Japan's incredible shrinking building
Guessing you’d have to construct the skyscraper with this capability initially, with a “cap” at the top that can be lowered as each level below it is dismantled. Very cool.
Continue readingThank You, Liz Lemon, for Being You
“She’s the type who can yell at her male boss and put him in his place, she’s the type who goes to bat for her friends, she’s the type who goofs around by pretending that a toy train is her robot penis and will wolf down entire sandwich in front of a TSA agent so she doesn’t have to throw it away before going through security.”
Blerg.
Continue readingFelt this earthquake yesterday evening
Came home before 5pm and plopped down on the futon. A few moments later felt the futon bouncing very slightly and heard the “ticking” of picture frames re-positioning against the acrylic wall paint. Thought it was activity at the nearby construction site, but they had all gone home for the day. Very cool!
Continue readingDon't trust your assumptions about yourself
Don’t trust your assumptions about yourself, and don’t apply them to others. They’re probably wrong.
– calinet6 on the Hacker News post, A (Short) Rant About Working Remotely
Continue readingApple's calendar file (iCal) with US Holidays
Perfect for importing into Google Calendar. Shhh, don’t tell! Landing page is here.
Continue readingProblems Solved in 2012
Wherein I recap the things I’ve done and learned this year as a software developer (mainly at work). I’ve fixed many bugs and uttered many curses. Through it all I’ve constantly strived to make the code a better place.
Amazon Web Services
- Video encoding instances Launch/Start when there’s a backlog, and Stop/Terminate when there’s not.
- Said goodbye to Amazon SQS for job queues, and hello to Redis. Hello consistency and speed.
- Learned that one must always specify timeouts for AWS calls. Especially for SimpleDB.
Node.js
Continue readingOn Venting
S&I 100
It’s an “index of top non-profits creating a social impact”. Quite helpful if you want to ensure your charitable donation does the most good.
Saw it mentioned on Nightly Business Report last night.
Continue readingMy First Android App
Published my first Android app today. It’s called When Moving and you may find it handy if you’re into personal information tracking.
When Moving differs from the others in that it doesn’t continuously poll GPS. It polls according to the frequency you specify (every 10-90 seconds), but only if the accelerometer detects motion.
In short, if the accelerometer doesn’t think you’re moving, it won’t poll for GPS updates, and your battery will last longer because of it.
Continue readingRoderick on endurance
… all around me there are people who have never learned to endure dissatisfaction and I do not admire them.
– John Roderick. Roderick on the Line, episode 54.
Continue reading