Mathias's mock turtle soup

When a freelancer changes the game

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:43:00 GMT

Often, businesses hire freelancers (writers, photographers, process consultants, trainers) to solve a specific problem for the lowest possible cost. And a good freelancer at the right price is often the right approach.

Sometimes, though, you spend more and get something great. You seek out and find a linchpin who combines inspiration and professionalism and initiative and pushes back on your quest for average. When you interact with someone like that, you might pay more but you get far more than you paid.

I recently did a photo shoot with my friend Brian, and from the moment I walked into the studio, I discovered that he and his lighting guru were relentlessly pushing to change my perception of what was possible at the same time they were focused on overdelivering on the project. They had little interest in settling on merely doing a good job.

There's a lot of pressure for freelancers to fit in, conform and comply. It seems easier to generate new business that way. That's not really true. It's easier to become an easily-described commodity that way, but the person who's willing to push themselves out to an edge that matters is on the only path that actually leads to success.

And then it's up to the client to care enough about the project and in making a difference to have the guts to hire you.

Mathiasx is currently reading: Iron Sunrise (Paperback)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:59:46 GMT

Mathiasx is currently reading: Iron Sunrise (Paperback) by Charles Stross
bookshelves: currently-reading

Mathiasx added: Singularity Sky (Paperback)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:59:38 GMT

Mathiasx added: Singularity Sky (Paperback) by Charles Stross

_meta - Good code needs few unit tests

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:35:24 GMT

“We write great code here, just look at how many unit tests we have!”

This meme needs to die. I touched on it earlier, now let’s make the formal argument:

Units are abstractions which encapsulate a piece of functionality.
A unit tests covers an intended use-case for the interface a Unit exposes.
One quality measure of an abstraction is the complexity of its interface (ie API size).
Another measure is the amount of state the abstraction encapsulates.
Good abstractions have simple interfaces and as little state as necessary.

Hence, good abstractions require few unit tests. Conversely, a lots of unit tests are a symptom of an architecture with complex and highly stateful abstractions, which, in turn, are a sign of a low quality architecture.

http://andreyf.tumblr.com/post/459323557/good-code-needs-few-unit-tests

Via

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:16:52 GMT

Via

[Reposted from dailybunny]

(Thanks, Judiffmilk!)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:16:46 GMT

(Thanks, Judiffmilk!)

[Reposted from dailybunny]

Via

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:16:32 GMT

Via

[Reposted from dailybunny]

Via

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:16:28 GMT

Via

[Reposted from dailybunny]

(Thanks, foamy!)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:16:23 GMT

(Thanks, foamy!)

[Reposted from dailybunny]

Via; via

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:16:21 GMT

Via; via

[Reposted from dailybunny]

(Thanks, Calypso!)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:15:41 GMT

(Thanks, Calypso!)

[Reposted from dailybunny]

(Image)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:14:51 GMT

[Reposted from ryan77 via hairinmy]

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Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:03:36 GMT

[Reposted from savor via hairinmy]

(Image)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:03:32 GMT

[Reposted from charlottinka via hairinmy]

(Image)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:03:29 GMT

[Reposted from whisper via hairinmy]

(Image)

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:18:28 GMT

[Reposted from oll]

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:34:16 GMT

[Reposted from Abad via chesh]

littletinyfish:

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:33:24 GMT

littletinyfish:

Sans Seat Tube (via www.selectism.com)

Earlier I posted about dimpling the seat tube to get a slightly narrower wheelbase, but I suppose getting rid of the seat tube altogether might be an even better move.

On a totally different note, what the hell is this bike built for? It’s got a trackish setup with aerobars, aerospokes, and an aggressive wheelbase but it’s also got gears and brakes.

I’m pretty sure that’s a triathlon bike, which is their own little world of bike design choices. For example, they’re all about aerobars and uncomfortable seats to save weight, but they’ll put two water bottles hanging off the seat post.

(Thanks, Chokdee!)

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:29:27 GMT

(Thanks, Chokdee!)

[Reposted from dailybunny]

Shepherd Book, possibly the most mysterious character on Joss Whedon's ill-fa...

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:29:20 GMT

Shepherd Book, possibly the most mysterious character on Joss Whedon's ill-fated space-western Firefly is to star in in a comic book that will finally let us in on his past.

[Reposted from brightbyte via hairinmy]

(Image)

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:28:47 GMT

[Reposted from silv via hairinmy]

Novel Teas. You can buy it on TheSpoonSisters.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:17:14 GMT

Novel Teas. You can buy it on TheSpoonSisters.

[Reposted from sawb via teagoddammit]

(via g0nsuke)

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:17:07 GMT

(via g0nsuke)

[Reposted from gkojax via chesh]

Extreme Terrestrial (via bisign:chirosangaku:h-edge:9gag)

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:16:48 GMT

Extreme Terrestrial (via bisign:chirosangaku:h-edge:9gag)

Oh my god, I cannot describe how full of win this is. Very.

[Reposted from littletinyfish]

ladies only

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:13:08 GMT

Johnny Wander Combined Feed

I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY GAL FOR YOU ;__;

[Reposted from fragmad]

(Image)

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:01:36 GMT

[Reposted from tapps]

via 50 Examples of Vintage Typography | Webdesigner Depot

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:01:23 GMT

via 50 Examples of Vintage Typography | Webdesigner Depot

[Reposted from tanuntipw via coffee]

"He basically said that bikes shouldn’t be on roads, and that if they (anyone ..."

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:50:28 GMT

"He basically said that bikes shouldn’t be on roads, and that if they (anyone on a bike, lycra or not) are you (meaning: person in a car) should attempt to scare the riders so they stay off the roads. I’m leaving out the scary bits of his quote.

...

I’m just annoyed because people change the argument from what Kornheiser actually said, to a discussion of whether bikes should be on roads, bike safety laws, etc etc. While he’s entitled to his opinions, encouraging people to cause harm (potentially fatal harm) to anyone is pretty much hate speak in my mind. That day he said cyclists. Next day it could be something else (old people in grocery store parking lots, kids walking to school). I’m not upset that he targeted cyclists, I’m upset he targeted human beings. Kids, parents, husbands, daughters.

–http://svdodge.com/blog/2010/03/kornheiser-is-an-idiot-fearhate-mongering-idiot/

Consuming the Twitter Streaming API

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:01:54 GMT

If you’ve been using polling to track Twitter search terms (totally random example), you may have wondered if there is a more efficient and reliable method. The Twitter streaming API is a potential solution.

Try out the sample stream with curl:

$ curl http://stream.twitter.com/1/statuses/sample.json -uYOUR_TWITTER_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD

Track a term in realtime, like “ruby”:

$ curl http://stream.twitter.com/1/statuses/filter.json?track=ruby -uYOUR_TWITTER_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD

How do you integrate this into a Ruby app? Standard HTTP clients such as RestClient and HTTParty aren’t appropriate, since they’re designed for atomic HTTP requests, not streaming. With this API, you want to keep the socket open indefinitely, decoding JSON one line at a time.

Async I/O is the right tool for this job. Here’s an example script using Ilya Grigorik’s evented HTTP client. Install the em-http-request gem, then:

require 'eventmachine'
require 'em-http'
require 'json'

usage = "#{$0} <user> <password>"
abort usage unless user = ARGV.shift
abort usage unless password = ARGV.shift

url = 'http://stream.twitter.com/1/statuses/sample.json'

def handle_tweet(tweet)
  return unless tweet['text']
  puts "#{tweet['user']['screen_name']}: #{tweet['text']}"
end

EventMachine.run do
  http = EventMachine::HttpRequest.new(url).get :head => { 'Authorization' => [ user, password ] }

  buffer = ""

  http.stream do |chunk|
    buffer += chunk
    while line = buffer.slice!(/.+\r?\n/)
      handle_tweet JSON.parse(line)
    end
  end
end

Run this at the command line with your Twitter username and password as arguments, and it will start printing out results. In a real app, you’d replace the body of handle_tweet with code to do something like inserting the result into your database.

Note that, even in a production app, you should never run more than one of these processes. It’s a background worker of sorts; you can think of the open socket as a queue that’s delivering jobs. But since this queue can’t split the work among multiple workers, you’re limited to just one.

Strategically Placed

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:10:28 GMT

Neil: Where should we go for lunch today? I am sure neither of us drove today, otherwise I'd suggest Maxie's Southern Comfort.
Jason: Yeah. I walked to work with my dog.
Neil: You wanna go to Comet? That's kinda close to you.
Jason: You don't want Comet; you just want to park your bike in front of it.

Project Manager’s vs. Developer’s View

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:00:02 GMT

From darkgreyindustries.com

Babies are born to dance, new research shows

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:00:00 GMT

A study of infants finds they respond to the rhythm and tempo of music and find it more engaging than speech. The research suggest that babies may be born with a predisposition to move rhythmically in response to music.

cutest alphabet ever

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:12:03 GMT

I saw this on Tracie's blog this morning + just about fell off my chair from the cleverness + cuteness of it all. Its of her daughter's class + was for a fundraiser ...

I just might have to suggest this to Ike's preschool teacher.

[photography by Tracie / tsj photography]