NerdyC

Daring Fireball: I'll Tell You What's Fair

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:24:35 -0700

Daring Fireball: I'll Tell You What's Fair:

parislemon:

Now that DF has achieved a modicum of popularity, however, what I tend to get instead aren’t queries or complaints about the lack of comments, but rather demands that I add them — demands from entitled people who see that I’ve built something very nice that draws much attention, and who believe they have a right to share in it.

They don’t.

I love this. My view on comments has certainly changed over the years. I feel like I used to be suspicious of any site that didn’t have them. But now I don’t have them on this very site.

I suppose my time at TechCrunch (and VentureBeat before that) changed my opinion. I came to realize that the vast majority of comments on popular sites are useless — or worse.

Like Gruber, I much prefer when people use their own sites to respond to something. That small barrier to entry seems to ensure that the quality of the discussion will be higher.

There are exceptions, of course, but they’re few and far between. And I feel like the comment problem on the Internet is getting worse, not better.

And yes, I’ve tried all the various third-party commenting platforms. Some work really well. But the fundamental problem remains that most people on the Internet are idiots — especially when they can be anonymous in some way.

Plus, comments tend to make sites look ugly.

Agreed. And it’s why we haven’t added comments on Photojojo, though the subject comes up constantly.

Me three. At Get Satisfaction, we require users to log in and provide an email precisely for this reason. Anonymous feedback turns any support community into a YouTube comment thread. In fact, early in the company, anonymous feedback was allowed, and we had to turn it off because the quality was so low.

Finally! A way to test-drive my Objective-C projects!

Sun, 16 May 2010 12:18:50 -0700

I’ve had an on-again off-again relationship with Objective-C and Cocoa. I wrote a artsy visualization in it that ended up in some museums, a rather crappy utility to transfer email between IMAP servers, and some other stuff.

But I always became really frustrated with how hard it was to test drive any of this code. Granted, test-driving graphics and UI code can be hard, but I really love the clarity BDD process gives you when you’re hacking something together. And so I eventually lost interest.

Enter MacRuby. It’s now possible to use Ruby to test drive your Objective-C code, and I’m loving it (mostly). Seriously, go read this tutorial and try it out.

I used this method to develop an XML-Pull Parser in Objective-C called Opal — something I’ve long missed in both Objective-C and Ruby. Download it, and build the ‘Test’ target to see how the specs run. The Build window doesn’t open automatically, so you’ll need to hit Command-Shift-B to open it.

You’ll see some failures there if you haven’t installed the Bacon gem for MacRuby of course:

$ sudo macgem install bacon

I’m using the tiny Bacon library to spec my code because RSpec has trouble running under Ruby 1.9, which is the version MacRuby supports. RSpec 2.0 should fix this. You can also try out other ruby testing libraries of course, though Bacon is pretty good for what I need to do.

Caveats

While I’m really happy that I’m finally able to use a truer BDD workflow in an Objective-C environment, I’m less happy with the interfaces I have to use. The specs are run during the XCode build process, so I have to pour through Bacon’s output within a giant text window:

It’s not preventing me from getting stuff done, but I spend way more time pouring through this output than I should. There’s also no way to click through to the spec failures, nor a way to run a single spec. I suspect the only way I’d get this is if I roll my own command line interfaces, probably integrated with TextMate.

Once last caveat. While MacRuby’s been a very solid way to interface with the Objective-C runtime, it’s actually not a very solid Ruby interpreter. That makes sense — they’ve been focusing on the integration of the two languages more than shipping a Ruby interpreter. MacRuby 0.6 passes 85% of the RubySpecs, but I’d still think twice before I started a MacRuby project with lots of Ruby code. Or I’d use Cocoa or Foundation libraries where I could — like NSURLConnection over Net::HTTP for example.

collectedthinkery: Quarter stories

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:51:13 -0800

collectedthinkery: Quarter stories:

The imagination of Phil and Hillary never ceases to amaze me. Phil’s latest blog enterprise, Quarter Stories, is a great example of the madness that goes through their heads. Phil is paying Mechanical Turk users 25 cents each to create a short story based on any of the…

Here! Here! I second Rob’s amazement with Phillary. Can’t wait until they have their own clothing line in 2023.

The Best Superpower Ever

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:42:01 -0800

If I could have any superpower, I think it’d be to know what everyone wanted. Most people don’t seem to have any idea what they want, and it’d be pretty awesome to clear that up for them.

“Yeah, you don’t really want to be a lawyer, you just want to impress your dad. Go write that novel!”

Also, it’d be pretty handy if you were a diplomat, so you’d always know ahead of time what foreign leaders and bureaucrats really wanted. Once I got my super power, I’d fly straight to North Korea and talk to Kim Jong Il. That guy’s got to want some crazy things!

“You don’t really want a nuclear weapon, Mr. Il, you just want to be a porn star.”

It’d also be pretty important to figure out degrees of desire. How awesome would it be to finally be able to choose something off the dessert menu without spending 5 minues debating between the banana creme pie and the chocolate bread pudding? Banana Creme it is, sir!

Runner Up: Moving individual objects through time.

It’d be pretty cool to move individual objects back and forward in time. Say you accidentally left your tea steeping for too long. BOOM! back that cuppa brown stuff back 2 minutes and you’ve got yourself the perfect brew.

Or you’ve got a favorite shirt, which has pit stains in the armpits. BOOM! Good as new, and just in time.

A little Mountain Goats & Halloween-related goodness.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:31:09 -0700

A little Mountain Goats & Halloween-related goodness.

Video

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:37:56 -0700

Granola!

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:52:00 -0700

Have you noticed that any good granola costs five or six bucks per box? And it’s a 12-ounce box. That’s fracking ridiculous, especially since I learned how to make granola in elementary school. It probably wasn’t that great (I remember it including a bunch of vegetable oil…ewww), but still cheap.

I decided to stop buying granola from the store. I can make a BETTER granola that’s also CHEAPER. Christian’s law states that BETTER + CHEAPER = DOUBLE PLUS GOOD.

Mark Bittman is pretty much the go-to guy for quick, cheap, good eats, so I based mine off this granola recipe he posted earlier this year.

I changed a few things. First, I couldn’t find unsweetened coconut, so I left that out. He says it’s ok to do so, and I trusted him. I wanted a subtly sweet granola, so I added about 2/3rds cup of honey. I also added a tablespoon of vanilla, and a tablespoon or two of peanut oil. For dried fruit, I added an even mixture of dried strawberries, bananas, and cranberries.

The raw granola was AMAZING. I mean, granola has gotten a pretty bad reputation, since the hippies co-opted its goodness for political gain. Great granola has a really great, subtle flavor. The honey, peanut oil, and cinnamon are great together. The hippies can take their flax seeds and soy nuts and put it in their vegan cookies, for all I care.

It was still good after baking for 25 minutes, but I learned a few things, which I’ll rectify in a month when I’ve run out of granola again. First, I didn’t have a normal baking sheet you’d use for granola. You know, one with sides about a half an inch or so thick. I only have a flat sheet. So I piled the granola on top and mushed it into a big rectangular bar, which caused the sides of the granola to nearly burn, because I couldn’t stir the granola at all.

Also, I mixed the granola in my Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, instead of hand-mixing. This was really efficient, since it took about 30 seconds on the 2-speed to perfectly blend everything. It came out fine, but the almonds and oats were crushed.

Lastly, the final granola was crumbly, instead of the nice clumpy style that I like. I’ll either need to cut out the oil, or add more honey or another ingredient to bind the oats together. Egg whites, perhaps?

superamit: Paper Plates : Joshua Gajownik WANT WANT WANT

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:54:04 -0700

superamit:

Paper Plates : Joshua Gajownik

WANT WANT WANT

5 Geniuses Who Were Massive Assholes

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:43:32 -0700

5 Geniuses Who Were Massive Assholes

kkr: superamit: Watch me and Kelly talking about the...

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:14:23 -0700

kkr:

superamit:

Watch me and Kelly talking about the Photojojo Book this morning on the CBS Early Show!

p.s. The book is currently #1 in photography books on Amazon, and #8 on Amazon’s Movers & Shakers list for all books!

congrats, guys!

OMG! The TV only adds 10 pounds of awesomeness to you guys!

“We’re gonna crack open the big egg!” So some...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:02:33 -0700

“We’re gonna crack open the big egg!”

So some guy’s chicken laid a HUGE egg. Watch to find out what was in that egg! The guy is kinda creepy in his own way, so I wasn’t sure if it was a hoax. Anyone else know?

kthread: As someone who has spent years in choir rehearsals,...

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:49:32 -0700

kthread:

As someone who has spent years in choir rehearsals, I’m intrigued by how this much fun this visualization is—and it’s really music theory, a serif-font, rounded-corners view of the song’s architecture. (What if this was on the karaoke screen with the correct area lit up?)

jeannr:

I made a flow chart, that we might better understand.

Once upon a time I was falling in love, and now I’m only falling apart.

OMG. In high school, the Peer Assistance group (a group of students who were taught to help counsel other students on drugs and stuff) did a interpretive dance/play to this song every year. It was unintentionally hilarious. P.S. The Peer Assistance teacher eventually had to “move on” after allegedly making some moves on a student or two.

superamit: Have a mimosa. They’re tasty! My finest moment.

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:07:55 -0700

superamit:

Have a mimosa. They’re tasty!

My finest moment.

superamit: hrrrthrrr: A gorillapod for my phone? ok! I...

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:11:42 -0700

superamit:

hrrrthrrr:

A gorillapod for my phone? ok! I probably dont need something like this in reality—but my camera one sure comes in handy all the time.

Was excited about this, too, and went to their launch party last night to check it out.

The suction cup mount is weak. And I wouldn’t want to leave the adhesive thing on the phone. So it won’t work on a bike, but I guess it’s alright for a desk or exercise machine (which is what they have pictured, I think.) :-/

I think it’s actually a stroller. Get with the times, Gupta!

NYT's "Out of the Kitchen, onto the Couch"

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:10:42 -0700

NYT's "Out of the Kitchen, onto the Couch":

“Here’s an analogy,” Balzer said. “A hundred years ago, chicken for dinner meant going out and catching, killing, plucking and gutting a chicken. Do you know anybody who still does that? It would be considered crazy! Well, that’s exactly how cooking will seem to your grandchildren: something people used to do when they had no other choice. Get over it.”