The Codebelay Blog

Blog

  • Why I Joined the Long Now

    I’ve been reading the book, Anathem, as well as siding with the idea that the calmest and most rational way to lead life is with the long view. I am not saying that there is no magic to being in the now. Personally, modern society is too focused on the now and the near future instead of the long view.



    That’s why I joined The Long Now Foundation.

    Anyway, as a member, I get this cool looking, stainless steel card, preferred seating at seminars, and access to their videos. Kinda sounds like a pr0n site. lol.

    I think it’s great to support an organization that has debates about biotechnology, and future upcoming crises, e.g. the environment, food and energy shortages, and historical forces.

  • Gaia Online: a new kind of Internet socializing

    If you like to gamble, race cars, assemble jigsaw puzzles, go fishing, play pinball and paper dolls, all while chatting with your friends, have I got a site for you! If you haven’t heard of Gaia Online yet, you will again soon. According to an article on GigaOM posted in April of 2007, Gaia’s formidably diverse forums are “second only to Yahoo in popularity,” and this was over a year ago.

    Once lumped in with websites like Neopets, Gaia is now popularly being compared to Facebook and MySpace. But while Facebook and MySpace (among others) encourage users to post actual photos of themselves, at Gaia, users create their own images, and continue to re-create them every sixty seconds if they wish, through the use of avatars (the “paper dolls” mentioned above). Only a small fraction of users include pictures of themselves in their profiles and signatures, which I see as a huge plus in a world where anonymity would seem to be the safest route.

    However, having a unique, nearly fully customizable avatar represent you in the forums and world of Gaia offers users the chance to have a face and personality that other message boards and online forums do not. Most Gaians keep their avatars largely consistent (same eyes, same hairstyles, but with a few costume changes), making Gaia’s users recognizable to each other, just as people are in real life.

    Sure, Gaia likes to tag itself as “the world’s fastest growing online world hangout for teens,” but to me this seems like wishful thinking, and not because Gaia isn’t growing quickly (it is!), but because out of the ten people I briefly surveyed, only one of them was under the age of twenty, and only two had never before heard of Gaia.

    Back when Gaia first started in 2003, it was largely a hangout for anime fans and gamers who enjoy the occasional bingo cash game to find each other, chat, and share links. Founder Derek Liu probably best explained Gaia’s growth when he was interviewed in the site’s early days: “It seems that the growth of Gaia relied mainly on the word of mouth from our users.” And boy, did users talk. Gaia’s popularity as an online forum spread quickly, and continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Survey says that the current largest draw for Gaia, however, is its games.

    Gaia’s website currently offers its users Cards (blackjack or 21), Slots (slot machines), Rally (a car racing game), Jigsaw (puzzles), Word Bump (for word geeks like myself), Fishing (I hope this doesn’t need explanation), Pinball (see note for Fishing), and Electric Love Factory (“fast paced puzzle action” according to the site). Many of these games allow users to “share a room” and play the games not necessarily together, but at least in a single window where they can see each other’s avatars and chat, an option that my two Gaia-uninitiated said would be a draw for them. As one twenty-one year old young lady put it, “it makes it fun to communicate with others while gaming.” The other (this one twenty-two) agreed, adding, “That sounds cool.” The latter also said that she would probably post in the forums, while the former did not think she would use that feature.

    Gaia’s latest foray into online gaming has to be its most ambitious draw of all time, that being into the world of MMOs (massive multiplayer online games) with the recently released zOMG!, brought to us at last by the hardest working team I’ve ever seen. (If the juvenile, netspeak title is a turn-off to you, you are not alone. Many Gaians prefer the original title of the project, Battle, and still commonly refer to it as such.)

    For someone who has dumped untold amounts into other MMOs, like World of Warcraft and its expansion the Burning Crusade, the largest perquisite Gaia’s MMO offers is that it is technically 100% free. For those impatient folk with expendable income (you know who you are), Gaia offers something called Gaia cash that may be purchased with real money. Five dollars gets you 500 GC, which can then be exchanged for items used in the game (though I, personally, have yet to see a reason anyone would do so given the high level of drops in the game of those very same items).

    Like the rest of Gaia, the MMO is, well, cute. Perhaps the biggest turn-off to older potential users is the site’s overall cartoonish appearance, but then, that can also be a draw to the right people. (The cool ones.) But don’t let the cute stop you from trying out an enjoyable little MMO that really costs you nothing more than your time to play. How many of you play Ragnarok Online and/or Maple Story? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

    But the best thing about Gaia isn’t the games or the avatars, but the community created by both. Let me briefly share with you my little story. I joined Gaia just after it first started in 2003, and met one of my now closest friends in the writing forums. She lives in California. I lived in Michigan. At Anime Expo in 2007, I attended a gathering of Gaians where I met another user who is now not only a dear friend, but one of my roommates. In fact, four of my five roommates have accounts on Gaia, and I now reside in California. It was through Gaia that I made these connections across-country that eventually made me decide to relocate.

    I guess what I am saying here really boils down to this. If you spend time on the internet visiting social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, go to gaming sites like Yahoo! Games or Games.com, or are too poor to support your MMO habit any longer, you should definitely give Gaia Online a try. You never know where it might take you.

  • The Best, Agnostic Way To Make Money In Tech

    The one thing disappointing about teaching Ruby is all the idiosyncracies with any modern scripting language.

    Very often a project will fail because of some random, idiosyncracy in a particular piece of technology. Very often, the idiosyncracy is just an excuse.

    So, what is the best, technology agnostic way to make money in tech?

    Learn one algorithm, learn it well, and then apply it to a problem that saves a lot of money.

    We live in a world of plenty bubble sorts, select sorts, and even the rare bogosorts just begging to be turned into cash and time saving quicksorts.

    The trick is learning how to do that in a business setting. More on that later. For now… learn one of these:

    Or choose your own and really, really figure out how to turn it into a business proposition.

    Why?

    Believe it or not, a lot of companies with cash have this sort of thing going on:

    while not InOrder(deck) do Shuffle(deck); #lols

    So if you could just choose one algorithm and turn it into a business proposition, which one would it be?

  • A Comparison of Ajax Libraries


    go to the table!

    November 12, 2008

  • I Voted For Obama and Biden

    I’ll be having folks over to watch election coverage.

  • Codebelay Needs Bloggers

    Hey Folks,

    I’ve been following the advice Jason Calacanis laid out about blogging as close as possible. He was asked what was the sing most important step in monetizing a blog network and he answered, “Create world-class content every day for a year.”

    I confess that I have not been that religious about posting, but I’ve been posting consistently during the week. Unfortunately, I’ve started doing freelance work and don’t have as much time as I’d like.

    I want to continue to provide really interesting, quirky and beyond the bleeding edge articles about the tech world. We would be the kind of team that already has been messing around with CouchDB, Erlang, or newLisp way before others would think it was cool or profitable. We would also be the sort of team that avoids the false and gilded bullshit that creates a zombie army of fanboys or fangirls. Seriously, that stuff is lame and counter productive. Instead, we would be a little Oasis of exploring and humanizing technology.

    If you want to be:

    • part of something where you can say what you think about the tech industry
    • like to write about tech
    • want your writing to be a part of a cool community

    Then I am interested in you.

    My site has been growing since following Calacanis’ advice, but I’m realizing that I can’t do this alone.

    Please send a writing sample and why you’d like to join in the fun that is CodeBelay.

    Cheers,
    Barce

  • Redboxing with Rails: Modal Windows FTW

    There’s a great lightbox plugin for Ruby on Rails called Redbox. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out of the box, but here’s the patch for redbox.js:

    Replace:

    Element.setTop(window_id, boxTop);
    Element.setLeft(window_id, boxLeft);

    With:

    $(window_id).style.top = boxTop + “px”;
    $(window_id).style.left = boxLeft + “px”;

    Remove or comment out:

    Element.hide(‘RB_loading’);

    Remove:

    <div id=”RB_loading”></div>

  • Where Are The Tech Jobs Right Now? In Booze and Legal

    I wrote this to the San Francisco PHP Meetup List. I am posting it here because in a month or so I know a huge portion of you will be looking for work in the tech area.

    NYSE:IRM

    Subject: Re: [php-139] Headhunters/Recruiters: Some feedback please. 🙂
    From: barce
    Date: October 31, 2008 12:06:08 PM PDT
    To: SF PHP Meetup List

    Let me comment on what’s going on.

    I will tell you about two types of layoffs, and then two types of opportunities that I am benefitting from right now.

    1. Scapegoating Pathology in Layoffs. This is where staff gets laid off to “fix” a problem, and the problems are still there. Sure, they have one less mouth to feed, but they got rid of the wrong person. How can you tell? The problem is still there. Most recruiters have a hard time filling these spots b/c turnover is high. No amount of technical skill will solve this problem. You need people skills if you’re gonna fill this role.

    2. The Invisible Hand Layoffs. The company ends up with more capital and gains more worker productivity because the invisible hand is at work.

    I would say that from the Web 2.0 companies that are laying off people it’s 50/50 . If you are really hard up for a job, then your best bet is with a company that’s done scapegoating layoffs.

    That is the opportunity #1 that I mentioned, and examples of this are meevio.com which loses a lead every 3 months and Mahalo. Calacanis fired and is now looking for workers again. Talk about scapegating!

    Opportunity #2: Litigation Support. Right now a lot of companies have a financial strategy to stay alive, and that is sue. During this economic downturn you will see companies like DTIGlobal, Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM) and other litigation support companies do well. Iron Mountain is already doing really well. I have a client in litigation support where I do light sysadmin work.

    Get a job in these areas. Recruiters won’t know about them because they are still trying to fill jobs where there is a scapegoating pathology.

    I wish you all the best of luck,
    Barce

    PS Beer is doing well right now, too, so look for tech work in the beer industry, or hell, do what I did right out of college, sell beer. It is fun work!

  • A Quick Guide to Noobwatcher

    curl -O http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/tools/client-side/showchange.pl
    mv showchange.pl $HOME/bin
    svn co http://codebelay.com/noobwatcher
    mkdir watched_repositories
    cd watches_repositories
    cp $HOME/noobwatcher/trunk/noobwatcher.rb .
    svn co

    Create and edit a settings.yml file. Mine looksl like this:

    path: /Users/barce/nooblive/trunk
    repo: http://www.example.com/the_repo_I_am_watching
    diffs: /Users/barce/nooblive/diffs
    twitter_email: the_twitter_email_that_notifies_you@example.com
    twitter_password: the_password_to_the_twitter_email_that_notifies_you
    twitter_recipient: your_twitter_account
    sleepseconds: 60

    Start noobwatcher:

    ./noobwatcher.rb

  • Digital Cupid: How to Put Technology to Work For Your Love Life

    Are you sitting alone at your PC or Mac reading this blog? That’s okay. I forgive you. In an age of overtime, job transfers, and clawing your way up the corporate ladder, no one seems to have enough free time any more for leisure activities like going out, having a drink, or, most importantly meeting new people to do these things with. But believe it or not, with the aid of modern (and not so modern) technology, we can squeeze even this into our hectic lives.

    Let’s start with the obvious: computers. Not only can you check your email alerts from the comfort of your own cubicle, but there are online dating sites for everything from your own personal geekdom (SweetOnGeeks.com) to body type (LargeAndLovely.com) to any of the major religions on earth (JDate.com, ChristianSingles.com, and BuddhistOnlineDating.com just to name a few). Literally any kind of matchmaking site can be found with the right search engine. Even typing “flying spaghetti monster dating” into Google lands you a few interesting results.

    Evenamong online matchmaking sites there is great variety. At a site like Plenty of Fish, users are encouraged to not only fill out profiles but actively post in the site’s forums, which range in topic from relationship and dating issues to science and philosophy. (There are even a few active anime threads for the geek in you.) OKCupid offers its users a variety of fun tests and quizzes, and awards badges, such as “more
    independent,” “less old-fashioned,” and “more political,” that are displayed on a user’s profile, and can be used as conversation starters as well as a rudimentary screening process of a user’s personality. Both if these sites are free to use, as are countless others, so do not be dissuaded from joining the online dating phenomenon due to lack of funds, although there are also dating blogs which can help you in the world of dating and you can find at sites like www.groenerekenkamer.com/.

    Sellingyourself through online personals sites is not the only way to meet people through the internet, however. Couples are meeting and hooking up every day by posting on forums, joining newsgroups, exploring 3D virtual worlds (such as Second Life and Entropia Universe), and yes, even playing online games like World of Warcraft can help find you a mate. At least one young gamer proposed to his lovely lady at BlizzCon 2008, much to the delight and cheers of fellow congoers. (The happy couple originally met as rivals posting on RPGamer.com.)

    Basically, by being active online as you would be in real life had you the time (or in some cases adequate self-confidence), you can meet a wide range of people, many of whom you would not even have the opportunity to meet offline, so you can share romantic activities with these people including sex using accessories as a good anal vibrator for this purpose. The internet doesn’t just offer new ways to meet people, but ways to meet new kinds of people.

    But the internet isn’t your only avenue to a new and interesting social life. Due in large part to the high success rate of people meeting online, the more traditional print form of the personal ad is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, and should not be overlooked by the less computer savvy. Responding to an ad over the phone, though perhaps more daunting than email, forces a connection much sooner than digital communication, and gauging another person’s reactions and emotions is much easier through hearing his or her voice than reading words on a screen. It also forces you to maintain a conversation, while email sits in your inbox awaiting your attention.

    Printed personal ads offer just as much versatility as their online counterparts. Most newspapers across the country offer a personals section, which allows you to look locally, but there are also specialty magazines for various interests and religions that also run personal ads.

    Personal ads also, much like Twitter over LiveJournal, force you to be short, sweet, and if you can manage it, clever in hopes of catching that special stranger’s eye. Anyone glancing through a personal ads sheet can attest to the creativity used by many of its users, but this should by no means be a deterrent to the feint of heart. Personal ads are just another tool in your arsenal.

    In this on-the-go world, another old technology has come back to haunt us: the phone. More to the point, the rather passé telephone has been replaced by the more modern cell phone and text messaging. Yes, this includes the dating scene. For over fifteen years the Canadian company Teligence has offered social networking over the phone through services like Livelinks, Interactive Male, Fonochat, and a number of others.

    Now, sites like Match.com are getting into the phone business, too, with services like Match.com Mobile. Many sites are now combining online and offline options. Prime examples are Crush or Flush and Zogo, both of which users can access using their cell phones or PCs.

    Crush or Flush allows you to look at pictures and miniature profiles of singles in your area. If you like what you see, you “crush” them and hopefully make contact. If not, you “flush” them and move on. (People will not be notified if they are ever flushed, so you may surf guilt-free.)

    Zogo is perhaps the only totally free dating service for your cell phone (though this doesn’t mean your cell phone service provider won’t add on their own fees, depending on your terms of service). After searching through available profiles, you may add people to your favorites list, or invite them to talk to you. If you both agree to talk (via semi-anonymous text messaging provided by Zogo), you each receive a call from a third number to secure the anonymity of your phone number.

    Crush or Flush, Zogo, and their fellow SMS dating services are perhaps even handier than online-only sites, such as those listed in the above paragraphs, given that cell phones are more portable and get wider reception than even a laptop. Double bonus if your cell gets internet!

    Much like e-trading has done for the casual investor, modern technology adds far more than serendipity and well-intentioned coupled-up friends to our dating arsenal. Much as we might sometimes wish it otherwise, there really are no longer excuses for not meeting people other than our own apathy.