Blog Posts

May 2011

• 2011-05-20

  [GEEKY] Magic Rails Applications with Hobo

  Another tidbit I came across at RailsConf is Hobo. I haven’t tried it myself but did just go through the screencast and tutorial. I think it’s worth a closer look.

  “Hobo is a plugin for Ruby on Rails that brings a number of extensions—some small some large—to Rails application development. The common theme to these extensions is rapid development.

  Like Rails itself, Hobo encapsulates a number of opinions about web application development. The opinion that is most central to Hobo is this: we have found that there is a great deal of similarity from one web application to the next. Much more similarity in fact, than is supported by today’s frameworks. We w...

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  #programming #ruby
• 2011-05-19

  [GEEKY] Yes, Virginia, Rails DOES scale

  Why doesn’t every one love Rails? I am surprised when I run into someone (Pat?) who’s not so sure about Rails. Usually it’s about scalability.

  [I warned you this is a geeky post]

  When I am designing or building a system and am questioned about whether writing it in Ruby or Rails is a good idea. Or if someone asks me my opinion or for advice about whether it makes sense that his or her developers are recommending Rails for a big site.

  What I believe is that scalability has to do with the overall system architecture — caching, queueing, horizontal scalability and so on. It does not have to do with the programming language. (What the LivingSocial guy said about this wasn’t quite ...

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  #programming #ruby
• 2011-05-13

  Word of the day: Witholding or Withholding

  One or two H’s? Don’t look it up!

• 2011-05-12

  People forgot about iPhone 1.0

  Funny to read this:

  “The story started in 2007, with the release of the first iPhone. Led by its enigmatic leader Steve Jobs, Apple gave developers their first real taste of independence from the carrier oligarchy. The iPhone’s beauty was manifold, but first and foremost, it allowed developers to build applications and sell them for a fee — to users who could conveniently tap their iTunes account to buy things through the iPhone’s App Store. This bypassed the control of the carriers, which had long dictated what phones featured on their “decks.” (from ...

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  #apple
• 2011-05-12

  MSFT and Skype, my angle

  Check this post Why Microsoft bought Skype from I, Cringely:

  There is so much to write about but I’ll begin with Microsoft buying Skype for $8.5 billion. The pundits are debating whether this move by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer makes good business sense, but that’s the wrong way to look at it. The better approach is to wonder what would have happened had Microsoft not bought Skype? Based on the high price alone I’m fairly confident that Ballmer felt he had no choice but to buy. In fact I’m fairly certain he felt that not buying could have doomed Microsoft.

  Ok there’s not much to add to this stor...

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  #business
• 2011-05-09

  Mac Mystery

  Just reaching out you mac experts. I used to think I was one, but this one has me stumped.

  Using Safari, every so often, while I am doing something (what?) shrinks the fonts of the page being displayed. In other words, does the equivalent of a Command/- or Command/+. It seems to have something to do with dragging the mouse while doing something else.

  I know that a command-0 restores things normally. I also know that control-double-fingered-drag will enlarge the whole screen, that is, zoom in on the pixels. This is something else.

  I can’t figure it out and neither can google. Do you know?

  #apple
• 2011-05-05

  Quotidian Quotidian Quotidian

  This word “QUOTIDIAN” seems to have become popular suddenly. Did you notice?

  Or is it just me that is noticing it more because up to a minute ago I didn’t know what it meant?

  It’s so simple, once you know 🙂

April 2011

• 2011-04-11

  Thoughtful advice

  No need to paraphrase or editorialize. Just read the whole thing, will ya? Lots of good advice that I wish I had gotten years ago.

  How to steal like an artist (and 9 other things nobody told me)

  Actually there is one nice tidbit that I got from the Lifehacker article that led me to the above link:

  “It’s not a new idea—you’ve very likely heard the phrase “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” It’s commonly attributed to Pablo Picasso, or T.S. Eliot, though it likely originated with neither. Kle...

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• 2011-04-08

  Why don’t they ask you for identification before letting you vote?

  Every time there’s an election it seems like someone brings up the odd fact that you are not asked for ID here in Massachusetts before being allowed to cast your ballot. It seems to me that this is especially surprising to people from other countries. Here’s a good article that explores some of the reasons and arguments for and against requiring identification at the polling place.

  The gist of it is here:

  “In many states, an ID is required to vote. The ostensible purpose is to prevent people from casting a ballot for someone else – dead or alive. Historically, it was also used to prevent poor and minori...

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  #politics
• 2011-04-06

  Passover, Curaçao style

  Here’s how we make Garoza (Charoset) in Curaçao.

  

  Trust me, add a little horseradish, a couple of matzah, delicious!

  #jewish #curacao #food

March 2011

• 2011-03-31

  Losing Our Way

  This New York Times Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert really hits home:

  “The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.” (from Losing Our Way)

  It’s called “Losing Our Way”. You should read it.

  #politics
• 2011-03-31

  Christopher Hitchens

  A really excellent interview/review of Christopher Hitchens and his memoir, “Hitch-22”:

  “He could never have guessed how prescient those words would be. In June last year, while on a tour of America to promote the hardback publication of his book, Hitchens was taken ill in New York and was subsequently diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus. Thus did he acquire his visa to a place where nothing can be taken for granted. Hitchens has christened it ‘Tumourville’.” (from “Godless in Tumourville: Christopher Hitchens interview“)

  #books
• 2011-03-23

  Startup vs. Company

  “Oh yeah, I’ve started 6 companies, and right now I have 3 startups going. I just love starting companies. I don’t know what’s wrong with me….”

  Have you ever heard statements like that?

  I hear them, fairly often, and I am never sure what to make of them. My immediate impulse is to call “Bullshit”, but I don’t because part of me admires that attitude. It’s just like the moniker “Serial Entrepreneur” seems to have become a status symbol. It doesn’t matter if the result of your seriality is that you are broke or forced the indignity of becoming a ‘salaryman’ at a regular company, oh, like Google. Being a serial Entrepreneur is cool.

  I hope you realize that I am being ironic. I happen to ...

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  #business
• 2011-03-19

  Case Study of User Experience Design and Lean Methodology

  A good read if you are interested in fast iteration in user experience design and redesign:

  “By the end of the iterations and tests, every single one of the users liked the new version better than the old, and we had a very good idea why.” (from Case Study: UX Design and Food on The Table)

  #design #business
• 2011-03-16

  Mint.com no longer supports Bank of America

  It’s hard to believe, but here is what I got from Mint.com when I asked why my Bank of America info was not updating on Mint:

  Hi Pito,

  Thank you for contacting Mint.com.

  According to our engineers, we can’t support Bank of America due to unsupported authentication and/or challenge question format. We are, unfortunately, able to support the addition of products from that account at this time.

  We apologize for the inconvenience and we appreciate your patience in this regard.

  Have a nice day!

  Thank you, Naddy L. Mint.com

  So, Mint.com no longer supprts Bank of America accounts. Isn’t Bank of America one of the biggest (or THE biggest US bank?)

  I am most certainly not having a nice day. Time to move on from Mint.com.

  #technology
• 2011-03-14

  Fareed Zakaria: “Are Americas Best Days Behind Us”?

  I know it’s a provocative title, and sadly I suspect that many of the ‘intended audience’ will agree with much of what he says, but then also feel like there’s nothing that can be done about it.

  I am a waning fan of the Sunday TV news shows. Nowadays it is so easy if you are inclined to keep up with the news, moment by moment that it’s hard to find much more than the usual platitudes and repetition.

  Fareed Zakaria’s GPS program on Sundays for me is now easily the best. He has interesting, thoughtful segments that don’t fall into that boring greyness that the rest of TV news has become. Nowadays, I only tune in to TV news for the visuals.

  So ...

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  #politics
• 2011-03-11

  Charitable Mutual Funds (updated)

  [Note: don’t assume you know what a Charitable Mutual Fund is. It’s an evocative but really misleading name but I don’t have a better handle for it yet. This is not an investment vehicle, it does not return any money. It is way to allow a donor to donate to one or more causes that match certain objectives. Please read on…] Scenario: What if I wanted to make a charitable gift to reputable non profits, who work in my state, who focus on homelessness? I could research it with various services (such as GuideStar) I might see one or two that speak to me, and decide to write a check or two. Now of course they would come back to me a year later (or sooner) to a...

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  #business
• 2011-03-07

  Interesting search engines

  Qwiki seems to create multi-media presentations on any topic at all. I picked an odd topic, like “BlogBridge”, and it did a half decent job. I don’t know how automatic or human-driven it is, but it’s interesting. Another interesting find is Fotopedia, “The First Collaborative Photo Encyclopedia”. It’s interesting but it suffers from an unclear mission. I think it’s trying to be wikipedia meets flickr, but I am not sure. As you can see from this link, there’s some actual connection to Flickr. Are they using Flickr to prime their pump?

  #technology
• 2011-03-04

  Three Armed Bandit?

  If I could fool you into believing that a fake rubber hand that you were looking at was really your own hand, how would you react if I took a knife to it? Weird questions that Neuro-science researchers busy themselves with, but really fairly amazing. Here’s an article in Scientific American about the study:

  “A knife-wielding researcher is bearing down on your right hand—or is it your hand? You see three arms in front of you, and you can feel your palms dampen with fear-induced perspiration. But is it your right hand the kitchen knife is plunging toward, or a false, rubber right hand?” (from Scientific American)

  #science
• 2011-03-02

  Greplin, actually a rather cool product!

  After attending the Lean Startup Machine weekend a few days ago, I pay more attention to these ‘I created this startup in 3 hours’ stories. So when I saw this in Inc. Magazine:

  “He’s an Israeli who sidestepped military service in favor of moving to the Bay Area to become Y Combinator’s youngest founder. Six months later, all eyes are on Daniel Gross, as he has almost $5 million in funding backing his search engine, Greplin. Oh, and he didn’t go to college.” (from ...

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  #business #technology