Thought this episode of Science Friday was interesting and worth-mentioning. It talks about the methods of counting the number of people in crowds (at rallies and such) and the merits of doing so. Especially interesting is the idea of having an independent party systematicaly counting crowds at events, in order to present a more accurate picture of the populous’ support for a given issue (mentioned at around 10:30 in the audio).
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In my quest to learn new things, specifically the following things, I’ve been both excited and drained: node.js Redis document database haml sass a micro-framework By “new things” I really mean “some cutting edge stuff that seems pretty cool”, the “cutting edge” portion being the source of most of my struggle. New tools, languages and software have sharp edges. Since I love fast and light software, node.js is my current casual focus.
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I’ve worked on several new and different things since July, and all thanks to my new job. Say “hooray” with me… Hooray! Luckily I recently got to do some compiler-style expression parsing. Not sure whether it’s my 100% favorite brand of problem to solve, but anything compiler-related is very, very near the top of my list. We’re working on a jQuery plugin that I won’t share the details of yet, but the API contains a way to filter data using string matching expressions.
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Trying to do a brain-dump of things I’ve encountered at my new job, since I’ve been doing work in several new areas. My employer’s website was crashing on IE7. When I tried to re-create the issue on my IE8 machine, it crashed for me as well. Also crashed when I put IE8 in IE7 mode (the Developer Tools are quite nice). Took me a while to get used to the IE Developer Tools, and eventually I found the JavaScript debugger.
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Won’t fire: $(‘section’).live(‘click’, function(){ … }); But if the element you’re binding to is an anchor tag, it WILL fire. The workaround: add onclick=“” to the element you’re binding to. This applies to iOS 4.0. Update (Oct 7, 2010): I should add that this is a known bug. And that I’ve discovered a workaround.
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In January 2010 I decided to break from common database convention and design a new style of ORM. It was also an excuse to dive deeper into Python 3. The result is my Data Type Tables project, which currently only supports sqlite3. Features: You don’t have to write any SQL to use it, not even create table statements. Right, you’re not impressed, given that you can do the same with Ruby on Rails.
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A month ago I got excited about node.js. Watched two presentations, installed it, ran a few tests, and then ran out of steam for lack of a real project idea. Hate when that happens. At the same time I also got excited about learning advanced Javascript concepts since it would no doubt help me with node.js, so I decided to investigate jQuery and see what makes it tick. And what better way to really investigate jQuery than to try to build something similar on my own?
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This continues my coverage of our trip out west … the move to Portland. This leg is from Cheyenne, WY to Salt Lake, UT. We were happy to leave Cheyenne but it seems we pressed on a bit too quickly. Kristen started out driving, but we reached barren desert terrain quite soon, and the sun was beating in on her side pretty heavily. The bad La Quinta breakfast, horrible coffee, no fruit, and forgetting to drink sufficient water all contributed to her getting a bit dehydrated.
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Techies and startup dreamers, how about another Friday distraction? Please enlighten me if any of these exist. This is just a brain-dump of half-thoughs I’ve had over the past year. Pluggable, Context-aware Help System (Updated again, 02/21) Many web apps don’t have an integrated help system, or help docs at all. The system I’m imagining would make use of AJAX and JavaScript to add context-sensitive help to a web app that would otherwise not offer much assistance to its users.
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Think I listened to 8 Charlie Rose episodes yesterday while working. All of Michael Arrington’s (because I was curious), a few with Bill Gates and the newest with Jeff Bezos. I think if I could trade places with any successful tech CEO/entrepreneur, it would be Jeff Bezos. He’s 100% likable, with tons of energy. Charlie asked Jeff which qualities most helped him be successful and Jeff responded, “The willingness to be misunderstood.
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