Shenanigans – Page 4 – Software and Other Shenanigans

Coursera’s introductory Scala course

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Aug 262014

For the first half of the summer, I took the online Functional Programming Principles in Scala course on Coursera. I should probably point out that I didn’t take the $50 official I’d heard good things about the language, mostly from Dick Wall on Java Posse podcasts, and it seemed like a good way to try functional programming again after a brief, rather unpleasant, introduction to Lisp in college. Overall, my main goals were to a) re-acquaint myself with functional programming and b) get a basic, can-start-on-some-code-now understanding of Scala.

It’s not the money

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Aug 092014

A couple of months ago, Mayday.us launched a big crowdfunding push to raise a crapton of money to form their own Super PAC, meant to fund and support candidates who would run on campaign platforms of reducing the influence of Super PAC money in elections. The overall goal, reduce corruption in federal politics, is a great agenda, but a SuperPAC built around limiting how much money people can spend in elections isn’t actually solving problems with American democracy. Continue reading »

A new kind of social network revisited

General Commentary, Shenanigans 5 Responses »

Jul 162014

After a lot of thinking a blogging aloud about what I think social networks are and what I think a social network (and social applications) should be, it’s time to revisit my original thoughts about a next-generation social network and see how well they stand up, as well as flesh out just what features a social network should support. After trying to get myself to separate the social network itself from the application people may be using to tap into their particular social networks, I wanted to re-visit how my original app idea and see what features should be moved to the actual network itself.

Down with 1 social app to rule them all!

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Jul 012014

I wasn’t very happy with where my last post ended. It all boiled down to “I wish Facebook was open source” or “I wish App.net had worked out better”. Part of that was that I spent the whole post operating on the assumption that underneath any application using this social network would be, well, 1 central model that everything would use. I think that assumption may be flawed. What if there wasn’t a central model behind all of these applications, but rather just a single protocol creating multiple models of people we connect to and how.

What is a social network anyways?

General Commentary, Shenanigans 3 Responses »

Jun 182014

When my friend Warren posted his issues with commenting on posts shared across social networks, it got me wondering how commenting would work in my hypothetical “next-gen” social network. My initial write-up on the idea focused mainly on the idea of the main content itself, so it got me wondering how to integrate things like comments into a feed-based social network. As I thought about how comments might fit into this new concept, I also started wondering about just what purpose comments served in a social network. I don’t mean in a “don’t read the comments” sense, but rather what role are comments serving in a social network? Continue reading »

A new kind of social network?

Shenanigans 6 Responses »

May 202014

My friend Warren Myers posted a question about the viability of a subscription-based social network not too long ago, and the concept kind of stuck with me. I’ve thought about the idea off and on since I’ve read it and initially commented on it, and it’s led to the point where I’m thinking about the concept less as a “Google+/Twitter/Facebook with a monthly fee” but more of a thought experiment of what if I were to design an all-new social network from the ground up, what would it look like? Now, all the social networks we know and use exist, and I’m not going to pretend we’ve never had such things. Also, this is all really based around how I use social networks, which is primarily content consumption, not content creation. That said, here’s where I see social networks going. Continue reading »

Halls or Hall and Greens or Green?

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Dec 252013

Rather than let people live with the running disagreement that’s been rampant in my house, here’s a simple little script to tell you if you should deck the hall or halls before the hanging of the green or greens service at church. Continue reading »

This is why nobody likes you

General Commentary, Shenanigans No Responses »

Dec 122013

I hardly do anything in Windows anymore. My work machine is Ubuntu, and my personal machine is a Mac. The only Windows computer I ever really use is an old machine at my church. However, that doesn’t protect me from having to deal with files made in Windows. And those things are starting to become the bane of my existence. Continue reading »

Wedding planning tips from a software developer (part III)

Programming, Python, Shenanigans No Responses »

Sep 102013

Not to be a shill in this series, but there are vendors that will print addresses on the outer set of wedding invitation envelopes when you place an order (the one the post office uses to deliver mail). Well, at least David’s Bridal does, which is who we happened to use. I’m not going to go so far as to say you should spend money on this kind of thing, just that we decided the convenience was worth it for us, and this is how it played out on our end. Continue reading »

Wedding planning tips from a software developer (part II)

Shenanigans 1 Response »

Aug 302013

As I mentioned earlier, I noticed a few things during my wedding planning process that I thought were worth sharing now that all is said and done on that front. While I mentioned having a Google Drive spreadsheet in my last post, I wanted to discuss it some more because we managed to get some neat uses out of it that are worth documenting and reusing. Continue reading »

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