news

Other people’s broken monetary models

One can hope and work toward not having a broken financial model. We’ve seen many. WordPress (where this blog is hosted) never informed me that the custom domain for which I pay them a pittance as an “upgrade” needed renewal… until they turned it off.

Thanks WordPress! Way to annoy my readers (few though they may be), me (your customer), and fail to collect your rightful due for almost six months. Simply lovely all the way ’round.

Merb *is* Rails

Merb *is* Rails: Wow this has been a hectic, emotional week. The Rails and Merb core teams have been silently working together towards this monumental announcement. The announcement is that Merb is Rails and Rails is Merb.
http://rubyonrails.org/merb
http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/12/23/merb-gets-merged-into-rails-3
http://yehudakatz.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/

[This is awesome news. There’s parts of both frameworks that I love, and now, with a bit of luck, all of them will wind up in the same place.]
Source: Brainspl.at

MacRuby

MacRuby is a version of Ruby 1.9, ported to run directly on top of Mac OS X core technologies such as the Objective-C common runtime and garbage collector, and the CoreFoundation framework. While still a work in progress, it is the goal of MacRuby to enable the creation of full-fledged Mac OS X applications which do not sacrifice performance in order to enjoy the benefits of using Ruby.

MacRuby is a free software project by Apple Inc. Sources are available under the Ruby license.

[It’s the last line I find so interesting. Also, that there are so many of these sorts of efforts taking place. IronRuby, now MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, etc. Great stuff for the Ruby world.]

No more space

Articles like this about the “Battle for Central Park”, where joggers and runners are forever aggravated at cyclists and vice versa, and everyone hates the car folks and vice versa, don’t speak to anything but extreme crowding.

The resources (open space, clear of “traffic” (defined as anything that interrupts *your* activity)) are too scarce. We are constantly jostling each other in our attempt to simply move about. Of course everyone is annoyed! Sadly though, there is a strong sense of entitlement and greed that runs as an undercurrent to the interactions.

I have no answers here, except for my personal one of making a choice to find more space for my family as quickly as possible.

merb-slices

merb-slices are “Little slices of MVC cake”. These are self contained merb apps with models, controlers, views and assets that you can distribute as rubygems. You can mount a merb-slice at a specific point in your router definition and you can override any part of the slice up in your main app. So in a way these are similar to what Rails-Engines promise, except merb-slices are built into the framework and will not break when merb itself is updated.

Check out the tutorial/screencast for a peek at how merb-slices work.

[Nice. Merb continues to impress.]
Source: Brainspl.at

The Joys Of Life…

The Joys Of Life…: Watching 4 guys in a pace line, with full-on Time Trial gear, going -maybe- 12mph while Chloe and me passed them at 19mph, with Chloe honking her newish Honka Hoota and shouting, “EYE OF THE TIGER BABY… EYE OF THE TIGER!!!”. [Not that long ago I witnessed a similar happening. I was pulling Noah in the trailer, and there were signs and then cops and then hordes of people at the usually quiet park. The signs said “Biathlon” (well, there was a sponsor’s name, but they’ve never done me any favors…). For one split second I wondered who was going to the shooting with images of cyclists jumping off their bikes to take aim at something… and realized that someone was trying their hand at marketing and failing (apparently the name is changing next year to duathlon eliminating my vision and possibly a fatal misunderstanding). Anyway, so the competitors start arriving in all their racing glory, and behold the always enjoyable sight of someone on a “townie” bike (upright, non-aero position) in shorts and t-shirt, passing someone in full tri gear… skinsuit, aero bars, disk wheel… the works. I burst out laughing, but only Noah heard me, and there was no way to explain… It’s not about the bike (or gear).]
Source: Large Fella on a Bike

More of the Great Clif Mojo bar Taste Test

So a while back, when I started the Great Clif Mojo bar Taste Test and we’ve had a very cold spring. What that means is that the results are taking quite some time to accumulate. Sure the folks are riding and doing, but not the sort of long rides where somehow tastes change in odd ways, or where they need to pack energy along in the first place. (Little known secret, unless you’re a skinny sort, working out all the time etc. you don’t need extra calories (generally) for a two hour bike ride. I tell you three times.)

However some more results were written up a while back, and I never got around to posting. SO without further ado I present the always lovely, impossibly snarky, funny, and joyous Jenni on her Mojo bar experience.

The first thing that I’d add before I move along to the next bit of commentary, is that Jenni didn’t even know these existed… which doesn’t say much for Clif marketing. Sure this seems a bit like biting the hand that fed us (we did get the bars from clearly happening and with it Dean Mayer of Clif Bar Inc. afterall) but one so generous and kind will surely understand that I’m merely trying to point out that they are not achieving nearly the market penetration they should out here in the East, at least with Mojo bars.)

Next up was a partial report from David. Besides being the President of the Rockland Bike Club, he’s also an incredibly talented and created soul who authors columns, reviews, and books on photography, software, and stuff. He travels a lot, seems to find more than his fair share of food poisoning, and has done stuff like biked across Alaska. So without further ado, his rejoinder and first comments.

More comments to come soon… I’m sure. Right? Hello? Seth? David? What’s that? I haven’t finished yet either? Yeah, yeah. It’s coming. Soon. Really. No, seriously.

Thoughts on Google App Engine

Thoughts on Google App Engine: I’m more than a little concerned, though, by how much vendor lock-in there is with App Engine.  At first glance, it doesn’t look like the apps will be portable at all.  If I want to switch providers, or add in other providers so I’m not relying solely on Google, I’m outta luck.  

I’m hopeful other languages get supported, too.  I think Python is great – don’t get me wrong – but we have a lot more experience with other languages, so there’ll be a learning curve.

Finally, I’m dying to find out what pricing for an application of our scale will look like.  I can see some immediate, obvious things I’d like to try to do on App Engine, but the beta limits aren’t gonna cut it for us.  :(

[snip -ed]

My favorite bit?  In theory, Google has solved the data scaling problem.  I don’t mean raw binary (blob) storage, which S3, SmugFS, MogileFS, and plenty of other things have solved, but the “database” scaling problem.  Every popular web app runs into this problem, and it’s typically solved with a combination of memcached, federation, and replication.  But it’s messy.  In theory, Google has automated that piece for us.  I can’t wait to play with it and see if that’s true.

I also can’t wait to see who else is going to wade into this fray.  Sun?  Microsoft?  Yahoo?  IBM?   [More info from the field…]
Source: SmugBlog: Don MacAskill

Let my People Have Root

Let my People Have Root: App Engine is certainly convenient for Google because it maps exactly to what they have already built for internal use. But does it mean that Google has solved the hard problem of how to manage a cloud computing offering while simultaneously giving developers the freedom of full root control? And is root access important? [Granted they have a self interest, but they still make a good point…]
Source: Joyeur

Mr. Silver Does It Again (Congestion Pricing Killed)

Mr. Silver Does It Again – New York Times: New Yorkers should remember Monday as the day Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, used the power of his office to deprive them of $354 million in federal funds to help mass transporation, ease traffic congestion and improve the air that all New Yorkers breathe.

Backed by his Democratic conference, the speaker killed congestion pricing in the most cowardly way: without even holding a vote. Mr. Silver said so many members of his own conference were against the plan that it would never pass. How many? Who knows? The speaker hid behind closed doors to keep the public from watching his cronies do the deed. [Shameful!]