EAMiller
Re:Show HN: If you use PagerDuty and AlertSite, this will be of interest
on Friday June 01, 2012 @05:12PM (#4055808)
I wondered about generic tools, but didn't find any that would solve this. There's nothing special about my code - it's really just collecting data from the incoming POST vars, rearranging them and passing them along.
I thought it was interesting that the platform (AppEngine) enables simple one-off solutions like this - not everything needs to be abstracted into a ifttt style solution ...
Re:Lucid dreaming: Rise of a nocturnal hobby
on Thursday May 31, 2012 @04:57PM (#4050326)
I've tried lucid dreaming with limited success over the years. Here are a couple of relevant links:
- RadioLab is a great podcast, they did a lucid dreaming episode: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/jan/23/wake...
- After hearing said podcast, I wrote a quick twitter hack to occasionally ask if you're in a dream (one of the techniques): https://twitter.com/#!/isdreaming
Re:Keeping Instagram up with over a million new users in twelve hours
on Thursday April 05, 2012 @05:46PM (#3804807)
What sort of hosting do you use for your main Pg (and Redis) instances?
Re:MusicForProgramming();
on Saturday February 18, 2012 @10:46PM (#3608593)
Gah! I didn't know Clint Mansell did the Moon OST. Must acquire. I have been listening for The Fountain soundtrack (by Mansell) while programming - and I love it. I also just discovered he did the Pi soundtrack.
Other OST picks: Tron (and Tron Reconfigured) and Nick Cave / Warren Ellis soundtracks - particularly The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Re:Books every self-taught computer scientist should read
on Wednesday February 15, 2012 @03:07PM (#3595816)
It's a good question. I am self-taught, and would never call myself a "self-taught computer scientist" ... "self-taught hacker" is just about right. For me the distinction would be that it's never going to get too theoretical, it's all applied (though I make every effort to make my applications efficient, correct and legible)
Re:What is LESS CSS? Hints and tips
on Wednesday February 01, 2012 @09:06PM (#3541112)
I got bit by the switch from Ruby to Node.js. The Node.js arrangement was considerably more difficult to set up on the older systems we maintain. Most annoyingly lesscss.org makes no mention of the switch away from Ruby. Our plan right now is to abandon less-css and just check the converted CSS into our repo - the (server setup complexity) costs far outweighed the benefits.
[edit] Well I guess the old repo did mention the switch :\ https://github.com/cloudhead/less still frustrating
Re:Sucky Things You'd Rather Not Think About
on Tuesday January 24, 2012 @09:41AM (#3504886)
I was a little dismayed at that point too - but I think the rest of the paragraph clarifies the point well. I think he's talking about a sincere spiritual journey, not "religious people" as commonly encountered. I'm an atheist, but I also think there's a natural "spiritual" instinct that has to do with artfulness, reflection, and transcendence (eg. the attempt to transcend your view of the world as a single individual)
Re:Show HN: Codecademy.com, the easiest way to learn to code
on Thursday August 18, 2011 @07:34PM (#2901568)
Chrome 13 / OSX 10.6.8 - I can navigate the courses pages, but don't see the CLI interface (just the section list, and the Disqus discussion). Also it's not redirecting to any shebang URLs. Works fine in Firefox.
(nice work btw)
Re:SSH productivity tips
on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @12:32PM (#2891806)
Here's a minor one - handy, and I find most folks don't know it. To escape a frozen SSH connection:
<return>~.
Re:Gamification is bullshit
on Tuesday August 09, 2011 @09:55AM (#2863998)
Looks like Georgify: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ofjfdfaleomlfanfeh...
Re:Apple R&D (1989): Mousing is faster than keyboarding, but users don...
on Wednesday June 15, 2011 @11:43AM (#2657539)
This is a great point - when I was trying to articulate (to myself) why I prefer the keyboard it wasn't necessarily any speed advantage, it was more like the "flow" advantage. Your point speaks to that.
I think there's also a big difference in the amount of physical effort needed when using the mouse. With the keyboard it's easier to keep most of my arms relaxed, and when I need to switch to the mouse everything from the shoulder down has to contract into action.
Re:Organizing Django settings
on Friday April 29, 2011 @04:26PM (#2498851)
We just do the inverse. In a local_settings.py we import settings - then set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=path.to.local_settings
Building easy-deploy test servers
Re:Fish sucks (but your shell sucks more)
on Wednesday December 22, 2010 @09:58AM (#2031449)
I'm always interested in the idea of learning a new shell - but the ubiquity of bash is what generally holds me back. I fear that switching gears for each system I log into would seriously break the flow.
Re:Ask HN: Who's hiring? (September 2010)
on Friday September 03, 2010 @11:41AM (#1659926)
Junior Python/Django/Postgres developers - Oakland, CA
We specialize in energy efficiency program and project design, implementation, and marketing, as well as solar and other renewable energy system feasibility studies, project development and financing and water conservation programs. We (obviously) build web apps to support these programs.
Art in Your Pocket 2 : Media Art for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad
Re:The Future of UI
on Saturday June 05, 2010 @10:26AM (#1406894)
Agreed, every time I see this my arms feel tired.
Re:The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains
on Thursday May 27, 2010 @10:34AM (#1383703)
I agree they can 'live together' through some kind of deliberate training (like meditation) - but also with the right tools (for example http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom)
Re:The Lost State of Jefferson
on Wednesday April 21, 2010 @02:22AM (#1281512)
wow - crazy that this popped up tonight.
A friend and I just finished a project based on this. It's called "The Virtual State of Jefferson" - it's a router that alters pages to "claim" cities in that area. I just posted a tech description about how the project works: http://ethanmiller.name/notes/virtual_state_jefferson_tech/
Re:Triumph of the Cyborg Composer
on Wednesday February 24, 2010 @09:12PM (#1149823)
To be clear, my comment was made in surprise that that his creativity/passion goes unappreciated - I agree it's an amazing accomplishment.
In general though I think the binary of warm/emotion vs. cold/heartless is kind of useless. As in his quote : "I can understand why it’s an issue if you’ve got an extremely romanticized view of what art is" Art is amazing stuff people make, be it software or music.
Re:Triumph of the Cyborg Composer
on Wednesday February 24, 2010 @04:16PM (#1149171)
I'm fascinated by this. It's interesting that in that context the creativity/passion/humanity of somebody like David Cope doesn't count. If he's writing software then it's just cold, heartless automation.
Re:Links to Spirituality Found in the Brain
on Friday February 12, 2010 @11:50AM (#1121000)
Deciding that spirituality is a defect from this is the wrong conclusion.
The experience of spirituality itself is natural and desirable. As described in the article, it's "self-transcendence." I experience self-transcendence when I listen to good music, look at good art, or otherwise get wrapped up in ideas that are bigger than (transcend) my day-to-day life in an inspiring way.
Re:The Chinese Perspective of Avatar
on Friday January 08, 2010 @11:14AM (#1039790)
"Anyone who is educated about script writing ..."
I am to the extent that I've seen enough movies to recognize the patterns... but are you suggesting those formulas are taught somewhere as a formalized script-writing practice?
Re:I hired 50 people today. This is what they look like
on Wednesday December 23, 2009 @11:42AM (#1012312)
Aaron Koblin, of the flight patterns visualization fame (http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work/flightpatterns/index.html) has a few art projects based on MTurk. Bicycle Built for Two Thousand was a project where each worker was asked to sing a tiny part of a song, without knowing what the song was, then the complete song was reconstructed: http://www.bicyclebuiltfortwothousand.com/
Re:Paul Graham On Two Kinds of Programmers and Painters
on Tuesday December 08, 2009 @12:12AM (#983078)
"Cézanne could not draw, he makes the same drawing mistakes that every one makes in introductory drawing classes." This is not the case. Cézanne could draw exceedingly well. Drawing != photographic representation.
Digital Folklore
"While more and more people had personal computers and net access, fewer and fewer were seeing the value of their contributions. As most had agreed to have 'no idea about computers,' it became virtually impossible for them to reflect on the medium itself. At the same time however these lusers used computers very intensively, producing and uploading content non-stop.And here we reach the point...
Re:An artist-mathematician illuminates a world of infinite beauty
on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @12:26AM (#969284)
I really like the first paragraph of this article, but at this point:
"Art starts to happen when we project these personal maps back out on the world. Each of us has an impulse to express his or her experience of reality."
He lost me. This is the kind of formulaic definition of art you hear all too often. The reason art isn't math is that there is no such formula. Art is contradicts itself. It's messy and evades attempts to pin it down.
Re:Ask HN: What artists do you like?
on Saturday October 31, 2009 @10:50PM (#914578)
http://www.vvork.com/
I like it because it's contemporary art, but the feed is almost entirely images - so it doesn't weigh too heavy in your feed reader...
Re:Ask HN: What artists do you like?
on Saturday October 31, 2009 @08:34PM (#914438)
I'm surprised there hasn't been any software based artists mentioned yet.
How about (I'll add examples of specific work so you won't have to search it out):
Cory Arcangel http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/Things_I_Made/SuperMarioMov...
Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin http://www.earstudio.com/projects/listeningpost.html (see video gallery)
RSG http://r-s-g.org/carnivore/
GRL http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=76
There's many more. If you're interested in this kind of art there are festivals too:
Bay area: http://01sj.org/
Europe : http://www.aec.at/index_en.php
Various location : http://www.isea-web.org/eng/index.html