Truer Words - A Journal

Well and Weirdly Met

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 21 May 2007 01:14:39 GMT

RailsConf 2007 was good. I'm glad I went, and I believe I pulled from it — mainly from the other attendees — exactly what I wanted.

It's no surprise, of course, that the best part of the weekend was finally meeting and hanging out with Jim and Sean. Exactly as it was with Greg last year (who I missed this year (but not as much as Corinne and Lauren!) ... lousy timing on the pregnancy, Greg and Kt!), we hung out and chatted as if we've been doing exactly that for many years. Which we have, of course, but only virtually. This was our first meeting, and it was a good one.

The second weirdest experience of the weekend was meeting John Gruber's twin. He hasn't said anything publicly, but he confirms that he has seen it, some of his friends are calling the other guy, "Fake John Gruber," and John referred to it as Very Weird. Rich (who has known JG far longer than I have) agreed the similarity was eerie. They really were identical, in the sense of identical twins. Just as identical twins have little differences that help you tell them apart, these two are not identical in every little detail... but it was still weird.

However, the number one weirdest part of the weekend was that Sevin Sayers was here! (Ok, his name isn't really Sevin Sayers, but he's being very weird about this and wanted his name removed from the site. So it's something *like* Sevin Sayers. (Let's just say there's a reason I haven't seen ‘Sevin’ in years.)) He was completely out of context, as though my life's threads were suddenly exchanging objects or pointers in some way that surely indicated heap corruption and would result in an OS shutdown (kernel panic!) any second.

I first saw ‘Sevin’ on Friday morning, but never really thought it was him, just looked and sounded a bit like him. Then again that evening, but it was just after I met John's dopplegänger so I decided my brain was having a little more fun with me. When I saw him for the third time on Saturday, I stared at him for a few seconds trying to find the subtle differences that would make him not look like ‘Sevin’ anymore.

He finally looked back at me, and immediately looked very confused. "Seth?!? What are you doing here?"

"Right. Funny you should ask that."

Happy New Year, One and All

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 16:22:11 GMT

2006 was a good year for me and mine, in many ways.

To all of my family near and far, to my ecclesia here and worldwide, to all of my friends new and old, close or distant:

Happy
New Year!

Hoping 2007 will be even better, for all of us...

RailsConf 2006: Highs and Lows

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:49:31 GMT

RailsConf (the first 'official' Ruby on Rails conference) ended Sunday afternoon. I'm very glad I went.

Highlights:

Having Corinne there with me, for a lot of reasons.
Meeting Greg and hanging out like old friends, making plans for future work, and getting help with problems in one of my projects (he has more Rails experience than I do).
Watching one of my clients (M.C.) scurry around with a big backpack, and talk to anybody who would listen about his project. The man really seems to love his work.
The jets taking off right over the hotel, and the huge trains rumbling by on the tracks across the street.
Dave Thomas's keynote on Friday morning, throwing down the gauntlet.
All the keynote speakers bluntly disagreeing with all of the others, without hostility.
DHH's keynote on Saturday night
The Homesteader's Guide, by Nethaniel Talbott
The code-related sections of the "performance" by "Why the Lucky Stiff"
Meeting with Sam Stephenson, author of Prototype, for an hour on Sunday, and being told that he loved what I showed him. It seems I really did figure out something NEW in JavaScript, and wasn't actually deluding myself. (Note: JS-related validation from Sam is a bit like Ruby-related validation from DHH. That is, he didn't write the language, but he is considered one of the elite and there are many, many thousands of people following his lead.)

(Yes, I'll have a LOT more to say about this soon.)
An email I received from a brand new client. I had to work for this one, but in this case that's a very good thing. I can't wait to say more about this!
The macs. It was totally nuts. 550 attendees, and I've seen estimates between 80% and 95% mac coverage. Some joked that "in the future, everyone uses macs." I parried that this wasn't the future, it was the alternate universe where things had worked out like we always knew they were supposed to.

Check out some of the pictures. I'm even in one of them, from the neck down. ;-)
Giving the (other) last remaining mac geeks (about twelve of them) in the bar just off the hotel lobby a whole pizza (our leftovers after we ordered two smalls). They couldn't believe their good fortune! I told them they could have it if they promised not to get any on their MacBooks. They looked at me funny, one guy said that his runs better with pizza. I said, "you don't need to put it on the macbook, the pizza is already cooked." Took them all a second to figure that one out. :-)

Now the lowlights:

My babe being bored out of her mind. The conference kept us so busy that there was no time for us to do much of anything, and who wants to play tourist by oneself? (Not her!) Lesson learned. For future conferences, we'll be able to make a more informed decision about whether or not she goes with me.
Some of the sessions were desperately boring and lacking in any useful technical information. Some were good, many were not.
All the rest of Why's performance. Some people totally loved it. I'm not one of them.
Paul Graham's keynote presentation. He has this awesome rep, and I truly enjoy most of his essays, but all he did was read it! Dude. Look at your audience more often than when you're making a joke. (It was funny, though, that he kept saying, “I’m going to leave THAT part ouf of the essay on the site.”)
That it ended so soon. Sigh.

Back to work!

Agile Tortoise's Flags Fly at Half-Mast

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 15:08:13 GMT

I'm afraid that Agile Tortoise (Greg) has lowered its flags to half-mast today. A couple days ago, an old friend died in a shoot-out with some corrupt Florida prison guards. Today, CNN is reporting that Darwin's Tortoise died. (Greg has a long-standing thing for turtles. Don't ask.)

Watch out, Greg. They say these things often come in threes.

Greg's Conversant-Ruby Scripts

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 21:25:20 GMT

Greg has produced a set of Ruby scripts for editing your Conversant site's templates, javascripts, and stylesheets *locally*. It downloads them all via xml-rpc. You edit them in your local editor, then run the upload script and it sends back whatever has been modified.

Very handy when you're doing a lot of work on a site... such as when you're trying to perfect your design for your next entry in the patterns contest!

Don't Cross the Beams

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:10:54 GMT

Greg is going to the Rails Conference.

So am I.

Greg and I have never met, but he used to be an employee of Macrobyte, and we've spoken by email or IM almost every day since he was hired in Q3 1999. He still helps out with Conversant development, and is definitely a friend.

When I told him I was going to the conference, he said there would be a "huge ripple in the force," but what if it turns out to be more like "crossing the beams?"

Greg's Theme for Typo

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 22:00:45 GMT

Greg has entered the Qwerty Theme in the Typo theme contest

It looks good, but it needs votes! If you like his design, the only way to vote is by posting a comment on the theme's page. You don't have to think it's the best, you just have to like it. The winner is the theme with the most (legitimate) comments.

Coincidentally, there will soon -- very soon -- be a sponsored "Patterns Contest" for Conversant. I didn't even have to suggest it... two of the clients who sponsored Conversant's patterns system came to me with the idea. (This will be a more "targetted" contest, but I can't say more about that right now.

(Oh, there's one catch for the upcoming pattern contest: in order for the contest to take place, I first need to release Weblog II. I've completely run out of excuses anyway, since it's being used on lots of sites now without any problems.)

A Pox on You, Greg Pierce

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 16:28:04 GMT

A pox on Greg and all of his house for ever mentioning the insanely addictive Character Disorder.

You'll be my ruin, you scoundrel.

Greg Saves Seth's Bacon

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 00:57:20 GMT

Greg saved my bacon twice today while I was struggling with some obscure details in a site Macrobyte is building for a client.

One of the problems certainly the more frustrating of the two involved the fairly-well-known "IE Whitespace Bug." Unfortunately, I hadn't recognized it as such, and spun my wheels for over an hour, imagining ever more and more creative ways to defenestrate and mutilate my PC.

Anyway, thanks Greg.

PMC Fund Raising, Greg's Help, Your Help Needed Too

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 15:50:59 GMT

This Summer I'll be riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge for the third time, with 4,000+ other riders. We're trying to raise a lot of money ($20,000,000 total) for cancer research and treatment. We ride across Massachusetts, and this year we all have to raise at least $3,000. Each.

My personal goal this year is $6,000. Two years ago I raised a little under $3,000. Last year I was a little over $4,000.

We're very serious about the minimum amount. Any rider that doesn't raise the $3,000 has the balance automatically deducted from the credit card used to sign up.

A lot of my fund raising is done here, through my web site. What I mean is, this is where it starts. This is where I post updates on my progress, this is where I remind people that I need help. There's a red link in the sidebar, to the left, that says 2005 Pan-Mass Challenge. That's my "PMC Central," where I put the instructions for anybody who wants to donate or help in some other way.

I've had the same core group of donors for the last two years, and most of them have told me they'll be helping again this year. However, my goal is much higher this year, so I need more help!

Greg has gone beyond the call of duty this year. Besides being a faithful and generous sponsor, he has now put a huge link at the top-right corner of every page on his site, pointing to my fund raising page.

Greg's a cancer survivor. Some of my other sponsors are also survivors, and some have family or friends that survived... or didn't. Those are the worst. I've watched friends die of cancer, and seen one person survive multiple rounds with brain cancer.

You can help too, whether or not you're a survivor, or know one, or lost someone to this war. The how-to page (linked above and on the left) tells you how, but I'm going to recap.

Make a donation. This is the best way to help, since this is what it's really all about.
Watch for (and click on) ads on the site. (Be fair to the advertisers, though, don't click if you're not interested.) Any revenue raised between April 1 and August 31 will be donated to the PMC.
Buy something from amazon through one of the links on the right. (Same deal as the ads. All proceeds benefit the PMC, until August 31.)
Mention this on your own page! This won't cost you a penny, but might raise awareness and perhaps a little more money.

What is "Unfrozen Caveman?"

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 19:49:06 GMT

Flip, Jim, Greg, Steve, and Brent (update: and Apollo, Daniel, and Terry) have each linked to the story about the Firefox book. I really appreciate it... this is a very big deal for me, as most of you know.

Brent said that my description of the SOAP hack made him feel like "Unfrozen Caveman." If anybody has a clue stick, I need a beating. (Did it make him feel a bit behind the times? Out of touch with the tech? Really old? Maybe it thickened his brow and made him a good shot with a spear?)

Watching the Babies Grow Up

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 10:53:22 GMT

Just a couple of days ago, I lived in the same house as Eric and Bonny. A giant farm house, converted into a duplex, on Watch HIll Road in Westerly, RI. Eric and I worked at the same place in Providence, and commuted together every morning. Bonny was pregnant with Avonlee, their first. Mine was one of the voices that we said "Av would know" when she was born, because she'd heard it so often while still in the womb.

I was standing in their kitchen the first time I met her, I remember it very clearly. Like I said, that was just a couple of days ago.

Last night I went to their house, in a different part of Westerly. Why? To tutor their twelve year old daughter, Avonlee, in math. (Where's this twelve year old come from!? What happened to the baby from a couple days ago...?) She's home schooled, approximately at the fifth or sixth grade level. She's very smart, but fractions have been eluding her and I'm more than happy to help. In fact, I offered to teach her math class months ago, without knowing that she was struggling with fractions.

Av has always been one of my favorites. The ecclesia used to call me the sandman because, as an infant, she'd fall asleep whenever I held her. Yet, somehow, in just a couple of days she grew up and needs my help with math!? In an email this morning, Eric said, "Funny, I was looking at Av. while you were doing the lesson and was remembering bringing her home to Watch Hill Rd. WOW! Are we all getting OLD!"

I know what he means, but this didn't make me feel old. It made me feel displaced, somehow out of (outside of) time. As though I bounced, like a stone on water, from then to now. Only observing the years in between as a blur, a rush of memories. Temporal vertigo, that's the best way to describe this.

Greg and Katie are feeling it a little, too, and their story only enhanced my own feeling because I remember (what they shared of) the whole ordeal of the fertility clinics, the pregnancy, and then the "events" in their boys' lives.

Life and memory can be so motion-blurred. I love these moments, like now, when everything stops and comes back into focus. Kids do that better than anything else.

Happy Ninth Anniversary, Greg and Kt

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:05:20 GMT

Happy 9th Anniversary to Greg and Katie Pierce!

When Greg and I first started working together, he and Katie had been married almost twice as long as Corinne and I (me and Corinne?). Now, they're only ahead of us by about 28%. We're catching up!

(Btw, Greg... What a coincidence! So did I. ;-)

How Embarrassing

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:03:26 GMT

Oh man I only scored a 48.5 on this quiz about 80's music. That's when I listened to the most music! I was a teenager! Ugh.

Corinne and Greg are both going to demolish that quiz. I'll be surprised if they don't both score in the 80's, at least.

Web Ring?

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 09 Mar 2004 10:42:52 GMT

Greg and I should start a Filemaker Haters Web Ring.

Get Your Torx Screwdrivers at Sears!

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:21:32 GMT

New hard drive for the powerbook finally showed up today (after UPS sent it to the wrong place first). I don't have the right size Torx driver. Mentioned it to Greg, he said to get it at Sears.

Called the local Apple dealer (I like them), and they wanted $100 to install the drive. No, they don't sell the Torx screwdrivers. "Pick one up at Sears," she said.

Glancing through the Powerbook G4 Hard Drive Upgrade Instructions at xlr8yourmac.com, I found the list of required tools. In the middle of the list it says, "Torx T9 and T8 screwdrivers* (Sears has these)".

Hmm. Maybe I'll try to find what I need at... Sears!

Greg Will "Light the Night" for L&L Society

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:25:23 GMT

Greg Pierce is walking (and pushing a stroller) in a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society called Light the Night.

Greg's a Lymphoma survivor, so this has some special meaning for him.

He's looking for sponsors, "no amount is too small."

In spite of the fact that I'm still trying to reach my $2500 minimum for the PMC, I'm kicking in a little.

Cancer is evil. Do what you can to help.

MVC Singalong

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 18 Jul 2003 07:59:08 GMT

Many thanks to Greg for pointing to this very funny MVC sing-song by Apple's James Dempsey. More proof that programming is at least as much art as science!

Greg's Using Weblog II

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 16:11:46 GMT

Greg Pierce has upgraded his weblog to Conversant's Weblog II software. Check it out, he's using a very cool feature that I haven't even told the beta testers about (Greg asked me directly if there was a way to do what he wanted).

The first seven days on the weblog all show the full text for each item, but the last ten days (at the bottom) show only the titles with links to the full items. Pretty darn cool.

He and Steve Ivy are using more of the advanced features than anyone else, so far. Steve's using channels and a totally customized weblog calendar (see his "time machine" at the top right of his weblog pages). Both of them found bugs which I was able to fix pretty quickly... thanks for the help, guys.

Manila to Conversant conversion tool

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 27 Mar 2003 13:58:23 GMT

Greg started, and I've now (nearly) completed, a tool for converting old Manila sites to new Conversant sites.

Conversant and Manila are very different pieces of software, written for different reasons, but they do have some overlap. It's that overlap that allows the conversion tool to set up a Conversant site based on the contents of a Manila site.

It doesn't yet convert the template(s) over, but it does:

Convert shortcuts to type-specific resources (images, links, text, etc)
Import all messages
Duplicate the site structure by publishing messages and creating directories
Import all images as attachments, and set up the image-messages to display the images just like in the Manila site
Set up a *new* Weblog page with all of the contents of the Manila weblog.

The Manila site can be local (running in the local copy of Frontier) or on a remote server if you have xml-rpc access. The Conversant site can also be local or on a remote server. Obviously, it runs fastest if they're both local.

We (Macrobyte) might release this tool (for free). It runs on both Frontier and Radio.

If you'd find a tool like this useful, please let me know (preferably via email).

What is Dave Using to Parse XML?

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 18:14:56 GMT

I'm not sure which is funnier: Dave claiming (SN's archives are offline at the moment I'm writing this, so that link might not work) that his XML parser is very good, or Greg's mock conclusion that Dave isn't using Frontier or Radio anymore.

As I've mentioned, Frontier's XML parser has a lot of holes. It's the swiss cheese of XML manipulation.

Steve's New Weblog Calendar

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 12 Mar 2003 10:50:25 GMT

Steve Ivy was playing with Conversant's new weblog plugin's very flexible calendars, and came up with a completely different, very usable approach.

Greg has had some things to say about weblog calendars too, but so far he hasn't said anything about Steve's idea. (No pressure, Greg. ;-))

It's not perfect (what is?) but it's a good alternative and he's still working on it. I don't think the traditional calendar is a requirement, lots of weblogs/journals don't offer any calendar at all.

iTerm is Just What I Wanted

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 24 Jan 2003 17:10:30 GMT

Yesterday I mentioned to Greg and Brian that I'd really like to have a terminal application with all the features in Apple's Terminal.app, plus tabs (one per session). They both agreed that sounds nice, and Greg added that he'd like it to be "dockable" to the side of the window.

Well, this afternoon Greg found iTerm, an open source project that's creating exactly what I wanted. The only feature it's lacking (for me) is the split screen in Apple's app. It's still under active development, though, so I'm sure they'll get it in there.

There's an address book for adding commands you use frequently. Very handy.

It's pretty, too. We know how important that is!

Climb That Hill

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 12 Dec 2002 10:59:28 GMT

Happy Birthday, Greg! How's the view from up there?

Happy Birthday, Boys

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 30 Oct 2002 10:52:41 GMT

One year ago today, Asher and Keegan Pierce were hatched by Greg and Katie (though I think Katie did most of the work). Happy Birthday!