Moss's Bloglet

Speaking of BLT, anyone else need back onto...

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:13:12 -0600

Speaking of BLT, anyone else need back onto it?
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I habitually do small programming projects as...

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:23:51 -0600

I habitually do small programming projects as exercises. Sometimes I'll set out specific constraints to help me focus on certain skills (this is a great set of them, if you're looking), and sometimes it's just a chance to work on something relatively unconstrained by an existing code base or the need for business value.

For exercises like this, it doesn't matter too much what you write: it just needs to be big enough to involve interesting design decisions, and small enough to be finishable in not too much time. So the last few times I did this, I wrote versions of the code test that we use in our hiring at work. It's exactly the right size for this sort of thing, but has one big problem: I don't really feel comfortable posting my different versions of it online.

So this round I'm trying a bit of an experiment: I'm rewriting the m14m Blog Tracker. I don't know that I'll necessarily start using it in place of the current one--it is just for practice, after all--but I'll probably keep hacking on it for a while. It's a good exercise project in that it's easy to get something workable with just a few pieces, but it also has room to grow. And since it's something I actually feel comfortable sharing, I've gone ahead and put it up on github. I'm hoping that it can act as a source of concrete examples when I want to talk about programming: code that I can use to point out problems, demonstrate techniques, and bring up difficult issues. But long-term plans aside, it's up there now, so anybody that wants to take a look at it can feel free. It contains some clever ideas, and some really stupid shit, and a blog tracker that's now almost able to show one entry on one blog. Fun times!

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If anybody reading this is also in a position to...

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:53:51 -0600

If anybody reading this is also in a position to review submissions for the Agile 2010 Conference (a bit of a longshot, I know), I'd suggest taking a look at mine, "Pairing Games as Intentional Practice".
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Two things I believe pretty firmly, although I...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:35:23 -0600

Two things I believe pretty firmly, although I would be happy to be proven wrong:

America will never have effective health care reform.
America will never stop torturing.

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Verdict: the Twitter widget makes itself...

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:44:22 -0600

Verdict: the Twitter widget makes itself easy to restyle using CSS, so it can stay. Still not totally sure if it's in the right place yet.
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Experimenting with a Twitter sidebar...

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:19:01 -0600

Experimenting with a Twitter sidebar. We'll see how well it works out.
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A while ago I posted to Twitter wondering...

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:42:45 -0600

A while ago I posted to Twitter wondering what a software company modeled after the Mondragon cooperatives would look like. Just yesterday, Sumana linked to a post by Damien Katz, "Thoughts on an Open Source Company", about his vision for Couchio. It wasn't intended as an answer to my question, but it's a surprisingly convincing one. I'm particularly struck by the preference for self-organization and the rule against layoffs and firing. I'll be interested to see how it works out in practice, and what other answers might appear.
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Live from the Boskone Dead Dog Party

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:51:39 -0600

Live from the Boskone Dead Dog Party

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Lighting Flower

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:26:33 -0600

Lighting Flower

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Also, I'm delighted by this video of someone using...

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:41:25 -0600

Also, I'm delighted by this video of someone using an old modem from 1964 to connect to the internet. Quite apart from the nostalgia factor (modems remind me of BBSes!), I just can't get over how gorgeous the thing is. I just wish anyone was making electronics this beautiful today.
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Memo to self: come back to the AskMe cilantro...

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:29:03 -0600

Memo to self: come back to the AskMe cilantro thread and cook everything in it.
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This political ad is... kind of amazing...

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:13:07 -0600

This political ad is... kind of amazing. I'm not really sure what else to say about it.
via MetaFilter
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Snow!

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:38:36 -0600

Snow!

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Flying Over Ireland, Yesterday

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:00:02 -0600

Flying Over Ireland, Yesterday

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Here's Hoping These Don't Fill Up

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:06:08 -0600

Here's Hoping These Don't Fill Up

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Your government is basically made up of people who...

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:37:25 -0600

Your government is basically made up of people who are richer than you--often much richer than you. With this greater wealth comes a drastically different perspective on life: different fears, different desires, and different assumptions about how the world works. I think it would be good to talk about this more, even if people find the topic embarrassing.
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This reflects what she and her husband Vincent...

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:46:57 -0600

This reflects what she and her husband Vincent refer to as "polycentricity," a normative approach to governance which stresses the degree to which higher levels of government should not crowd out self-organization at lower levels. Her work implies that both pure marketization and top-down government control can have badly adverse consequences for resource management, because they rob individuals of the capacity to govern themselves, and because they both lead to the depletion of important forms of local collective knowledge.

Clearly I should read more.
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This is pretty cool: a sample OS X application...

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:03:49 -0600

This is pretty cool: a sample OS X application with complete unit tests.
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The 2D fight back starts here!

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:24:44 -0600

The 2D fight back starts here!
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I think the best thing about this query is that...

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:03:21 -0600

I think the best thing about this query is that the result describes why I did it in the first place. Off by 8.13% really isn't too bad when I remember to think of it as science instead of math.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4
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Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:09:25 -0600

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Mysterious Device in Park St

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:52:59 -0600

Mysterious Device in Park St

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This collection of pictures of fantastic subway...

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:11:46 -0600

This collection of pictures of fantastic subway architecture has been open in Firefox for so long that I don't even remember where it came from, but it seems like it deserves blogging.
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The opposite of sudo.

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:26:10 -0600

The opposite of sudo.
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This interview from the Economist podcast, talking...

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:55:08 -0600

This interview from the Economist podcast, talking with Barbara Ehrenreich about the virtues of pessimism, made me happy. It's a great antidote to all the positive thinking bullshit out there, and kind of makes me want to read her book. (Or any of her books, really, since I haven't yet. I know she bugs some people, but I've certainly enjoyed everything I've heard her say in short forms like this.)
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The Funnest Calculator Ever

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:20:39 -0600

The Funnest Calculator Ever

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The Blinds Left an X-ray of a Spine on the Wall

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:32:35 -0600

The Blinds Left an X-ray of a Spine on the Wall

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Wall of Beer

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:21:13 -0600

Wall of Beer

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Not a Sustainable Position

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:17:38 -0600

Not a Sustainable Position

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Autumn Polyhedron

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:28:40 -0600

Autumn Polyhedron

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