YFly.com, the Ruby on Rails social networking site I helped build over the past four months, released a new version today. Now anybody can sign up, and anybody can add video, HTML and images to their profile page. Check out my profile!
I had a great time working on this project. I learned a ton and worked with some great people at Space150; it was a great opportunity and I’m proud of what we accomplished.
The Hollywood Reporter did a survey of TV execs’ attitudes about online video, and WillVideoForFood posted a list of the 10 dumbest things they said. Here are my favorites:
Tough Love for businesses that want to love design, from a Fast Company article by Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management:
Perhaps the most glaring difference between the worlds of business-as-usual and business-by-design is the way each side actually thinks. In traditional organizations, the dominant forms of logic are inductive (demonstrating through observation that something actually works) and deductive (reasoning from a set of existing principles to prove that something must be).
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Corporate folks typically believe they can “prove” the future by applying rigorous inductive and deductive logic to the present.
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Designers use inductive and deductive reasoning as well, but they also rely on a third type: abductive reasoning, the logic of what might be. A.G. Lafley, the chief executive of Procter & Gamble, understands the need to braid all three forms of creative thinking. While he is a true data hound, Lafley also pores over anecdotal research and allows customer comments to influence him even if they are not rigorously collected or statistically significant.
via MetaCool
Modern wood-pulp papermaking methods were first developed in China around the first century (105 AD), but it wasn’t until 1391 that Chinese emperors began ordering 3×5 foot squares of the stuff for use in the bathroom. Why did it take a thousand years for people to realize wiping with paper was better than the alternatives (leaves, shells, corn cobs, etc.)?
Understanding simple connections between problems and their solutions is hard. It’s easier to justify why existing methods (i.e. corn cobs) are good enough. What can do to help yourself discover simpler solutions to problems?
Ask stupid questions.
Stupid questions are the hardest to answer. They’ll get you thinking about problems from a new perspective and allow you to be skeptical about the established thinking on a topic. Example: Einstein started his work on relativity by imagining what things would look like if he traveled on a beam of light.
Try new tools.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When all you have is Ruby on Rails, everything looks like a Ruby on Rails project. Get a new hammer: Flash, OpenLaszlo, Processing, Camping are just a few examples.
Be positive.
Shooting down ideas is easy but wasteful. It’ll kill your creativity, especially if you’re working with a team. Learn to say yes more. Saying yes doesn’t mean “Yes, this is how we’ll solve the problem”, it just means you’re accepting the potential of the idea to lead to an eventual solution. Check out John Sweeny’s Innovation at the Speed of Laughter for more on this (Sweeny’s presentation video here).
Solve different problems.
The creative process often leads to a solution for a problem you weren’t even concerned with. So what? Be an equal opportunity problem-solver.
Be Persitent.
Again, Einstein says: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
When in doubt, start.
Doing is better than not doing. Don’t be afraid to just start.
An August 8 poll conducted by Coinstar revealed that “79 percent of Americans favor keeping the penny, up from 66 percent just a year ago.” I was surprised to find out anyone cared one way or the other, but it turns out to be a pretty interesting issue.
According to this Washington Post Op-Ed, it costs almost three cents to produce and distribute one penny, wasting more than a hundred million tax dollars a year.
The National Association of Convenience Stores and the Walgreens drugstore chain have estimated that handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds per cash transaction. Assume that the average citizen makes one such transaction every day, and so wastes (to be conservative) 730 seconds a year. The median worker earns just over $36,000 a year, or about 0.5 cents per second, so futzing with pennies costs him $3.65 annually.
So, $3.65 multiplied by the number of adults living in the United States gives you about $1 billion dollars in economic resources saved by getting rid of the penny.
But it’s not so simple. The penny has cultural importance beyond its monetary value. Americans for Common Cents (a group backed in part by the zinc industry (penny-makers) argues that “to date, Abraham Lincoln is the most favorite president featured on U.S. Currency, just beating George Washington 28% to 25%.”
And I think we can all agree that the “most favorite” president deserves his own U.S. Currency.
On the other hand, traditional American values like picking up pennies off the ground are losing, um, ground. From the Cointstar poll:
- While support for picking pennies up off the ground is eroding, the practice varies widely by age group (60 percent ages 18 to 34 compared to 89 percent for seniors 65+).
- 23 percent of people who pick up pennies still respect superstition (only pick up heads), and 27 percent of this group actually turn over a bad coin (tails) to benefit the next person.
Well, at least there’s some decency left in this world.
(Thanks to The MegaPenny Project for the image of two hundred billion pennies)
I’ll be making some of the Ruby on Rails plugins I’ve written available for checkout via SVN. I took some time today to set up the repository and add the first plugin, DecimalMigrations.
DecimalMigrations allows you to use decimal numbers when naming your Rails migrations, which comes in handy when you have to go back and change an old migration or insert something new. This obviously goes against some of the logic of migrations in Rails, and it’s basically an ugly hack, so please use it carefully and sparingly.
To install:
ruby script/plugin install http://missingmethod-projects.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/decimal_migrations/
Or just check out the source from Subversion:
svn checkout http://missingmethod-projects.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/
Check out this lede from an Associated Press article I read this morning:
Is Osama bin Laden seriously ill? Dying or already dead? Or is he perfectly healthy?
Or is he taking pilates? Switching to raw foods? Maybe he’s going to shave the beard and do a nice soul-patch?
Check out this video of the Minneapolis hip-hop band Heiruspecs, featuring MC Muad’Dib (yep, it’s a Dune reference) beat-battling with the drummer:
That’s my friend Josh on guitar in the back, looking like he wishes he could beatbox. Sorry, Josh, you’re just the guitar player.
via MNStories
I missed this one, and had to get a summary from my girlfriend who stayed home watching. Garrick has a good recap of the kick-off to the new season:
The introductions not-withstanding, this feels like the most diverse groups of racers yet, devout Muslim team, Indian-American married team, black single moms, and rural Kentuckians! . That said, the stereotypes are still there; a gay couple, white chicks, brothers, a dating couple where he’s probably gay, parent and child, moms. Again, hopefully, the show will transcend the stereotypes.
This is the season Alicia and I would have been on, had our application made it past the first round of cuts. Unfortunately we both have all our appendages. Also we aren’t religious, gay, recovering drug-addicts, models, or cheerleaders.
Still, I thought we had a chance, I mean, our video had an exploding car, a buffalo traffic jam, and disco-dancing in the California Redwoods. Come on! Missing legs? Where’s the drama?
The poetry speaks for itself:
he came to me with open arms, like a hawk embracing his young,
and he fed me food out his mouth but I was starving for knowledge.
the type of knowledge that can’t be fed by hand or voice, but by heart.
so when he spoke he touched my soul, and my soul would smack me if I didn’t listen
Rashad McCants, on Kevin Garnet.
via ESPN