Keeping it digital

I love Giles Bowkett’s Hacker Newspaper. It is the best way to read Hacker News. Giles’s explanation of the layout change is a wonderful look at the design process and gives good reasons why the mini-app does what it does.

I wonder if a content creation site would work in that format as well. The problem is, where do the new articles go? And how do the users find them? Giles’ newspaper benefits from the readers of Hacker News. I would like to build a site like that, I think I have a good platform for it. Watch this space for updates.

I have been playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. It is fun in a text based SimCity kind of way. One part of the game allows you to purchase properties. You want to get the best bang for the buck so I built a Mafia Wars Property Calculator to help ensure the best ROI for my in game purchases. I have added a couple of other tools like an unlimited wish list and a way to find other players. So, if you play Mafia Wars, you will probably want to check out Mafia Wars Property Underground.

I really started using FriendFeed when I figured out that it will notify you via instant message just like Twitter. Now that I am running GTalk on my BlackBerry constantly, there is no reason not to switch to FriendFeed.

Dear Remember the Milk,

I am moving my todo list back to the notebook in my drawer. It isn’t anything you did or didn’t do. It’s just me.

Carl

Why am I afraid to use Remember the Milk? It is because I am afraid of todo lists? Is it because I am afraid it won’t work after the first couple of weeks? Is it because I have 632 different lists and I don’t think it will work for me?

Every now and then I get an urge to try Remember the Milk. And then all of those excuses pop through my head. I have a note book in the drawer next to me that has a todo list in it. I have used it fairly effectively. I used it for my meetings when I was a team lead. I used it as a developer. I liked it because it was always available. RTM has a BB interface, so it could effectively replace my notebook.

Pesky.

When I actually login to IRC it is because I have Googled my heart out and couldn’t find an answer. It is my last resort. When I go to IRC it is to try and avoid being included in presentations about bad code.

Unfortunately, not being there on a constant basis means that I am unknown. Which means the more knowledgeable guys don’t know that I am trying to learn, trying to do the right thing, and have exhausted all other research avenues. It means when you go in asking for help with odd problems you get sarcastic retorts from the very people that you are hoping will take you seriously. You get things like: “i dunno. when things go wrong in my apps i don’t think i need to fix rails instead of fixing my own code.” when you haven’t said anything about changing rails code.

Luckily 3 people read this blog so this won’t get any traction and is purely meant for purging my anger. But damn tonight sure did suck even though I ended up finding a solution to my problem. It isn’t nearly as pretty or robust as I would like, but that is life.

EC2 is Amazon’s cloud computing platform. Fuze is an Erlang tool that allows you to run Rails on the Erlang-based Yaws web-server. As Scott states, this is not a cheap solution, but it scales very easily.

I don’t have time to write a full blown post on how I got EC2 and Fuze running. But I am a Mac newb so I thought I would capture the links that helped me.

• Scott Chacon’s demo of Fuze on EC2 which started this journey
• MacPorts - for installing things. Don’t forget to put /opt/local/bin in your PATH (preferably in your .profile)
• Installing Git on the Mac or use the OS X installer for Git
• Fuzed code, don’t forget to read the README
• Step-by-Step guide for EC2 on Mac helped a little
• Amazon’s EC2 docs helped a lot
• Where’s $JAVA_HOME on Mac was an interesting read for me (still a newb!)

I am actually looking forward to needing this capability in the future.

I had a blast at RailsConf 2008. I can’t wait to go next year.

In other news I am now Twitter’ing, and Tumblr’ing.

I am checking out social networking plugins. Specifically Community Engine.

Be comfortable being uncomfortable.

I have forgotten that gem. It is good to remember from time to time.

Someone recently brought it to my attention that all of TacoBell’s products are basically the exact same materials, just configured in a different way. Seriously, why haven’t all of TacoBell’s materials been shoved into a machine and just let the thing churn out what the customers want on demand? McDonalds could pretty much do the same. You could create a whole food court that would be serviced by two or three people.

You spend more time waiting on the employees to build your tacos than any other part of the ordering process. I doubt machines could do it faster, but I bet it would be more uniform. I wonder how big a TacoBell machine would have to be?

I like ATM’s. I like the speed of not standing in line. I like the nice interface that the new Bank of America ATM’s have. Touch screens are almost a replacement for humans. Do you think we go to fast food restaurants for the human interaction? There may be something to that because new Bank of America buildings are beautiful and people centric. They even have a concierge at the front door. (I can’t believe I spelled concierge correctly on my first try.)Oo. Would fast food be hurt by going fully automated?

Silly thoughts on a Saturday.