I don’t like the patronizing “we”
People around me at work say phrases like: “Do we know how long this will take?” “Do we have someone that can figure that out?” Wikipedia calls this the patronizing we and the description is dead on:...
View ArticleThis story offers a good excuse to use the blockquote tag.
A friend of mine, Y, is spending the week in the jury pool for Cleveland. Every day, he gets brought in with all the other potential jurors. They all answer questions and then the attorneys throw...
View ArticleToday is day two of the Strong Lifts program
I found about this stronglifts program after reading the FAQ on reddit.com/r/fitness. Today’s workout: ran for two miles on the treadmill 5x5x95 squats 5x5x95 bench press 5x5x90 dumbbell rows I know...
View ArticleFirst episode of the next season of Mad Men plot summary
I just watched the first episode from the next season of Mad Men. Peggy and her beatnik friends score a bunch of LSD and they stay up for three days doing art. Peggy keeps sketching pictures of a...
View ArticlePython: log uncaught exceptions with sys.excepthook
You ever notice how when your script dies because of some uncaught error, you don’t get that error in your log files? This post walks through how to make sure that you log that uncaught exception. This...
View Articlepython: allow only one running instance of a script
UPDATE: Thanks so much for all the feedback! I’m going to look at using flock as well, and I’ll write that up soon. Imagine you have a script that archives a bunch of data by copying it to another box....
View ArticleCustomize your psql terminal
Here’s the contents of my ~/.psqlrc file: -- Report time used for each query. timing -- Set a cute border around query results. pset border 2 -- Set pager to less, rather than more. setenv PAGER...
View ArticleAnnouncing carp!
Carp is for code templating. You know, for stuff like starting HTML files with a bunch of predefined javascript libraries, or for starting a new python project without having to write a setup.py file...
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Check out the awesome logo for 216 Software, LLC!
Here it is If stuff goes according to plan, 2013 is going to be the year when this business really takes off.
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Backyard chickens in Ohio
My little flock of four birds got some attention in this article.
View ArticleWe need to make our conference presentations more accessible
When I say “more accessible” I mean any of these: useful for people with hearing / reading / seeing / cognitive / anything differences approachable for people at many different skill levels not...
View ArticleBarred rocks and a frosty morning
Filmed these last week weekend. You can hear my year-old daughter talking to them.
View ArticleObscure python syntax error
Been writing python for a long time. When I wrote this code, I could not figure out why I was getting a syntax error. d1 = dict( user_id=99, display_name='Matt Wilson',) d2 = dict(...
View Articleold-school code checklist
You can’t call it old-school code unless a majority of these are true: global vars are all registered at the top of the file, and are used to track state Comments contain author’s initials and a date...
View ArticleUpload files directly to Rackspace from the browser with AJAX PUT
I just wrote this up on my biz site. Upload files directly to Rackspace Cloudfiles from the browser with AJAX PUT I hope it helps somebody out!
View ArticleI really like my gardening boots
You don’t need many tools to start gardening. You can dig holes with a stick or a sharp rock. You can start seeds in tin cans. You can use all sorts of stuff to carry water. You really only need dirt,...
View ArticleWhat’s good and bad about github issues
Ticketing / workflow / bugtracker systems are always nasty. Github’s is pretty good. Maybe the best of what’s out there. But it ain’t perfect. Here’s what I like: It’s ready to go immediately once you...
View ArticleRIP hen #1
For two years now, I’ve been letting my hens free range around in a fenced-in section in my back yard during the day. They love it. Went out to check for eggs today after work and found one of my girls...
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Beware the trap of the local optimum
Lots of problems look a little like this: The Y-axis measures success at whatever problem you’re trying to solve. You start at the farthest left point on the curve and you can move left or right a...
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