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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 | |
joelonsoftware
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8:49p |
When and how to micromanage
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/12/09.html “Like most entrepreneurs, Ryan and I are still learning about how to manage people and teams. And we’re both used to hiring very smart and dedicated people who will get things done to a high standard if you give them some general direction and set them free. But on this trip, we started to notice that this style of hands-off management, which works so well with our own staffs, just wasn’t working when we had outside vendors involved.”
From my December column in Inc.: “When and How to Micromanage”
Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.
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piepmeier
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7:33p |
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titivillus
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2:55p |
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titivillus
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4:03a |
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| Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 |
hugo_recommend
[ bovil ]
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7:22p |
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| Monday, December 7th, 2009 |
lj_maintenance
[ mhwest ]
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1:15p |
Notification System
**FINAL EDIT Thu Dec 10 02:15:47 UTC 2009** So there is the final update... Over the past day we have processed around 11 million jobs out of the 12 million that were in queue at that time. Please bear in mind that over this past day, more jobs for notifications are also created. So while the queue has been dropping, we are still not fully caught up at this point, due to backlog and new jobs. We have roughly 3 million jobs still pending that involve the notification system in some manner. We had hoped we could have fully cleared the queue in a day, but unfortunately we can't clear it too quickly, since we need the rest of the site to operate normally. From our current perspective on the amount of jobs that are left in queue, and how many it has processed thus far, we believe it will take around another 8 - 12 hours to process everything. And finally some answers to some questions: ( Read More and Get Some Answers... ) Current Mood:  grumpy |
| Sunday, December 6th, 2009 | |
piepmeier
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9:41p |
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titivillus
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3:42p |
Distraction...
So, everyone was all abuzz about Torchlight, and of course, being a fan of Diablo style RPG's, I figured I would like it, but of course, I have a lot of things to do, so I resisted. Well, finally, the other day, I downloaded it. Yeah, its good. Here's my review, its short: "Its like a Steampunk themed version of Diablo I, with most of the interface perks of Diablo 2.0, I mean II." If you're a fan of the crack feeding pavlovian mouse clicking dynamic of Diablo, you'll like it. If not, don't download it. Anyway, the only two bad parts are a) I have more important things to do, b) I'm always sad because writing a game is way up on my list of important things to do, and playing a good game reminds me that I'm not writing one. Edit: If you're going to play it and you've played Diablo and friends before, I would recommend the Very Hard setting. I set it to Hard(Its Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, with a checkbox for hard core), and I kinda regret it, as my character has only died twice and I've not had to town portal during any fights(and yes, right down to key bindings, this plays Exactly. Like. Diablo. And that's a feature too!), and between your pet going to town and selling junk, and the explicit design of a group stash to let you twink share good equipment with other characters its a lot easier to be a crow and hang on to shiny things. |
| Saturday, December 5th, 2009 | |
titivillus
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4:33p |
Lazyweb: Javascript question.
So, I have a problem in Javascript, and I can't really seem to figure out the exact mix of keywords to search for to solve it. Basically, I have a div with a form in it living in a table row. This table happens to be quite wide and will horizontally scroll. Unfortunately, I would like to keep the div centered on the screen when the user scrolls. The logic behind this is obviously quite simple, its just the exact Javascript to make it happen that eludes me. So, what events should I hook and how should I nudge the div around? Also, if there is a way to do this simply in jQuery, even better, since I'm already using it. In fact, this form pops up on the page via some nice ajax magic anyway, all via jQuery. |
rainerrobin
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8:57a |
snow!
Yesterday was the first day I had to wear my winter coat in Tennessee, and today it's snowing! It's one of the best snows I've seen here. We have a good covering on the ground (the roads are clear) and it's still coming down gently but consistently. I'm sitting at my desk facing the window looking out at the snow falling onto the bushes and the trees. My only regret is that I didn't rake the leaves yesterday before the snow came down. (Ironically, the leaf crew is today vacuuming up the piles of leaves in our neighborhood--first time in 4 weeks.) On the plus side, the snow may get thick enough to obscure the leaves entirely. "since we've no place to go, let it snow!" |
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titivillus
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4:53a |
Food MLP.
Farms, Hamburgers, and "Free" Enterprise: to take animals off farms and put them on feedlots is to take an elegant solution—animals replenishing the fertility that crops deplete—and neatly divide it into two problems: a fertility problem on the farm and a pollution problem on the feedlot. The former problem is remedied with fossil-fuel fertilizer; the latter is remedied not at all. |
| Friday, December 4th, 2009 | |
piepmeier
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8:56p |
Christmas in New York
http://piepmeier.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-in-new-york.html  We had our first day in New York today. Once we got there, Joel took us for lunch at an Uzbek restaurant in their neighborhood in Queens. Then we took the subway into Manhattan where Christy and Joel took us on a Christmas tour, which included a visit to FAO Schwartz (a store that everyone in Manhattan was trying to get into--a little overwhelmingly crowded) and to the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Plaza. It was a great Christmas tree--really beautiful, and crowds of people were there, smiling and taking pictures. When we came back to their apartment, Christy made us sukiyaki for dinner--really delicious. Before we got here, Christy told me, "I am a great host. I am a servant to my guests," and so far, that seems to be true. For Joel's iPhone photos documenting today's events, go to our Flickr page. Tomorrow is the book event at Bluestockings! |
| Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 | |
titivillus
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11:05p |
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news
[ theljstaff ]
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3:21p |
LiveJournal Major Notes: LiveJournal: The First Decade, AIDS vgift fundraiser, LJ_Photophile poll!
LiveJournal: The First Decade
Just in time for holiday shopping, we're thrilled to announce the release of our ten-year anniversary anthology. Published by Blurb.com, the book showcases a decade of extraordinary talent drawn from LiveJournal users around the world. This must-read compilation features stories, memes, photos, comics, editorials, graphic content, and more, including: -
Excerpts from Oh No They Didn't (a/k/a
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) ohnotheydidnt), the largest community on LiveJournal, covering celebrity gossip, entertainment news, and pop culture
- A look at post-Katrina New Orleans from the journal of Poppy Z. Brite
- Gripping narratives, including a poignant reverie on a blind date
- Photography that spans the globe, ranging from old-fashioned Polaroids to underwater photography
- Mouthwatering dishes from food_porn
What began as a late-night inspiration back in Brad Fitzpatrick's college dorm in 1999 has grown to encompass nearly 25 million users worldwide, with journals and communities covering every conceivable hobby, passion, and topic. To get your copy, please visit the Blurb Bookstore. For updates and entries from book contributors, please join lj_turns10.
Tweaks and enhancements- You can now ban a user from all of your communities and journals at once. To access this feature, hover over the person's userpic and choose Ban user everywhere from the drop-down menu.
- Follow LiveJournal on Twitter!
Give a little to help a lot!
In honor of National AIDS Awareness month, we've added a new charitable vgift. For each red ribbon you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine (we'll cover credit card fees). You can read more about IAVI at lj_cares. While we're on the subject, we raised $740 from our November fundraiser for Love Without Boundaries, which supports emergency healthcare and adoption of Chinese orphans. We thank you for helping us help others.
Photos of the weekWe're back with more incredible pictures from our super-talented LiveJournal photographers. Congratulations to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ilya_gorokhov, who is the winner of our very first lj_photophile poll.
We hope you'll continue to post, vote, and comment! A gentle request: Please post only one photo at a time and limit size to 350x350 (so images display properly on friends pages). And now, without further ado, get ready to cast your ballot and view more awesome user content after the jump!
( Read more... )
Curtains
Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay safe and snug out there! |
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piepmeier
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4:12p |
Big day for Girl Zines
http://piepmeier.blogspot.com/2009/12/big-day-for-girl-zines.html In addition to Martin's review of Girl Zines, which I posted about this morning, I've gotten two more links today for reviews of the book. My former high school friend, now big-time journalist Tracy Moore, reviewed the book for the Nashville Scene, Nashville's alt-weekly. And the book has also been reviewed in Book Forum. So you Girl Zines fans have got a lot of reading ahead of you. Also, if you're a fan of the book, please come over to the Facebook page that I created after my brother berated me for being uncool. I'm posting all the links to all the press about the book on that page. And in other news, I went to a big state meeting today in which our proposal for a major in Women's and Gender Studies at the College of Charleston was approved! Enthusiastically! I'm thrilled beyond belief, not to mention relieved. It'll be in place by fall 2010, which was what we'd hoped. If you're looking for a place to major in Women's and Gender Studies, consider the College of Charleston. And finally, Biffle, Maybelle, and I head to New York tomorrow morning for the first (and probably only) stop on my book tour: an event at Bluestockings on Saturday. I'll keep y'all posted. |
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titivillus
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1:44p |
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piepmeier
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7:13a |
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malachus
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12:03a |
stupid google!
So, in another attempt to figure out my problem with the NumberPickerButton, I tried searching google with the following terms: android eclipse xml numberpickerbutton. The first link had something like, "NumberPicker depends on NumberPickerButton. I have copied both, but when the code runs (or it tries to inflate the XML layout for my cloned", which I skimmed and clicked on the link because it sounded like my problem only to realize that it WAS my problem because it was my post from yesterday that was already indexed by google and the first (and only relevant) result on google. Fan-tastic. It reminds me of a recent (accurate) rant I read in a support forum. I was searching for the solution to a problem and one of the first links was someone asking a question about a similar problem to mine. The first few responses basically said, "it's easy to find the answer if you just search google for it". Finally, someone posted a rant about the problem that happens when people answer that way: the "just search google to find the answer" threads end up being the top google results for the problem, making it difficult or impossible to find the actual solution that used to be the top google hit. I'm not sure if this is a failing of google or a failure because people are too dependent on google to give them the information they want when they want it. I'm inclined to believe that it's both. google should be clever enough to down rate results that mention google too much, but people should also be willing to actually provide answers, or at least real links to answers, in addition to asking people to do a more diligent search in the first place. Back to my original problem, it seems that the error only occurs in eclipse, when trying to expand the XML layout within the designer (or whatever the eclipse name for it is). I did try changing the name of the failing button, but that just changed the name of the classes in the error message, as one would expect. The problem may be that the layout I'm cloning is now in the same project as the program I'm working on, so it's having trouble with references or something. I've seen similar things in Visual Studio, but usually only when the control is open for edit in one window while it's trying to render that control on a form in another window. Not sure how to fix that, though. I tried closing all the windows, but it didn't change anything. At this point I will probably ignore the problem for the time being, since it does run... it will just make it a little harder to tweak the layout of a couple of forms, but I think I have them close enough that it will be okay. Current Mood:  exhausted |
| Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 | |
joelonsoftware
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5:24p |
Programmer search engine
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/12/02.html For as long as I’ve been in the industry, which is, I think, about 74 years now, the problem I’ve had with hiring programmers was not interviewing them or deciding if they’re smart—it’s been finding them in the first place.
What I’ve dreamed about is a programmer search engine.
The ideal programmer search engine would only include programmers who are actually looking for jobs. If you’ve ever emailed someone based on a resume you found through a traditional search engine, you’ve probably discovered that they’re not actually on the market.
It would only include people willing to work in your neck of the woods.
It would show you CVs right away, and, ideally, it would show you something about their programming skills besides the usual resume blahblah.
Well, OK, that day is here, and I’m like a kid in a candy store. Nom nom. Announcing the other half of careers.stackoverflow.com: the employer’s side!
 Right now, there are about 928 candidates on there. That’s a start. What’s more interesting is whether there’s a candidate who meets your needs.
Let’s say you’re searching for a full time Java programmer within 40 miles of Palo Alto. Right now there are 11 candidates listed. All but one are active on StackOverflow... one even has reputation over 4000 points.
Want a bit more choice? Check the box that indicates that you’re willing to relocate. Now there are 80 matches, all of whom have the legal right to work in the states. Candidates have a lot of flexibility indicating where they’re willing to work. Even if you need a Ruby on Rails programmer in Oklahoma City, as long as you’re willing to pay for relocation, you’ve got 7 choices. You’ve got 14 choices in London (with the legal right to work.) If you think that a Python programmer could learn Ruby, you’ve got 51 choices. There are plenty of choices whether you’re hiring in Tel Aviv, Sydney, Silicon Valley, or New York. There are four programmers in Copenhagen right now. No relocation required. All of them highly qualified, actually; any one of them would qualify to interview at Fog Creek.
Stack Overflow Careers is something of a chicken-and-egg business. We have to get a big audience of programmers and a big audience of employers all at the same time, and then it’s like a junior high school dance, with the boys on one side of the gym and the girls on the other side, and for a while you just sit there holding your breath to see if anyone will dance. We invited a few hundred employers as beta testers... these were the companies that have been listing jobs on StackOverflow over the last six months, and so far, they’ve found a few dozen candidates that they liked. Once it gets to that point, we’re out of the loop, so we don’t really know how many people are actually finding jobs, but please email me your success stories and failure stories so we can keep working to make it better.
In the meantime, Jeff and the StackOverflow crew have done something brilliant: they’ve made it possible to do searches and see how many candidates match even before you have to pay. So if you want to try it out but are afraid that there aren’t students looking for OCaml internships in Houston, you can try it, and find that there is, indeed, one. So, try it out right now. There’s no obligation, and we’re happy to give you your money back if you don’t think you got good value.
Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.
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lj_maintenance
[ mhwest ]
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12:18p |
MogileFS Maintenance
**EDIT Thu Dec 3 23:24:15 UTC 2009 ** Hey Everyone, we are about to run the last alter job that we need to on our database servers. This will effect userpics / scrapbook / vgift images for the next few hours. Have no fear, your images aren't lost, there is just a really intensive process running on the servers which store the information for mogilefs. Thank you for your understanding and all the LJ love... Hey LJers, I just wanted to let you all know that we are going to be performing some mogilefs maintenance over the next few days. We will be upgrading our current version to latest stable as well as changing some db config information to better handle the amount of files we are currently hosting. This shouldn't cause a big impact on site stability, but you may see some minor delays with userpic / scrapbook images appearing or other requests associated with our mogilefs. We would love to not have that happen, but unfortunately with some of the steps we need to take we have to cause a delay with images. I figured this was a better solution than taking down all of LiveJournal because well lets face it, we all need our daily LJ fix ;) Thanks, Current Mood: dirtyCurrent Music: Bad Religion - Stranger Than Fiction |
| Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 |
malachus
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10:27p |
new android conundrum
So, there is no NumberPicker control in the Android SDK that is public. Conventional wisdom is to "clone and own" the code from the Android source. That's all well and good, and so far I have copied the code and it seems to work... except... NumberPicker depends on NumberPickerButton. I have copied both, but when the code runs (or it tries to inflate the XML layout for my cloned version, I get a ClassCastException that says that NumberPickerButton cannot be cast to NumberPickerButton. I'm really not sure why I'm getting this, but it's quite frustrating. The really weird and infuriating thing is that it seems to work, it just throws this exception and prevents the layout from being rendered in Eclipse. Current Mood:  tired |
plorkwort
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8:28p |
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| Monday, November 30th, 2009 |
arcana_mundi
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7:45p |
2012
So I chickened out on seeing New Moon because it's like a million years long. Two hours and two minutes. Nobody needs that much preternatural teen sulkies. So I bought a ticket to see 2012, which started at 3:40, figuring that I probably hadn't missed much even though it was a little past 4. And I think I had missed about five minutes, because they hadn't even run the opening title yet. There is way, way too much pre-film advertising and trailer action these days. It was very loud and apocalyptic, natch. I won't go into the plot because you can totally already tell me what it is without having seen it at all if you've seen the trailer. But I'm going to give away THE END. ( Spoilers, whatever. ) |
collegecate
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5:29p |
Thanksgiving 2009: Lessons to be remembered
(Nobody died, I would say that nothing exploded except that isn't not true.)
- Before you invite people, count how many chairs/plates/forks you have.
- Consult your friends and housemates; they have opinions, ideas, and enemies.
- Think about how much food you will need, and cut that in half
- Every cup of water you put in the pot to make soup will become a cup of soup
- Sometimes simpler is better
- Remember that can of coke you left in the freezer? Yeah, don't forget about that.
- This is a fabulous thing and I'm totally doing it again
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titivillus
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2:58p |
Distributed Systems and NoSQL.
I saw this The Confused World of "NoSQL" on Hacker News and liked it. Also, the author has a relatively nice list of distributed systems papers: Readings in Distributed Systems. Which, for the record, is also pretty close the list I would hand to someone who wanted to work with me on my big distributed system project(actually, I would probably just say, "my list and everything on that list" now...). Also, the quip that: Many web developers are non-advanced users of SQL anyway, not using "advanced" features like foreign keys, JOINs, inner queries or stored procedures. sums up my low-esteem for most of the NoSQL rabble anyway. |
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