January 22, 2012 0

Fictional Scream

By admin in Wordplay

On the past two weeks, I’ve been on a literary tear, putting down “Ender’s Game” and “Fight Club” in a matter of days each. I am, I think, in search of writing styles to influence my own recent foray into creating fiction.

Most of the time I spent reading previous to the past two weeks was dedicated to non-fiction, and had been for a handful of years. Previous to that, I had made a conscious decision to read next to nothing. Well, maybe not conscious – I was basically working and going to school for the visual arts, so I didn’t have much time for any diversions than video games, DVDs of Scrubs, and the three day reading of Kitchen Confidential. Non fiction is pretty fascinating, learning how the world works or about programming is sometimes dry, but it is, at the very least, educational.

In the ten to fifteen minutes after putting down a work of fiction, I often find myself recounting and analyzing real-world events in the work’s narrative voice . I don’t know why this happens, and I wonder if it has to do with the qualities of the written word versus other, more established mass media art forms. Neither movies nor music really present this phenomenon onto me, maybe because they are capable of demonstrating events in ways other than telling.

That’s what makes me wary about reading unknown authors. Sometimes their work is disturbing, or I find their particular worldview distasteful or uncomfortable. And my dedication to finishing what I started means I will be sharing that particular view of the world with my own thoughts until the book is completed. Now I think, maybe I should keep myself from reading American Psycho next, lest I decide to forgo web development, start commuting to the financial district and beginning questioning my own perception of reality.

So, I will continue to dip my toe back into the universe of literary fiction until I either get more comfortable, or decide that watching re-runs of Turk, JD and Dr. Cox is a more appropriate use of my free time.

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January 15, 2012 0

Am Just guy with Keyboredz

By admin in TechDates, Wordplay
“We need humour to point to the absurdity of our self-obsession.” – Ajahn Sumedho

A good friend relayed a story about an intellectual arms race he once had with a co-worker. He said something along the lines of “you could be right about something, but then he had to be more right”

Programmers tend to get caught up in this mentality. We pride ourselves on our learning, our problem solving skills, and a keen intellectual ability. Even though we don’t make ourselves out to be as blatantly competitive as people who tend towards team sports, we are. When left unchecked it can drive us down a dark road, away from our project goals, team goals, personal goals and life goals. It’s easy to get caught in the semantics of doing things right. Doing things right is great: it prevents things from breaking, it prevents frustration later on down the line. But we are engaged in an endless pursuit of perfection, and it can become all consuming.

Like any other art form (yeah, that’s right), you can become so obsessed with perfection that it derails you from accomplishment. Coding for money is the fine line between doing things the right way, they way we know they should be done for so many reasons, and doing things the way they need to be done so that we can deliver something people will use / pay money to have. You too, can allow your current project to become the Chinese Democracy of development.

Doing things right is an incredible feeling. Absolutely. So is actually getting things done. Sometimes at work, I verbalize the ‘getting things done’ part because more often because I know what it is like to allow projects, whether code, music, or literature related, to drag on too long due to endless tweaking. It’s can actually be quite awful if left unchecked, and can ruin the entire experience of making something.

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January 8, 2012 0

Output, acceptance, the way Forward

By admin in TechDates, Wordplay

I was recently asked by a colleague if our level of committment is really noticed. And I said no, not because our bosses don’t appreciate us (I’m sure they do, and they tell us routinely), but mainly because just about every person gets so wrapped up in their own life that he or she tends to forget that we all live in extraordinary times. This is just human nature to me. Even if we are surrounded by exceptional people (which I would say that I am), it takes another level of maturity, or diligence, or some other abstract concept, to step back and be thankful for that, and to acknowledge that on a routine basis.

I mean, that’s the reason we get all those “Seize the Day” and “I Hope you Dance” email forwards from our families, right? Because we all know, on some subconscious level, that it takes a little external prodding for each of us to get a tad bit more perspective. If you remember that there was something which Google search managed to supercede, (it’s called an encyclopedia, kids) then you certainly have enough world experience to appreciate how much better technology has made our lives in the past ten years.

When I was a kid, my dad was working 75 hour weeks to provide for us while my Mom held it down at home – this wasn’t a sexist thing, it was what they agreed to as a couple. My Mom would bring us to his pharmacy so we could spend time with him. I bring this up because of I want to raise two points:

1) I didn’t feel gypped as a kid, even though this wasn’t exactly an ideal working situation – we had a great childhood, and I still have a good relationship with my Dad.

2) It’s an example of my parents making the situation work for the family.

Somehow, I entered the working world with this model in my head about what I expected from the workplace, and no place on earth could possibly live up to it. Some places failed by a wide margin. Some places failed by the standards of my ideals, but succeeded in areas and categories that I couldn’t have imagined. I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who give a shit, and sometimes giving a shit leads to some cynicism and bitterness. I accept that as part of the “giving a shit” package. Hopefully we can all make peace with the world failing our ideals on a routine basis and not let it extinguish our passion for making a difference.

Meluski out.

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January 1, 2012 0

The line of challenge

By admin in TechDates

What is the thin line between being challenged, and being overwhelmed? Or, more appropriately, where is it?

This is something that people struggle with all the time.  I have to remind myself: feeling overwhelmed is temporary.

As seasoned programmers, we are blessed with tools that help us manage large tasks. Experience tells us to take a large problem and break it down into smaller, doable pieces. It also tells us what to use, because we’ve seen someone else do it, or had a conversation with a peer or boss that knows a thing or two about project management.

As young programmers, we are often at the behest of the whims of those above us in the organizational hierarchy.

In the agency world, you’re often handed large tasks, and sometimes you’re not given a rudder. Sometimes you’re surrounded by account people, designers, company owners, even programmers that are possibly on your level or slightly higher, but you’re not given the additional blessing of someone that knows how to manage a project from a technical level. Maybe the people who handed you the project don’t even care about managing it properly. And when I say care, I don’t mean caring enough to pay the idea of technical project management some lip service, then turn their concerns to something else.  Maybe their philosophy is : “Hey you’re the tech person. Just get it done. Do the thing with the keyboards and characters and the servers”.

My heart goes out to young programmers everywhere, especially those that are currently living in that situation. I was in there before. I worked at a small agency for a number of years that focused primarily on print design, but kinda recognized that the whole internet was kinda blowing up into a big deal. So, by necessity, they had people on staff to make web sites. When I left that company, they were mired in developing a website for a company that was already about two months behind delivery. About six months later, they were still working on it, and one of the people inside the company estimated it would be another year before final delivery. The ambitions of the site were beyond the scope of the managerial competence.

Here’s what I can offer to you, if that sounds like it could happen to you: A spreadsheet. Really?

Yes. I’m lucky to work somewhere that embraces a more involved development tracking process, but for smaller projects, or organizations with no semblance of tech process? Take a spreadsheet, break the tasks down into small, manageable parts, give them conditional formatting based upon Status (Ready, Open, Done) and estimates. Sometimes I’ll make two time-related columns, Estimated vs Actual so I review the wild inaccuracies of my initial estimates.

But that’s really it. And then mow through the list. Watch out for entropy as well, you’d probably do well to review it at the start of each week to add / remove items and cleanup. If the project exceeds more than a few weeks in timeline, you actually need to push for better system than this, and that means you also need the support of the other people in the organization to get that system implemented and upheld. But that’s another post entirely.

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December 17, 2011 0

Freestyle

By admin in TechDates

I just posted about SOPA, and have some thoughts about why ‘piracy’ is a problem. I’m sure this has been said previously, but allow me to reiterate in my own words. First of all, the fact that we’ve allowed it to be branded as piracy is part of the problem – though the word infers some degree of rebelliousness, actual pirates are incredibly dangerous people that steal things on the seas, and possibly endanger lives. Digital file sharing does neither of the above.

Second, and I think that we’re almost at a point where this is universally acknowledged – theft is fundamentally different than file sharing. The inability to recognize this by traditional media providers has led to such ham-handed approaches as suing prospective customers for file sharing and, well, SOPA. Traditional theft means there is one object, and that object can only remain in one person’s possession. If another person takes that object, it leaves the other person without it. Not true of file sharing. The people that get this have been able to successfully harness the digital era, leaving people who are traditionally in charge of music, movies and games scrambling for some way to get back control.

Third, and most importantly, I borrow from Gabe Newell, founder of Valve: “Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.” EXACTLY. Traditional media companies suck at servicing the needs of the consumer. For a long time, they didn’t care, and didn’t have to care. They controlled a very linear distribution method, and anyone down the pike that didn’t like it could fuck off without getting a taste. Now channels of distribution and communication have multiplied. Sure, they’re uncomfortable with losing that control, but why are they seeking to legislate against the people that make their living? Why do they hate us? We love them. We give them tons of our money, all the time. This relationship is turning poisonous. Put some money into customer service. Put some money into bypassing theaters in a way that consumers will ENJOY. Do something creative, because coming after our quality of life is not doing anything constructive. Please stop legislating / suing us, and put that money into making awesome shit that makes us loyal customers. That’s right – we, as humans, are generally still loyal to products that we feel make our lives better. Imagine that, we’re not all assholes.

Of course piracy could just be a red herring in all of this – some people just have a compulsion to dictate the flow of other people’s lives.

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December 16, 2011 0

Soapboxing on SOPA

By admin in TechDates

People pay a lot of lip service to ‘job creation’ in politics, but I’m
currently working in an industry that creates jobs – seriously, on an
almost daily basis there are new jobs and opportunities for people, so
much so that the demand far outstrips the supply. Though no growth
period lasts forever, the bill called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act),
which is currently in committee in the US House Representatives, will
have stifling effects on this growth by creating greater overhead for
tech-oriented companies.

A lot of major tech players (Google, Facebook, even Microsoft -
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57330078-281/surprise-microsoft-quietly-opposes-sopa-copyright-bill/)
are opposed to this bill. The amazing technologies that have
integrated into our lives over the past decade (iPhones, streaming
movies, digital albums) has a lot to do with the openness of the
Internet, the exchange of information that it engenders, and the
resulting technological innovation and competition.

This bill is a bad idea, and an especially bad idea given the current
economic climate. My representative in the House is already opposing
the bill, and I’m grateful. If yours is not, use one of the many
resources (i.e. http://engineadvocacy.org/voice/) to call your
representative and let them know you want to enable us all to have
more great stuff from the tech sector in the coming years. Oh yeah -
and more jobs.

Thanks, soapbox over

————-

*This was a letter I sent to my immediate family, I thought it was worthy of publishing online.

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December 11, 2011 0

The kids still like it

By admin in The Missing Person, Wordplay

So I’m convinced that we are going to enter another great age of music.

As you shake your head in disgust, stop yourself for a second to hear me out – you know that you’re either going back to look at pictures of cats or pornography if you close the tab. So that can wait. The internet will always have cats and pornography. They are the death and taxes of the telecommunications age.

Different musical aesthetics tend to occur in cycles – things that are very light, poppy and corporate are followed by the raw, energetic and angry, and then back again. I’m thinking of how punk followed disco, how grunge followed glam rock. So we’ve had our American Idols, Katy Perrys, Justin Biebers and the like just DOMINATING the news and airwaves. Sure the Arcade Fire won a Grammy but… you know. COME ON. Where is the takeover?  Where is the moment that music critics will look back to and say “That… there. That’s where it all changed.” The moment where Simon Cowell says ‘oh shit’ and realizes that his empire has seen its peak? (Not that it matters to him, the man has made him self a fortune doing what he does. Also, I just don’t think he would ever say ‘oh shit’ at anything.)

It hasn’t happened yet. But the ground forces are amassing. The first cries of “rock and roll are dead” have been heard in the media. Maybe rock and roll is on the decline, but the roots from which rock sprang are far from dead. Do the blues ever die? DO THEY? Or does the blues take on a new get up every ten to twenty years, steaming through the glass wall of musical bullshit that we’ve allowed to build around us to deliver some honesty, sincerity and some fucking feeling? The desire to hear someone play with their heart, as Bill Hicks would attest, will never die, never wane. Not as long as someone out there is dealing with the difficulties that come a long with being a human being.

It’s happening though. People are picking up guitars, learning to sing, because what they hear on the radio no longer represents what they feel in their hearts. And if someone else is incapable of saying what they feel, of making them feel like they are not alone in the everyday struggle, then they will take it upon themselves to make that emotion public. Don’t worry Gaga. We’ll always have Pokerface.

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December 7, 2011 2

There is no middle ground

By admin in Wordplay

So, I’m fortunate enough to fall on the liberal side of the Occupy Wall Street debate. And I have to say this – Why is there even a debate, or better yet, a problem with what they are doing? Who even gives enough of a shit to complain about people complaining? And now I’m complaining about the people complaining about the protesters who are complaining.

Here’s my pitch: There is no right or wrong in this entire situation, but there’s definitely something that can be taken away regardless of your political perspective. Look, a group of people are mad, and they’re exercising their right to assembly. If anything, people who oppose them should tip their hats in respect, not because they agree with the point being made, simply because they are exercising a right that you may see fit to use in the future. Because we afford justice to others, we have justice for ourselves. Get it?

As a culture, we should be compelled to understand that we should be raising the level of political discourse. What does that mean? It is entirely possible to listen to another person’s opinion, someone you don’t agree with, and walk away with a new insight or perspective. Also, if you’re getting your information from TV, you should open up the internet and search for opposing viewpoints. Because you can. You absolutely fucking can. It’s amazing. For the first time in history, we have access to so many sources of information that we can actually weight different sides of an issue FOR OURSELVES. IT IS REALLY FUCKING AMAZING. If you actually do it.

Here’s my parting thought: Why does this strike such a nerve with people who are anti-OWS? If these people really are unemployed, scumbag “woe-is-me” types, how much of a threat can they be? Wouldn’t they just fade away if you let them have their time to speak, and be heard? I mean, why do they have to have an ‘agenda’? If anything, over the past decade we’ve seen the emergence of more malleable, hierarchy-less systems and organizations (think of the internet, for God’s sake) that work due to the factors behind their emergence. Maybe it’s the threat to the more conventional concept of organizational structure that some people find so scary.

But maybe not.

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November 27, 2011 0

Published!

By admin in TechDates, The Missing Person, Wordplay

First of all, big news. For me.

I’ve got a short piece published in NY Underscore, which is now on sale here. Thankfully I  knew someone that knew someone and they got me hooked up with the initial connection.

I’m still clocking on Python and Python the Hard Way. As usual, I can’t recommend this book enough, towards the end of the course it takes the reader into creating project skeletons and unit testing, which is an oft neglected aspect of the PHP coding community from whence I came.

Another book that I’ve gotten into as I’ve wrapped up Your Money Ratios (a great reco by my brother) is Code Complete, which was actually recommended to me by my CTO about a year ago. So… yeah. Better late than never, right? Anyway, if you have a Kindle, or a computer, you can get the Kindle edition for very cheap. Because you want to get better at coding, right? RIGHT?

Lastly, I’m working on getting the music for the Missing Person on bandcamp. The Virtual Host service I was using was a large headache to deal with, and I switched over to Media Temple. Part of the issue was how I handled the virtual server, and the meeting of that low skill level with the way the host company had set up the backend tools. I had created an allowance for my home IP address, then I suppose I got assigned a new one by my provider at some point so…. locked out! Pretty sweet right? The only reason I had created an allowance had to do with the hosts.deny automatically respawning by some process that was unknown to both myself and the support staff at the other company. As a result, I migrated some stuff and decided to offload the Missing Person site to band camp so I wouldn’t have to worry about installing some type of payment platform (the albums will be pay what you wish).

One last thing – Donnie Coleman is taking a gang of awesome photos in his Vermont homestead these days.

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November 18, 2011 0

There’s something inside of me…

By admin in TechDates

It’s been a crazy week, so I just want to hit up some points:

First of all: the Goose reunion was amazing. Always love seeing ADK, especially when he flies all the way from the West Coast. Next stop… Oregon. When? Hopefully before the end of 2012. Of course, the rest of the crew made it an improbably great time as well, so big thanks to Leo, Chris, Steve and Keith as well, not to mention Jay and Damian from the 6G Trio. Awesome weekend, never saw it coming.

Next up: a little thing called resilience engineering. I took a trip back to Dumbo for a little talk given by the people over at Etsy. Though I don’t share the passion for the topic that John Allspaw (@allspaw) does, he was extremely informative and the topic is EXTREMELY relevant to just about… everything we’re doing on the web, especially as systems (and issues surrounding those systems) become increasingly complex. Once again, thanks are in order especially since a lot of companies are so generous with their knowledge and time. And beer.

Also, Facebook. I wanted to pick up the thread from last week, but not get as in-depth. Some Key Points that I feel are important (in reference to the Javascript SDK in particular).

  • FB.ui() is your friend
  • FB.api() is also your friend. Learn about both of these.
  • The permissions are towards the bottom of this page
  • It is really hard to find information about the objects. Here’s the User Object reference. You’ll find all the other object references towards the bottom of the left hand column.

To be honest, the information contained inside these four points has been the most relevant to my experience. As I mentioned last week, I’m just hoping to prevent the frustration of other devs. I found digging through the Facebook documentation dizzying at times, and sometimes felt like I was going in circles.

Also: I finally started getting into Code Complete. So far so good. Hopefully it will help me come up with more tech related ramblings.

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