I write code.
So I’ve been playing around with an Arduino lately. I started small, blinking LEDS and responding to buttons, the basics. But thats stuff boring. Who gives a shit if I can blink a light or not? I want to get something useful going. I came up an idea I’m really excited about. A little device that fetches sales results from the app store. It will do a few things with the data. First, whenever a new sale comes in, it beeps. Second, it will populate a little amber on black LCD screen with the stats, so when I get home from a long day of school, I can see the day’s income.
I haven’t started yet, but I’ve ordered all the parts, and I’ve made my first error, and learned my first lesson. Always verify parts before you buy. The Ethernet shield, (like a plugin for the board) came in today, and so I started tinkering, but I couldn’t get a connection going. Thanks to thisguy, it turns out that I got the wrong board. A cheap imitation of the legitimate WIZ chip based official board type. My board doesn’t work with the official Arduino ethernet library, which is a real bummer. Check out that guy’s blog post to see how much more cod it takes to use my shitty board.
I’ve located another board, and I’m going to order it as soon as my paycheck gets here. Depression. This sets back my plans at least a week. Oh well, my LCD gets here tomorrow. That will keep me occupied while I wait for the new board to come.
I can’t finish things. When I tell people I program, and they ask me what I’ve built, I have to go on this awkward speech about how I know how to build all this cool stuff, like iPhone apps and web development, but I’m not finished with any projects but I can do it! I don’t want to give that speech anymore. I want my portfolio of projects to be massive. I want to be known as a guy who gets things done. So, I’m starting a dev log. I’m going to track the progress of all my projects here. Everyday I’m going to post status updates, maybe with screenshots.
"I don’t read fiction. I find it a waste of time. There are so many amazing things that are real; I don’t need to spend any time on a made-up story"
―
This one made me chuckle.
Wow. This talk is incredible. Its the first time what node is has really clicked with me. Watch it now, be enlightened.
Microsoft has been heavily promoting their new Windows phone 7. It brags that you’ll spend less time on your phone with it. At first, this seems really clever. Spend less time on your phone and get back to real life. Wait, what? How can something good make you spend less time on it? The whole idea really breaks down when you start to see it this way.
Here’s an issue I ran into today while trying to deploy my new project, a Rails app. Trying to install the MySQL gem failed because RubyGems couldn’t find MySQL on my server. sigh. But I just installed it with apt-get. I should be used to these kinds of errors, after all, I’ve been proficient in UNIX for months now.
So after a few minutes of googling, I found the simple fix Here Here’s what you do.
sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev
Retry installing the MySQL gem. It should run through smoothly.
I’ve been on Twitter for a long time. But the past year and a half or so, I’ve just been a lurker. Why tweet if you don’t have anyone listening? I’m not “famous” in any beaten path circles, and my friends hardly know what a web browser is. The only followers I have are “social media experts” who use tools to auto follow anyone who tweets their keywords. The problem is, the swarm of “experts” is so big that they slotted every possible word into the software.
I get that if you don’t tweet, you’ll never get anyone to listen. I get that, I really do. The problem is, its hard for me to tweet. I don’t want to be polluting the already toxic internet. If I have something important to say, I’ll say it. But those occasions don’t occur often. Maybe once or month. I struggled with this sad fact for the first couple of weeks, trying to strike a balance between letting loose 140 characters so profound it would make Aristotle shed a single tear. I didn’t get any followers. No one was listing. Why stress my self, I’m out of this game.
But recently, reading Twitter more ofter reignited my want tweet. I want people to talk to. I want people who understand what MySQL is, and how to write a recursive function. I want to talk to people who understand me. So I dove back into to Twitter.
I tried to start small by replying to tweets that ask questions, or just simply trying to be friendly. It hasn’t gone well. Ignored everytime. Yeah, I know. Its a cold world out there. I understand that some people have thousands of followers. All of them probably tweeting right into their face, overwhelming them. I get that, I really do. But is it so hard to respond in 140 characters to an innocent question? In all the situations, the people kept on tweeting after my tweet at them.
Maybe because of my low follower and low tweet count I’m considered too “noob” for their time. Humph. Thats a pretty douche-y thing to do. But as I type that, I realize I can be the same way. Whenever I see someone with a fresh account created date or any other noob-esque qualities, I’m quick to judge.
Writing this has made me realize that. Wow. Everybody could stand to be a little nicer on Twitter. How long ago was it that your were the noob? If someone tries to talk to you, respond back. Imagine them a small child, four or five. Their glittering eyes looking up at you. “Please, sir. talk to me.” Would you turn that kid down? No. So why turn the noob down.
So I’m going to continue my quest for a Twitter conversation. No doubt I will get more cold shoulder, but it will happen. One day.
Patrick Rhone over at Minimal Mac started this little sub-sub-sub meme. I love reading these kind of behind the scenes type of posts. So here’s whats in my Simplenote
Note: These are more my more distinct ones. I’m leaving out the gimmes. Notes, ideas, todos. Those are boring.
Situational Internet Meme Photos - This is where I keep those pictures that I find and think “oh damn, I know just when to use this.”
Arduino - While I eagerly await Make to restock their Arduino starter kit, I keep all my ideas in here. Short: Ardunio is an open source hardware kit. Basically, I get to built stuff that I then get to program for.
Annoyances - This is where I go when I need a new programming project. Every time I find myself pissed off by how long something is taking, how ugly something is, or just if I think it could be done better, I jot it down here.
Books I Want To Read - I’m taking The Modern Nerd’s advice and starting to read a book a week. To keep the momentum going, I always know the next book I’m going to read as I begin reading the current.
Something I’ve been thinking about lately myself.
One of my favorite designers interview by one of my favorite bloggers. Does it get any better?
