives you a good idea of the hype behind Rails.
Posted at 19:44 Permanent Link

Tue, 17 Oct 2006

Securing your server
Ilya Grigorik: Securing your Rails environment.

But really this is "securing your server" with lots of good tips for closing down some typical security holes as well as preventing brute force attacks on your remaining open services.
Posted at 15:00 Permanent Link

MediaWiki Templates: Turing Complete?
I've been struggling with MediaWiki templates for a new wiki I am trying to launch, and so reading Wikimedia Proves Greenspun's Tenth Law which suggests that MediaWiki templates may be turing complete made me chuckle.

These things are insane and MediaWiki is totally getting out of hand. At this point, a limited sub-set of HTML with some sort of scripting/template language would have been preferable. And the documentation for the templates is terrible.

Check out the template docs.

Here's an example template:

{{call|={{{1}}}|{{{2}}}=x0|1={{{2}}}|2={{{3}}}|3={{{4}}}}}

WTF? This code looks like brainfuck. And that's a simple one.

Here's the template that produces the company infobox. Look at that source code!

But I guess mainly I'm just bitter because I can't get conditionals working.
Posted at 12:23 Permanent Link

Gimme back my Google!
Give me back my Google is a searchbox you can use to filter out all the annoying product "review" sites from your searches. It translates this search " nikon d200" into " nikon d200 -site:kelkoo -site:ciao -site:bizrate -site:pixmania.co.uk -site:pixmania.com -site:dealtime.com -site:dealtime.co.uk -site:pricerunner.co.uk -site:pricerunner.com -site:pricegrabber -site:pricewatch -site:shopping.msn.com -site:resellerratings -site:epinions.com -site:nextag -site:comparestoreprices.co.uk -site:unbeatable.co.uk -site:ebay -site:shopping.com -site:shopbot".

Via Daring Fireball.
Posted at 09:48 Permanent Link

Fri, 13 Oct 2006

Scott Adams financial advice
Here's Scott Adams's financial advice:

Make a will
Pay off your credit cards
Get term life insurance if you have a family to support
Fund your 401k to the maximum
Fund your IRA to the maximum
Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it
Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account
Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement
If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio

Apparently he wanted to publish a one page book with this advice.
Posted at 13:29 Permanent Link

Oh noes! MacBook Random Shutdown Hits
Last night, I was happily hacking away with Emacs and a couple terminals open, and then bam my MacBook shut off suddenly.

I stared in surprise for a moment at the black screen, then turned the machine back on. It started booting, and then turned itself off like before. I unplugged the AC power and tried again. No luck.

Oh, shit, I'm thinking. What about my data? I should have backed up. I'll have to take it in to get it fixed. But I'm going to RubyConf next week!

Sigh.

So I tired taking out the battery and replacing it, and for some reason that worked.

I did a little research and found out that this problem is pretty common with MacBooks. There's a website devoted to the problem, Apple has acknowledged the issue, and some users are organizing a class-action lawsuit. Some guy even got a video of the random shutdown happening at the Apple store (note: for me, the video pauses at 8 seconds. If you skip past that you can see the shutdown).

The problem is apparently caused by a short circuit where some wires melt to the heatsink.

Marc Zeedar suggested maxing out both processors with yes > /dev/null & yes > /dev/null would allow him to reliably reproduce the problem, but that didn't work for me. So far, it hasn't happened again. My plan is to back up my data, take it to Denver for RubyConf, and then replace it.
Posted at 13:24 Permanent Link

Tue, 10 Oct 2006

Ruby Linguistics library
The Ruby Linguistics library looks like a good way to get those pesky human-sounding messages in your Ruby app. (Via Reddit)
Posted at 14:31 Permanent Link

THE INTERNET
I love this comic.
Posted at 13:35 Permanent Link

Logging out of HTTP Basic Auth
If you're down with the RESTifarians, you loves you some HTTP authentication. Baked right into the spec, it's got everything you need to log in users.

One problem with it is that it's hard to log out users. Typically, the browser keeps sending the authentication headers until it is quit.

Michael Lucas-Smith came up with a somewhat hackish solution to this problem: Logging out of HTTP Basic Auth.

In the comments, Elliotte Rusty Harold points out it doesn't have to be so difficult:

Invalidating the realm is a good idea, but there's no reason to use a cookie to do it. As long as we're using cookies you might as well as use them for authentication. Better to give the user a button or some such on your site that invalidates the realm. You can time out the realm automtaicaly after a few hours of inactivity.

Posted at 13:33 Permanent Link

Fri, 6 Oct 2006

Cool Java code: anonymous class plus instance initializer
Ryan Sonnek posted a neat example of how to use anonymous classes and instance initializers to initalize a Map easily, right were you declare it. He's using this for his JavaScript builder.

Check out this code example:

Map options = new HashMap() {{ put("key", "value"); put("option", "foo"); put("flag", "bar"); }};

Ryan calls it a "little-known Java feature called an initializing block":

Huh! I didn't know you could do that. So I tried to figure out how it works. It's interesting. I've used both components separately, but never put them together like this.

The first set of { } creates an anonymous class as a subclass of HashMap. You see this type of code a lot, especially for event listeners. They're also nice for FileFilters.

The second { } I've also used before, but it is rare. It's an instance initializer. (See also this discussion of them.)

So basically you're creating a subclass of HashMap and then setting the values you want in its instance initializer. Clever.

I ran this code in BeanShell and sure enough it reported the class of the instance as "global$1" instead of HashMap.

I ran this past my friend Nick and he replied with another neat trick:

I've used the new <someclass>() {} trick so that I can distinguish between classes in the debugger.

Eg.,

class X { Map m = new HashMap() {}; }

class Y { Map m = new HashMap() {}; }

The debugger will say X$1, instead of HashMap -- useful when debugging deadlocks and it isn't clear which object is in contention.

Posted at 18:34 Permanent Link

Thu, 5 Oct 2006

Chipmark: a great idea for a college class
As an alumni of the University of Minnesota Computer Science Department, I receive a bi-annual newsletter from the Department called SoundByte.

The Spring/Summer 2006 issue had an interesting article about an innovative two semester-long class taught by popular professor John Riedl.

The students who sign up for this class spend 30 weeks working on Chipmark, an open source de.lico.us knockoff. The cool thing about this is that they spend a long time working together on a real project, that runs on a real server, with real users. They also have to deal with legacy code, because each class builds on the previous class's work.

Here's some snippets from the article:

Do you want to learn how to really build software ... and get Upper Division CSci credits at the same time? Are you tired of 1-2 week assignments that just get thrown away when you finish them? Do you want to ge evaluated on your ability to build software, rather than your ability to memorize facts for a test? Then consider this class: working together with 10-12 focused students for 30 weeks over two semesters to deliver a useful open source software product to the world!

So read the first paragraph in an email invitation from Prof. John Riedl to Computer Science undergraduates. He wanted to give students the opportunity to participate in an unique class, gaining valuable experience building software in a way that isn't possible in a conventional classroom setting....

This project class isn't like other classes. Instead of attending lectures and coding textbook programs every few weeks, the Chipmark team meets twice a week to discuss progress and work together in the same room. The project has different areas of responsibility such as team lead, release manager, and user interface manager. This means that everyone has an area of responsibility and an opportunity for leadership....

UMN Computer Science majors learn how to program in Java in the second course they take. Chipmark team members apply their Java skills, but they also learn how much more there is to a software project than just writing code. They work with a wide range of industry standard tools including Ant (to build the software), CVS (for change management), Javascript and C++ (for browser extensions), Tomcat and MySQL(to run the Chipmark server), and MRTG (to monitor server status).

I think this is really cool. One of my constant complaints about my education is that the importance of source control was never addressed -- not even in my software engineering class (where, like the Chipmark project, our code was turned over to the next year's class -- sorry about the XML sit ups, guys!)

This class addresses that, and more. I wish I'd had the opportunity to take a class like that. I think it would have made me a better software developer, sooner.
Posted at 15:23 Permanent Link

Ajax and REST
Bill Higgins: Ajax and REST, Part 1: Advantages of the Ajax/REST architectural style for immersive Web applications.

Good introduction on some of the benefits of REST, primarily caching and lower memory usage on the server side.

More REST

Brian Repko: Ain't gettin' no rest with REST.

VERSUS

Benjamin Carlyle: Common REST Questions

More Reading:

Blogcritics: Blogger denies slavery cause of Civil War

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America

Wikipedia: Origins of the American Civil War

Posted at 10:10 Permanent Link

Sat, 24 Jun 2006

RailsConf: Certificate of Nonconformity
My roommate Jesse Ross just got a "Certificate of Nonconformity" from some guys who are passing them out to all the people not using Apple laptops. I would estimate at least 75% of the people are using Macs here.

Tag: railsconf
Posted at 09:33 Permanent Link

Fri, 23 Jun 2006

Summer of Rails
Summer of Rails: "You installed Ruby on Rails, you bought the books, and you even made a shopping cartBut that was months ago and you still haven't shipped your first Rails app. So let's fix that."
Posted at 12:11 Permanent Link

Revolutionary Java
Rails conf has its share of Java bashing, as you might expect. I'm surprised that there's less talk of .NET or Python or Perl, but I guess it's natural given the number of Rails programmers who come from a Java background. It's what they know.

Last night over drinks, Ben Moore asked me an interesting question. Whatever the next revolutionary software development is, will it be written in Java? What advanatages does Java have over Ruby?

We came up with the JVM, the libraries, and the speed of Java. A lot of academic work is done in Java so there is a big body of research going on in Java. But is that enough?

We also agreed that even if Java is surpassed by Ruby it's not going to go away. But the Java sector may stop growing. I think you see that already with respect to the adoption of C# and .NET.

Tags: railsconf, java, ruby
Posted at 12:01 Permanent Link

Thu, 22 Jun 2006

Railsconf!
In just a few hours, I'm heading off to Chicago for the first RailsConf! It's exciting. A bunch of us from ruby.mn are going. Say "hi" if you see me there. I put my picture on the facebook.

RailsConf attendee
Posted at 06:34 Permanent Link

Tue, 20 Jun 2006

Ox = Cow
For some reason, I did not realize that an ox and a cow were the same animal! (OK, technically, cows are the female cattle, but colloquially, we call cattle "cows".)
Posted at 14:59 Permanent Link

Mon, 19 Jun 2006

XPath and Namespaces
XPath does not have a default namespace. So if you are doing an XPath search against an XML document that has a default namespace, you are not going to find anything, unless you add that namespace to the XPath expression. In the case of a default namespace, this can be confusing. What's the prefix?

Essentially, you have to just make one up, and use it in your query. For example, if the root element is /foo, you need to search for /prefix:foo, where "prefix" is the namespace prefix you invent.

XPath and Default Namespace handling talks about how to do this. I found this document useful, although my JDOM code ended up being a bit simpler than the example given.
Posted at 10:36 Permanent Link

Fri, 9 Jun 2006

Luke Pie-Rocker
Not only do they sling some of the best pie in town, Galactic Pizza's superhero suited Deliverators also fight crime.

What great publicity for Galactic and Cameron Evans (aka "Luke Pie-Rocker")!

Normally, chasing after crooks is not really recommended, but it sounds like the guy was some derelict junkie so it's probably not too dangerous.

See also: MNSpeak, Star Tribune.
Posted at 08:37 Permanent Link

Thu, 8 Jun 2006

Poor Scrappy. RIP.
Ugh, I can't believe this, but a neighbor shot my friend Chuck's dog Scrappy. Scrappy was apparently annoying the neighbor's goats, so he just shot him.

Jenny and I were just down at Chuck's farm two weeks ago and Scrappy was having a good old time. Everyone loved that dog.

Here's some pictures of Scrappy.

Posted at 08:09 Permanent Link

Thu, 25 May 2006

The CSci Monastery
Scott Aaronson: Nerdify the world, and the women will follow: "computer science departments could attract and retain better people of both sexes if they felt less like monasteries or pirate ships."

Heh.
Posted at 09:12 Permanent Link

Thu, 18 May 2006

MacBook First Impressions
Since I work right next to the Mall of America, I hopped on the light rail and went to the Apple Store last night to check out the new MacBook.

I was most interested in checking out the controversial new "glossy" screen. I think the new screens are a mistake. Even in the perfectly diffuse, complementrary lighting of the Apple Store, the reflection from the screen was quite noticeable. But what do I know? While I was trying the computers, at least three people commented how much they loved the screen (shiny = good?). I don't like it, but I don't think it's worth $1000 (for me) to get the MacBook Pro with the matte screen.

The keyboard is strange, but I think I would get used to it. It looks like a chicklet keyboard but the key travel is good and it is pretty comfortable to use.

The matte finish of the black model shows fingerpints and scratches extremely easily. I was able to mark it with very light pressure from my fingernail. I would not recommend this laptop if you care about that. After a few weeks in your bag, it's going to look like hell. Also, I don't want a laptop that says "I paid $150 extra for this color."

I couldn't get a good feel for the heat situation on these laptops. I know there have been problems with the MacBook Pro so I'd like to hear from people with a MacBook before I bought one.

The built-in camera and Photo Booth software are ridiculously fun. You can't help but smile when playing with the cool effects it comes with.

Photo of me from Photo Booth

And, at the Apple Store, the computers store a bunch of funny photos of the people who have been playing with Photo Booth before you.
Posted at 12:17 Permanent Link

Wed, 17 May 2006

Java Developer Questions
Rob Warner: Java Developer Questions.

I really like his OO design question and his approach to guiding people to the right answer.

I'm also surprised that he says 30-40% fail the first question ("Print the numbers 1-10 on screen"). I can see an off by one error, but screwing that up entirely? Oof.
Posted at 15:03 Permanent Link

Tue, 16 May 2006

Ride of Silence
May 17, 2006: Ride of Silence honors those cyclists who have been kiled or injured by cars.

The Minneapolis ride starts at the Stone Arch Bridge at 7:00 PM.

I would like to go to this but I am still bike-less. Hopefully next year.
Posted at 15:26 Permanent Link

Tue, 9 May 2006

Space Suburbs
JWZ linked to these images of 1970s space colony art.

I couldn't help thinking:

Suburbs...IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!
Posted at 09:32 Permanent Link

Mon, 8 May 2006

Friends with money
This New York Times article about the difficulty of maintaining friendships across socio-economic boundries is interesting.
Posted at 16:09 Permanent Link

No trees in the 'burbs
Kenneth Kidd: Why suburbs will never have tall trees. Topsoil is precious.
Posted at 16:08 Permanent Link

You know how to add, don't you?
EPI's Jared Bernstein does econ-noir. Surprisingly well-done and funny.
Posted at 16:06 Permanent Link

Fri, 5 May 2006

Friday Cat Blogging
My endless search for cute photos for sample data led me to this image:

Posted at 13:31 Permanent Link

Wed, 3 May 2006

Randall Kindley, RIP
I was sorry to hear that Randall Kindley passed away suddenly. He was 54. Randall was a committed and enthusiasitc DFL activist who specialized in bringing people together and moving projects forward.

Randall's brother Marcus posted about him.

My heart goes out to his family. My dad was about the same age when he died last year after struggling with cancer. It was the hardest thing to deal with in my life, but at least I got to say goodbye to him. Losing someone so suddenly would be a major shock.
Posted at 20:40 Permanent Link

Mon, 1 May 2006

Agile 2006
Agile 2006 is in Minneapolis July 23-28. At $1500 for super-early bird registration, it is a bit stiff. (Via OTUG)
Posted at 12:13 Permanent Link

Fri, 28 Apr 2006

Wii?
Hmmm. Gotta say I liked "Revolution" better.
Posted at 09:38 Permanent Link

Thu, 27 Apr 2006

Phone Screen Questions
Steve Yegge: The Five Essential Phone Screen Questions.

Pretty good selection of questions. I'm shamefully weak on my binary knowledge (it comes from Java rotting your brain), so I'd probably fail.
Posted at 14:09 Permanent Link

Wed, 26 Apr 2006

RIP, Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)
Urbanist Jane Jacobs passed away yesterday. Her contributions to urbanism will be felt for a long time to come. Along with Christopher Alexander, I consider her one of my favorite writers on the built environment.

Apropos: Just last week I read an article about her macroeconomic theories: It's the cities, stupid: Jane Jacobs on Cities.
Posted at 15:43 Permanent Link

866-383-0986
I have my resume on the internet, so I get a lot of calls from recruiters. I don't mind; you never know when you're going to need one. So I don't usually answer my phone unless I know who is calling. Usually, I'll do a quick Google on the number to see if they're in Google's database.

I don't usually find an entire thread about whoever just called me: 866-383-0986. Apparently, it's some sort of domain name scam.
Posted at 13:45 Permanent Link

What IT grads should know
Paul Knapp: What every graduate should know before entering the IT industry

I think his first point ("Once you're pigeon-holed, it's extremely hard to break out") is right on.
Posted at 10:18 Permanent Link

Tue, 25 Apr 2006

Overheard on MnSpeak.com
"I wish my grass was emo...then it would cut itself."

- indie
Posted at 08:24 Permanent Link

Fri, 7 Apr 2006

IRS: Do My Taxes, Send Me a Bill!
Economist Austan Goolsbee hits one of my major pet peeves today in the New York Times. Why doesn't the IRS send you a bill?

As long as you don't itemize (which Goolsbee puts at 40% of Americans), the IRS knows how much you make, they know how much intrest income you made, and they can guess (or do they know?) from last year's return how many dependants you have. The IRS should just send you a bill (or a rebate). If their assumptions are wrong, of you want to try to do your own taxes, no problem. Just fill out the forms yourself.

Goolsbee even says this would save the IRS money, because there will be less tax errors for them to correct.

IRS, send me a bill!

P.S.: Actually, I'm itemizing for the first time this year (mortgage interest!) so this wouldn't be any good for me. But it would've saved me hours upon hours for the last few years.
Posted at 09:42 Permanent Link

Wed, 5 Apr 2006

Boot Camp
Wow, just weeks after the $13,000 bounty was won, Apple has released Boot Camp to support dual booting Intel Macs with Windows. Boot Camp will be included in Mac OS X 10.5.

This is pretty amazing. I wonder how long they've been working on this? Were they just holding it in reserve until someone else hacked the Intel Macs into booting Windows? Or is it just a coincidence?

(Via Daring Fireball)
Posted at 09:47 Permanent Link

Mon, 3 Apr 2006

Sparklines
Last week I gave a short presentation to the Ruby Users of Minnesota group about Sparklines. The source code is in Ruby but most of the presentation is generally applicable.

Take a look. Even if you've never heard the term "sparkline" before, it should be interesting. I've got a list of resourcess for further reading.

I was going for a Lessig/Tufte sort of thing, so the slides are mostly just images and I also showed some web pages. To make a small mark against the plague of post-presentation PowerPoint slides posted all over the web, I've put up a "transcript" of what I meant to say.
Posted at 17:15 Permanent Link

Thu, 23 Mar 2006

Programming books
Jeff Atwood posted a nice list of programming books on his blog Coding Horror.

I really need to read Don't Make Me Think; I've lived that exact same meeting in the Web Design Funnies comic Jeff Atwood posted from Don't Make Me Think.
Posted at 13:48 Permanent Link

Minnebar
Ohhh, sounds like fun!

Saturday May 6, 2006, downtown Minneapolis.
Posted at 12:17 Permanent Link

Wed, 22 Mar 2006

Programmer Predilections, A-Z
Which one are you?

(Thanks to Nick for sending me this.)
Posted at 15:52 Permanent Link

Crazy Moscow Driving
A coworker of mine who's Russian has shown me a little bit about the craziness of some Moscow drivers...

Crazy Moscow Drivers (mov, 19M) race on the freeway

Insane tunnel accidents

I one-upped him with a copy of C'était un Rendezvous.

Not that I recommend any of this, of course.
Posted at 15:22 Permanent Link

Thu, 16 Mar 2006

Windows XP on Intel iMac
Sweet, the deed is done.

Now if only VMWare would port their virtualization software to Mac OS X...
Posted at 08:51 Permanent Link

Tue, 14 Mar 2006

Deadlocks
This is my life right now: Finding the needle in the Deadlock haystack.

Sigh.
Posted at 14:17 Permanent Link

Mon, 13 Mar 2006

Webcomic Tattoos
Wow, these people are insane!

Posted at 08:47 Permanent Link

Sat, 11 Mar 2006

With Bells On
I recently heard the expression "with bells on" and I had absolutely no idea what it meant. Thanks to teh intarweb, I now do! I am looking forward to using this phrase more often.
Posted at 13:06 Permanent Link

Fri, 10 Mar 2006

MXMW
Aww, I see my idea for a tongue in cheek Mid by Midwest "MXMW" festival in Minneapolis has not only been done before -- at least twice! -- but has already been cease-and-desisted by SXSW. Darn.
Posted at 08:54 Permanent Link

Mon, 6 Mar 2006

Tucker, RIP, 1989-2006
Tucker and mouse

Today, Jenny and I had to put our cat Tucker to sleep. He was about 17 years old. We got him when I was in elementary school in Maryland, when I was 10 (jeez). I took him from my parents when they moved to Pennsylvania because they weren't sure he would make the move.

We took good care of him while we had him, but time is relentless. He slowly lost his sight. After a while, he stopped being able to jump up on the couch or bed. But he was still such a sweet cat, always quick to purr and cuddle.

In November, he suffered a saddle thrombus (blood clot at the base of the spine) which cut off the use of his rear legs. I took him into the vet, prepared -- if not really ready -- to euthanize him. But she said that he was not in pain and would probably get over it and regain the ability to walk within a week or so. But he would not have long to live: three to six months.

After that, we cared for him as best we could. While he soon could move his back legs again, he was never able to walk without stumbling. He lost weight. Still, he was the sweetest cat I've ever known.

Yesterday, he relapsed, but he was much weaker. We knew it was time.

We'll miss you, Tucker.
Posted at 20:50 Permanent Link

Fri, 3 Mar 2006

REST and Web Services links
I've been doing some research into REST and web services. Here's some links I found helpful.

Paul Prescod: Common REST Mistakes (Date unknown)

Sam Ruby: Shades of Grey (Sept 2002)

Sam Ruby: Vacant Space (Sep 2004)

Mark Pilgrim: RESTagra (Sep 2004)

Sam Ruby: The Last Battlefield (Feb 2005)

Dare Obasanjo: Misunderstanding REST: A look at the Bloglines, del.icio.us and Flickr APIs (Apr 2005)

Sam Ruby: AJAX Considered Harmful (Mar 2005)

Mark Baker: Accidentally RESTful (May 2005)

Richard Monson-Haefel: JAX-RPC is Bad, Bad, Bad! (Jun 2005)

Steve Loughran and Edmund Smith (HP): Rethinking the Java SOAP Stack (pdf) (Jul 2005)

Joe Gregorio, XML.com: How to create a REST Protocol (Dec 2005)

Don Box: Pragmatics (Feb 2006)

Nic Ferrier (On LAMP): Using REST with AJAX (Feb 2006)
Posted at 15:05 Permanent Link

Thu, 2 Mar 2006

Friends who disagree
Ravi Mohan: The Importance of Having Friends Who Disagree.

Not to sound trite, but I totally agree. I'd like to bounce my own ideas off of people more often.
Posted at 16:01 Permanent Link

Getting Real
37 Signals has a book. Err, a PDF.

rahul: "Getting Real, a book: or, you're not Getting a Real book."
Posted at 14:28 Permanent Link

Mon, 27 Feb 2006

Wow, I'm impressed
Some search engine spammers considered my old bushout.tv URL (no link obviously) valuable enough to turn it into a spam site. Those .tv domains are expensive!
Posted at 10:13 Permanent Link

Thu, 23 Feb 2006

Feed: XML
Best RSS icon ever, at AltWeeklies.com:

Posted at 16:08 Permanent Link

sigh
Mark Morford: Why Do You Work So Hard? Is it maybe time to quit your safe job and follow your path and infuriate the establishment?
Posted at 11:40 Permanent Link

Tue, 21 Feb 2006

What do you want in a job website?
I thought there were a lot of insightful comments in this Ask Slashdot post about the ideal job website. A lot of this stuff seems impossible, but presumably somebody could make some money by implementing some of these ideas. Unless craigslist eats their lunch, anyway.
Posted at 16:02 Permanent Link

Fri, 17 Feb 2006

Regex Coach
The Regex Coach. I thought this was called M-x isearch-forward-regexp. Emacs rules. :)
Posted at 07:34 Permanent Link

Wed, 15 Feb 2006

Rails Rant
a Hack: Rails' Ridiculous Restrictions, a Rant. Good rant about some of Rails's failings. David Heinemeier Hansson chimes in.
Posted at 21:41 Permanent Link

Tue, 14 Feb 2006

Unlucky people
"I like to throw away 50% of the resumes at random without looking at them, because I don't want any unlucky people working for me."

--Mister Fancypants, Joel on Software discussion
Posted at 12:02 Permanent Link

Mon, 13 Feb 2006

Weird Amazon Recommendations

Posted at 16:14 Permanent Link

Bad Job Query
I saw this ad online:

Everyone knows that " is not valid in SQL queries. They must be MySQL users.
Posted at 16:09 Permanent Link

Sat, 4 Feb 2006

Amazon Wikis
Weird. I just noticed that Amazon product pages now have a wiki link at the bottom. Customers with a Real Name(TM) can create and edit pages in this wiki. They're hard to link to though, so I won't.

I also see they have beta discussion forums too. Interesting moves.
Posted at 16:57 Permanent Link

Thu, 2 Feb 2006

Room & Board is hiring Java developers
Check out their job listing here. But do you get an employee discount on the furniture?
Posted at 18:02 Permanent Link

Wed, 1 Feb 2006

Money doesn't buy happiness, round 18374
Times Online: Unhappy? That's rich . . . Chasing wealth can make you ill and earning over £25,000 a year won't make you any happier. Who says so? An investment banker, reports

Once you are earning £25,000 and upwards, he ventures, and yourbasicneeds for food, shelter and healthcare are covered, money becomes increasingly irrelevant to genuine happiness. By the time you reach Bill Gates's level the difference is probably negligible. If you want to raise your happiness level, he says, spend your money on experiences (a safari/Himalayan trekking/a concert) rather than a Rolex, a yacht or a Ferrari because they will bring you more joy in the long run.

There are psychological reasons for this. Material possessions are vulnerable to the "hedonic treadmill", says Montier, whereas experiences are not. In other words, we quickly get used to new things and they become part of our norm. "We might get a new fast car and at first be out washing it every weekend but six months later we have become accustomed to it, the kids have scuffed up the seats in the back and the boot is full of dog hairs," he says. "This is hedonic adaptation at work . . . material possessions are likely to be assimilated relatively fast."

Posted at 15:56 Permanent Link

Tue, 31 Jan 2006

I don't get Spring
Crazy Bob: I don't get Spring. Interesting rant about Spring. I haven't used it yet myself, so I can't really weigh in. I do hate XML configuration files, though.

Brian McCallister replies with some tips on (parts of) Spring programmatically instead of through configuration.
Posted at 15:48 Permanent Link

Mon, 30 Jan 2006

Waterfall 2006
Anyone want to hit Waterfall 2006 with me? It's sponsored by Carnegie Mellon SEI, so it must be good.
Posted at 10:57 Permanent Link

Fri, 27 Jan 2006

The story of Comic Sans
The creator of the much-reviled Comic Sans font describes its creation. It was intended for kids' programs! (via Kottke)

I can see its utility in that situation. But you know what that means?

STOP USING IT ON YOUR WEB PAGE! STOP USING IT ON CORPORATE DOCUMENTS!

ahem.

Thank you.
Posted at 07:05 Permanent Link

Thu, 26 Jan 2006

SQL Injection, by example
This is a good intro to the how and why of SQL injection attacks.

Steve Friedl: SQL Injection Attacks by Example.
Posted at 15:44 Permanent Link

FTFF!
I saw on Daring Fireball that Apple is hiring a developer to work on the Finder. The job description even calls the Finder "notorious"!

This made me wonder if Apple is going to FTFF. And of course, the ArsTechnica Mac users were all over that.

(For some ideas on how to FTFF, see John Siracusa's article About the Finder...)
Posted at 14:24 Permanent Link

Wed, 25 Jan 2006

25 words that hurt your resume
25 words that hurt your resume: Words don't tell potential employers as much as deeds.

Show don't tell. I think I've got some of the culprits on mine, despite trying to be concrete about what I've done. I'll have to fix that.
Posted at 16:10 Permanent Link

Mon, 23 Jan 2006

Best time to buy airline tickets
Wednesday.
Posted at 09:38 Permanent Link

Sun, 22 Jan 2006

Aquamacs
Aquamacs. Finally, a decent Emacs for OS X!
Posted at 19:24 Permanent Link

Fri, 20 Jan 2006

XML Situps!
Kid doing XML situps

I don't understand it either.
Posted at 15:10 Permanent Link

Sun, 15 Jan 2006

Intel Mac
For a while, I have been thinking that an Intel Mac could be the ultimate development platform. I develop on Linux at work, but that sucks because Linux's UI sucks so bad. Mac OS X solves that problem, and keeps the Unix underpinnings I need to be productive. And now that Mac OS X runs on Intel, VM Ware (or other x86 virtualization software) could be ported to it, and I could run test environments in Windows or Linux virtual machines. Heavenly!
Posted at 22:43 Permanent Link

Retrievr
Once upon a time, I wrote an implementation of Fast Multiresolution Image Query which I called Eikon and presented at CodeCon 2002. Then I got a real job and didn't do anything useful with it.

Now, Christian Langreiter has done something cool with the algorithm by implementing Retrievr, a query-by-sketch for Flickr.
Posted at 22:36 Permanent Link

Tue, 10 Jan 2006

What I've been up to
Twenty-four hours ago, I was on the beach at Waikiki in Honolulu. Now I'm back in the cold of Minnesota. Did I miss anything? (BTW, jetlag sucks.)

Waikiki actually kind of sucks, but Jenny and I were gratified to have the hospitality of Tom and his fiancee Steph, who are living there for a while. Thanks, guys!

I spent twelve days on Maui with my family. It was sort of a family reunion kind of thing after my dad's passing this summer. I got to spend time with a lot of relatives I rarely get to see (I have two aunts who live in Hawaii) and that was a lot of fun.

sunset at Haleakala

Sunset from Haleakala ("House of the sun") volcano, Maui.

Hopefully, I will get a chance to post more pictures soon.
Posted at 20:34 Permanent Link