Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Where I am right now
March 25, 2012

It’s a cocktail/coffee shop with nice cakes and affordable sandwiches. The staff is efficient and friendly, not just courteous, and not so chummy that it’s ok to forget a spoon with your chai. The furniture is worn, like that used chair you hated to get rid of because it was so comfortable but eventually wore out, and they recycled it with a little love and carefully, yet artfully applied upholstery. There are some love seats, and some deeper chairs, but most of the seating is movable and comfortable, while allowing access to coffee and work tables.

There are tapestries. Sure, they’re like the old stone castle wall hangings, but a bit more modern and eclectic. Long and printed with modern patterns, these separate the open windows and decorate the architectural sections of the environment. The sound in the rooms is muffled, so that you can still hear that there are other groups of people talking, but you can’t hear the conversation across the room echo off of cold concrete blocks. There are coves for small groups to meet and chat and throw in ideas. The lighting is not harsh, spotted so that it hits just the right places where you’d put your work. There are attractive, movable floor-standing lamps, just in case.

Austin - So Far, Not a Fan
March 07, 2012

I visited Austin over the weekend for Brian and Tara’s wedding. We did a few cool things, and while I love Brian and Tara dearly and would visit them many times again no matter where they lived, I can’t say I’m a fan of Texas.

Mind you, my experience with many cities I visit is merely the surface scratching that a week or so provides, and doesn’t nearly encompass the depth of what any place has to offer, but I do get impressions. What impressions I have about Austin are very poorly baked, but here goes anyway.

How the Weather Should Be Told
February 28, 2012

I asked the kids this morning what the weather was like outside, attempting to prepare for the chill of a winter morning. Abby told me that it was supposed to be 50 degrees today, so relatively warm for winter. I mentally questioned this, since it wasn’t all that warm in the house and the heater was running. On my phone, I brought up the weather, and sure enough, the high was meant to reach 50, with a low of 32. But who thought up this absurd way of telling the weather?

Certainly the temperature outside was not necessarily the low. In fact, observing the current temperature at the time, I discovered it to be 37 degrees. I suppose that sometime around 3 or 4 pm the temperature would peak at the 50 the predictions suggested. But would the day be generally warm? Would the higher temperatures linger for longer? And what of the wind chill?

When to learn new things
February 27, 2012

I’ve come to believe that developers who do not continue to learn end up stagnant and dead. So it’s obviously very important to continue to try and learn new things if I’m to keep relevant. What I see other people learning is interesting, and I’m anxious to try a lot of the new techniques that I see come across my desk from day to day; However, I wonder about the proficiency of those developers with those tools.

A lot of the appeal of Ruby, for example, is that there is a robust architecture already in place (via things like Rails) to rapidly create applications without too steep of a learning curve. That sounds great, but I wonder if the loss of that initial learning curve ultimately affects proficiency with the language.

Burning the TV
February 17, 2012

London Bridge is falling downLet’s just get this out there right now: I watch way more TV than most of you. Yes, it rots my brain. Yes, I know that if I read or coded or did anything else I’d likely be a better person. And yet, I feel a certain need - call it an addiction - to the American OTC crack cocaine that is cable/broadcast television.

Suffice to say, I’m not satisfied with the status quo. Sure, I’d rather be a better person, or at least not be nailed to the couch like the typical American potato, but I’d also rather not pay for the privilege of having my brain rotted by the typical gutter-sludge quality of what passes for entertainment around here. So here’s the new plan: We’re going to cancel our TV subscription.