H2Code

Ok I was trying to make the pbking library work this morning and it was ticking me off, so I just rolled my own simple script that does the authentication and I thought others might find it useful.

I was pondering where exactly I spend my 168 hours of life every week.

If my prime was between these other dates, I'd have been:

• 1974-2000, Desktop Software Engineer: Because there was no web, but we did have computers, so, duh.


• 1946-1973, Journalist: I always wanted to be a journalist when I was a kid and I think this would've been a good time for it. Newspapers were still going strong, and news was really for the first time being propagated worldwide in virtual real-time. There was also a lot of interesting news to cover between McCarthyism, The Cold War, The Cultural Revolutions of the 60's, Vietnam, and finally: Nixon.


• 1910-1945, Pilot: Flying seems like fun, but nowadays being a Pilot is probably like being a computer administrator. This would've been the time to fly a plane, when it was a prop-engine you and your mechanic buddy built and flew over the local farmland. Crashing was something you could reasonably survive, and not crashing was an act of true skill.


• 1860-1909, Biologist: This was the golden age for biology. Darwin figured out evolution, and Mendel figured out genetics. The world of biology was ripe for innovative thinking and new discoveries once mankind figured out the explanation for life in general.


• 1760-1860, Politician: The time of Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine. When slavery was being disputed, and strong democratic nations were emerging. The French Revolution gave us such things as the metric system, and was easily as interesting as our own.


• 1600 - 1760, Astronomer: Newton had just invented the Telescope, so unless you were extremely good at like reverse-engineering trigonometry (ahem Copernicus) this was your first opportunity to really discover new things about the cosmos. Everything from binary star systems to other galaxies to about a bajillion new stars were discovered during this time period.


• 1350 - 1600, Mathematician: Back before the really brilliant bastards made math impossible to advance. This was the period when logarithms and trigonometry were invented. It would've been a fun time to explore the edges of mathematical understanding. Trying to advance math beyond Newton is just too hard.


• 100 - 1350, Inventor of mechanical novelties for my village/town: Well there probably wasn't much else to do, and the inventor-person was probably revered and fairly indispensable so maybe I'd have gotten a nice house or first pick of slave when we conquered new villages and such.


• 400 BC - 100, Philosopher: Ahh the greeks and romans. Science would've been fun too but they were more into Philosophy and I like to be a man of the times. Also there's huge fame potential for this period. I really don't think Aristotle/Plato/Socrates deserve the amount of fame they've achieved for their silly philosophical crap.


• Hominid - 400BC, Simple tool maker for my tribe/family: Again, not much else to do. I'd have been bored, and so might as well try to make some tools. Depending on how far back we go, I might have been interested in trying to figure out how to make fire or wheeled carriages.

If Facebook were my first job out of college, I'd stare agape at the code, awestruck by it's disorganization and inconsistencies.  As it is, since I've SEEN many code-bases at many companies, I recognize that Facebook's code is actually pretty clever and good.

It's been a long time since I updated my blog but I figured I'd try to revive it now that I'm back in geek-world.

For some reason I never thought you'd die.  You always maintained the sharpest young-minded outlook on things.  In your last HBO Special you stooped and you coughed but you were as brilliant as ever.

I will remember you in a vein similar to Carl Sagan, someone who's replacement I doubt I'll ever see.  You both shaped my mental development and how I saw the world.

It always hits me when someone dies with whom I felt I related.  Karl Vonnegut was another.  They shared thoughts and ideas that never occurred to me before, and in that moment somehow I felt close to them, as if we were both now part of an elite group, privy to great enlightenment.

I never gave these people anything but in a way they gave me so much.

Life's not fair.

I've released flexamater.

http://flexamater.rubyforge.org

It's a Flex testing framework, written in Ruby. ;o)

I bought this poem off a guy selling it on the street, along with his own self-bound novel (which is pretty much unreadable, but I bought a copy anyway...gotta admire the guy's effort...)
---
The great ones of any age
have done one thing
that we know them by,
that we admire and envy
and that we are afraid of ourselves:
Whatever they wanted.

They have said whatever they wanted,
walked wherever they wanted,
seen whatever they wanted,
love however they wanted,
killed whomever they wanted,
and died whenever they wanted.

They've never given a rat's ass
for what you've seen heard been told tell
feel or think that they should do.

They'll even trick you
so that you can't move into their tower.

It's lonely at the top.
There's only room for one.
---

I understand why the guy has no publisher. ;o)

My dad was badly addicted to cigarettes.  He would smoke 3+ packs a day.  Then, at the age of 39, he got lung cancer.  He survived, and then proceeded to quit smoking.

When he'd tell the story to others, he'd always say that he wished he could start smoking again, just to go through the process of quitting, because it was the best thing he'd ever done for himself.  I always thought that was odd, at the time.

But now I understand what he meant, I think.  Humans derive great joy from tackling and accomplishing tasks that seem daunting if not undoable, at first.

I weighed 200lbs 2 years ago, now I weigh 150 and can run 5 miles in 35minutes.  I almost wish I could be fat again, just to go thru that transformation once more.

I think we all secretly hope for disaster to befall us or our community.  I wished Y2K was going to happen.  I invite the tsunami to sweep thru downtown Seattle and force me to run for the hillsides.

I wish I'd get fired.  I wish I'd get evicted.  I want to declare bankruptcy.  I want to struggle.  Life's too easy.

Deliver me disaster.