Just Look at What You’ve Done

Fat Cyclist » Blog Archive » Just Look at What You’ve Done:

I love the fact that she’s wearing a 100 Miles of Nowhere t-shirt as she’s making this presentation. And I love even more how the kids react when they hear my name.

But what I love most is the fact that those kids, in that school, in that video, right now, have a better chance at a good life because of something we did. Something you did.

Here, take a look at a few of Katie’s pictures from this trip:

[Right then, she’s 100 Miles of Everywhere. (For those of you who don’t know, years and years ago (2008), Elden (Fatty) Nelson had a terrible idea: He bet a bunch of Fat Cyclist readers that he could ride his rollers for 100 miles. A raised a some money for charity. Next year he invited other’s to join. And it’s been going on in one form or another since. Last year a bunch of us road in a fairly small circle around the Kessina track. Anyway, it just seemed very ironic that in the midst of doing good and important work she wore a shirt that represents such folly. Of course, it also represents great joy and caring about others but in a silly sort of way. Very Elden like. Maybe it was perfect.)]

Neil Young: Piracy is the new radio

Neil Young was working with Apple on super high-def music format:

Young spoke at length about the lack of quality in today’s mainstream digital music formats, arguing that the “low-res world” of MP3s provide just 5% of the data present in the original studio recordings, paling in comparison to the quality of vinyl records back in the 70’s.

[If you watch the video, Neil Young said “Piracy is the new radio”. Interesting to hear from someone like him. I’ve long felt the same way since must of us toil in obscurity, and care more about being heard at all than the nonexistent lost sales. The fidelity thang has been long time issue for him, he’ cared about this as long as I can recall. I hope Apple doesn’t drop work on this altogether.]

SRAM Red 2012

SRAM Red 2012 – Full Details – BikeRadar:

SRAM have bucked the trend of 11-speed cassettes and electronic shifting for their wholly revamped 2012 Red group, preferring instead to stick with 10 rear cogs and conventional cable actuation. The new 1,739g claimed weight lops about 150g off of what was already a superlight package and major improvements to the brakes, derailleurs and drivetrain provide better stopping power, smoother front shifts and quieter running to accompany the updated ergonomics.

[Outside of the front der, which seems like a nice improvement, I’m impatiently waiting for the hydro stuff.]

[Update: It seems that the front der. is not compatible with the previous shifters. These companies think they’ve created a gravy train by obsoleting designs every few years, but considering the cost of a gruppo in the aftermarket, changes like this just make me feel burned.]

Missing refactoring…

Crazy, Heretical, and Awesome: The Way I Write Rails Apps | James on Software:

To decouple the logging from the creation of the database record, we’re going to use something called a service object. A service object is typically used to coordinate two or more objects; usually, the service object doesn’t have any logic of its own (simplified definition). We’re also going to use Dependency Injection so that we can mock everything out and make our tests awesomely fast (seconds not minutes).

[Again, a missing refactoring from the last major project…]

Source: @brynary

Say hello to Bootstrap 2.0

Say hello to Bootstrap 2.0:

Bootstrap 2 brings a plethora of changes and new features to the toolkit, many added as a result feedback from the community. In addition, much of our work was guided by our experiences of working on Twitter.com’s latest redesign where we created a flexible and durable design system. We took the same approach to Bootstrap 2 and came away with more features, better documentation, smarter default styling, and more.

[Allez!]

‘The Alan Lomax Collection From the American Folklife Center’

‘The Alan Lomax Collection From the American Folklife Center’:

Starting in the mid-1930s, when he made his first field recordings in the South,  Lomax was the foremost music folklorist in the United States. He was the first to record Muddy Waters and Woody Guthrie, and much of what Americans have learned about folk and traditional music stems from his efforts, which were also directly responsible for the folk music and skiffle booms in the United States and Britain that shaped the pop-music revolution of the 1960s and beyond.

Lomax worked both in academic and popular circles, and increased awareness of traditional music by doing radio and television programs, organizing concerts and festivals, and writing books, articles and essays prodigiously. At a time when there was a strict divide between high and low in American culture, and Afro-American and hillbilly music were especially scorned, Lomax argued that such vernacular styles were America’s greatest contribution to music.

[Listen to a few cuts here. Great that all this material will be made available.]

Generosity Day

Norms, tipping, generosity and scarcity:

My bet is that breaking these norms feels totally outrageous, that your heart races a little when you do it.  That’s the feeling of acting differently.  Then, when the rush passes, your head has the chance to process how glib you often are with that extra $20, but right here and right now, at the hot dog stand, handing over a $20 bill for your $5 hot dog – and not getting the change back – feels ludicrous.  Let the introspection begin.

One reason to give this whole thing a try is as an exploration of the norms and limits you’ve set around your life and your actions.  They may be just right for you.  Or your generosity experiment might afford a glimpse into how you could behave differently all the time – whatever “differently” means to you.

[Generosity Day is about the practice saying yes to every request for help and by being generous. Not something to be locked up into a single day, but not a bad start either.]

Source: Sasha Dichter’s Blog

The Corner: How Amazon’s KDP Select Saved My Book

The Corner: How Amazon’s KDP Select Saved My Book:

I learned that the Internet is a very, very noisy place, and that just about everyone is selling something. I learned that people aren’t sitting around thinking about your book as much as you think and hope they are. I learned that all this time we worry about social media is probably best spent worrying about something else — like writing books.

Much like I will never quite understand why my So You Want to Go to Law School video went viral the way it did 16 months ago, I don’t know exactly why my book finally took off the way it did.

[Finding a large enough audience is clearly the number #1 problem. I doubt this will ever change. Which leads back to this. Be true to yourself first. ]

Source: Daring Fireball