Some Guy's Blog

The Positive Reinforcer: “

More Useless Mutants.

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(Via Savage Chickens.)

A Letter to My Younger Self: “

Sure, I could go back and tell my teenage self not to give up playing the piano, but would that just leave me in my 30’s dreading another gig in the bar of some hotel waiting for the inevitable tooth-grinding moment some drunk tourist requests ‘Piano Man’ for the sixty thousandth time? Would I hunch over the keys, bang out those first chords and wish to my core I could go back in time and advise my teenage self to teach himself Perl?

So I pondered. And I thought. And I finally came up with the one important, nay vital bit of advice I would give myself if I had the chance….

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Hello, Charlotte Rubyists!

As you may have heard, our organizer and sponsor, Jesse Schoch, has left the Queen City for Northern Virginia early this month. That leaves us with some pretty big shoes to fill if we’d like the group to continue on!

I’d like to suggest an organizational meeting for Amelie’s Bakery on Tuesday, Aug. 25th, starting at 6PM. The goal for the meeting, in addition to socializing with fellow Rubyists, would be for us all to talk about the role we could play in charlotte.rb, if any.

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The PhoneGap guys are trying to bring development with web standards to the mobile platform, specifically by leveraging WebKit, which is available and/or used on basically all platforms but the BlackBerry. That seems like a hell of a goal to me. (more…)

Anyone who didn’t like this talk must not have had a pulse.

The “big idea” of the talk was doing open-source software development on an open-source hardware platform that does something cool! Like flying a freaking blimp to The Flight of the Valkyries!

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Misha Glouberman’s contribution to our lovely conference was not technical in nature. It was a shared experiment in becoming a cellular automata that generated sound. It was a lovely experience! (more…)

This was a great presentation by Foy Savas that was very engaging. You’ll want to see the tape if that ever circulates rather than reading any review. That said, here it is. (more…)

If you think Windows and Mac and Solaris are different, look at the diversity that DNA engenders! (more…)

Trying to blog on an Ilya Grigorik talk is usually an exercise in linking to the resources he makes available. In this case, his slides and his Twitter account for question purposes.

In this case, I’ll try to post a brief summary of the technology so you can get an idea of whether or not it’s for you. (more…)

or Owning the Means of Production

My fellow Tarheel Nathaniel Talbott of Terralien kicked our conference with a talk on developer ideology. He believes that armchair quarterbacking on matters economic, fiscal, and ideological is important. He claims his goal is to start a revolution. It sounded to this listener that he meant only a revolution in the Ruby community in its attitude towards its employers. (more…)