https://ejf.io/ Recent content on E John Feig Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Fri, 11 Nov 2022 10:22:25 -0700 https://ejf.io/android/health_connect/intro/ Fri, 11 Nov 2022 10:22:25 -0700 https://ejf.io/android/health_connect/intro/ Introduction Control and manage health and fitness data from a central location, without losing the unique functionality that different apps offer. Health Connect brings deeper insights to users by sharing meaningful data on Android! Reading and Writing In this video, John talks to you about reading, writing, updating, and deleting records in Health Connect. Managing Permissions In this video, John discusses how you can manage permissions in Health Connect with examples provided. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/smart_home_tools_updates/ Thu, 21 Oct 2021 10:19:39 -0700 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/smart_home_tools_updates/ Learn about new developer tools and updates for Google Home and Device Access. Learn about Google’s quality efforts, updates to WebRTC, the Test Suite, Analytics, as well as get a preview of the Smart Home Playground — a new tool for prototyping devices. Resources: Test Suite → https://goo.gle/test-suite Monitoring and logging → https://goo.gle/3FBNuzD Google Home Playground → https://goo.gle/google-home-playground Building a device access web application → https://goo.gle/3BtaTkq https://ejf.io/experiments/custom_watch_2/ Sun, 18 Jul 2021 10:30:56 -0700 https://ejf.io/experiments/custom_watch_2/ I built two more watches! At this point, I think I’m done with this hobby. While it was fun, it gave me a headache sitting trying to place the pieces correctly. I’m happy with the results though! https://ejf.io/pizza/pizza_oven/ Tue, 01 Sep 2020 07:35:41 -0700 https://ejf.io/pizza/pizza_oven/ After three and a half months of work, we finally finished our pizza oven! Elizabeth has been painting over the last couple weeks, and put the finishing touches on yesterday. This was a fun, but difficult project, and I’m really happy with the pizza it makes! I’ve wanted a pizza oven since I visited Pollywogg Holler, when I was attending Alfred University. Pollywogg Holler is a bit hard to describe, but it was a set of hand-built cabins and structures set back a ways in the woods, where you had to follow a path to get there. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/tools_for_better_smart_home_actions/ Thu, 09 May 2019 10:16:25 -0700 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/tools_for_better_smart_home_actions/ This session will discuss tools to help developers build smart home Actions that make users’ lives easier. Deep dive into developer tools such as the report state tool, StackDriver, codelabs, and a new tool for certifying your Action. Also, learn about a new method of account linking that makes it easier for users to connect to your Actions. https://ejf.io/experiments/custom_watch/ Mon, 18 Feb 2019 20:50:25 -0800 https://ejf.io/experiments/custom_watch/ I recently started getting into watches. I guess that I’ve been interested in them for a long time, but the difference I guess is that I’ve started focusing on mechanical watches. Something that wormed its way into my brain was the thought of buying a bunch of parts and assembling a watch from scratch. A couple months ago, I looked around at watch parts, and really had no idea what I was looking at and gave up quickly. https://ejf.io/coffee/roast_template/ Fri, 18 Aug 2017 12:40:14 +0000 https://ejf.io/coffee/roast_template/ Photo stolen from Red City Roasters, my coffee roasting company! Here’s a template doc that I use for my one of my roast profiles. (This is a lighter roast in terms of flavor profile, tuned to espresso. You may want to go lighter, shorter time, more acidic, for pour-over.) Times are all relative, I have a timer that I restart at the beginning of each phase of the roast, as outlined in the doc. https://ejf.io/thoughts/doing_my_best/ Sun, 08 May 2016 07:36:08 -0700 https://ejf.io/thoughts/doing_my_best/ Photo by Ashley St. John Sixteen months ago, my daughter was born. After a difficult first week, the first month was great, challenging, but overall things were really good. Then the depression crept back in. I’ve been dealing with depression for almost as long as I can remember. It comes in waves for me, where sometimes I’ll be generally feeling good, or ok for weeks, then seemingly out of nowhere, the depression knocks me down, and would stick around for one or a few weeks. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/lets_encrypt/ Mon, 07 Mar 2016 08:37:43 -0800 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/lets_encrypt/ Not too long ago, Let’s Encrypt launched a free CA to enable website owners to easily generate their own signed certificates from the command line on their server. It integrates with popular web servers like Apache and NGINX to make the validation step easier. However, the certificates are only valid for 3 months, as opposed to the 1 year that is more typical. They’ll send an email when your certificate is close to expiring, but that’s not always idea. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/container_tomcat_graph_1/ Sun, 06 Mar 2016 10:30:04 -0800 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/container_tomcat_graph_1/ Note: I wrote this post 3 years ago, and somehow forgot to publish it. It may contain incomplete sentences, and may be complete nonsense, I am not going to re-read it. Proceed at your own risk. For years, I’ve had this problem around cooking at home, which is sort of two-fold. First, I really don’t like finding recipes and coming up with meals to cook. It’s time-consuming, and when I’m digging through recipes, I get indecisive and overwhelmed with the number of choices, wasting hours a week. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/container_tomcat_graph_2/ Sun, 06 Mar 2016 10:30:04 -0800 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/container_tomcat_graph_2/ Note: I wrote this post 3 years ago, and somehow forgot to publish it. It may contain incomplete sentences, and may be complete nonsense, I am not going to re-read it. Proceed at your own risk. Last time, we covered creating a new Tomcat project, and running it locally with Docker. This blog post is going to take us through deploying our docker image to Google Cloud’s Container Engine. In future posts, I’ll cover using AngularJS as a frontend, and adding in the Titan graph. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/container_tomcat_graph_3/ Sun, 06 Mar 2016 10:30:04 -0800 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/container_tomcat_graph_3/ Note: I wrote this post 3 years ago, and somehow forgot to publish it. It may contain incomplete sentences, and may be complete nonsense, I am not going to re-read it. Proceed at your own risk. So far in this series, we have created a new Tomcat app, added it to a Docker container, and run that container in Google Cloud with Kubernetes. This blog post is going to cover adding in a Titan graph as data store. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/mod_t_tips/ Thu, 03 Mar 2016 09:08:58 -0800 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/mod_t_tips/ I’m writing a couple of notes to my future self about this printer. This morning, I was trying to to swap out the pink filament with new white filament that I picked up on Amazon. The filament was completely stuck, I couldn’t unload or load or do much of anything with it. I found great GitHub repo for MOD-t utilities, and tried running the clean nozzle tool. (There’s a config file for Slic3r, a popular modeling tool for 3D printing. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/mod_t_review/ Tue, 01 Mar 2016 08:30:49 -0800 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/mod_t_review/ Back in the beginning of November, I received a giant box on my doorstep. It was a 3D printer that I had backed on Indiegogo a year and a half earlier. The printer is a New Matter MOD-t. They were a bit late shipping, but that was not exactly unexpected, generally, I’m happy when crowdfunded projects ship at all. Either way, it was here, arriving just in time for me to be super busy with other things. https://ejf.io/coffee/bluetherm_roasting/ Tue, 09 Feb 2016 08:06:05 -0800 https://ejf.io/coffee/bluetherm_roasting/ I’ve been roasting coffee for 7 or 8 years. In that time, I’ve learned how to roast a great batch of beans that will make excellent, and easy to drink espresso. This tends to live somewhere between City+ and Full City+, usually right at Full City. Now, this is great, and I love the coffee that I roast, but I have realized that I haven’t really nailed the lighter roasts yet, specifically, roasting an excellent batch to City, where the bean is fully developed and has a rounded flavor. https://ejf.io/coffee/free_coffee/ Wed, 27 Jan 2016 09:27:23 -0800 https://ejf.io/coffee/free_coffee/ I drink some of the best coffee in the Bay Area, every day, for free. Here’s how I do it. Step 1 This may sound like cheating, but the easiest way to drink amazing coffee all the time is to learn to make amazing coffee yourself. I’ve spent years working on this skill, learning a bunch of different methods of brewing and extracting coffee, learning what works and what doesn’t. For me, that’s more than just knowing how to make a good pot of coffee. https://ejf.io/experiments/quitting_junk_food/ Tue, 26 Jan 2016 11:42:53 -0800 https://ejf.io/experiments/quitting_junk_food/ I recently wrote about my New Year’s resolution of not quitting things, and it has taken me a while to figure out what to start. I could get into this circular logic loop and try to explain why I haven’t picked something yet, but that seems like a waste of pixels. Whatever, here goes. For the next 30 days, I’m going to be eating healthier. I’m going to try this for one month, evaluate, and iterate. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/blogging_tools/ Mon, 18 Jan 2016 09:56:38 -0800 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/blogging_tools/ I wrote an Android app to create the header data for new blog posts, and other workflow improvements https://ejf.io/experiments/quitting/ Fri, 08 Jan 2016 10:15:06 -0800 https://ejf.io/experiments/quitting/ Ever since New Year’s day, I’ve been thinking about what this year’s resolution should be. I have reflected a bit on the last year, and overall, I’m very happy with my 2015. My biggest accomplishment, was entering fatherhood, and not feeling like I have been faking it. Second to that, was that I finally am starting to feel like I have some effective tools to combat depression. (But, that’s a whole other topic. https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/airpair/ Sun, 03 Jan 2016 09:52:54 -0500 https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/airpair/ This morning, I was poking around looking for an article on using AngularJS with EJS. They use some similar syntax, and I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be running over myself too much by using them together. (I still don’t have an answer, but if I find a good one, I’ll link it on this post.) In my search, I stumbled on this article: Great! This looks like exactly what I’m looking for. https://ejf.io/wearables/automation_and_wearables/ Wed, 16 Dec 2015 11:53:36 -0800 https://ejf.io/wearables/automation_and_wearables/ I’ve been thinking a lot about automation recently. One of the big questions that I ask myself over and over is, what can I stop spending so much time on? What are things that I’m not great at that could get better through automation? I have a list of general things that I think would be fun to try automating (which I’ll write about later), but of the list of tools, I think that wearables present an interesting opportunity for automation. https://ejf.io/android/testing/ Tue, 08 Dec 2015 09:11:57 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/testing/ On November 23 & 24, I attended the first ever Android Dev Summit. The following are notes that I took during talks. I have included the video of the talk as well. Again, these are my notes from the talk, not my original content. Chiu-Ki Chan (Android GDE) took really great notes during the session as well, here’s what she had: Android Testing with @onlythoughtwork @ppvi @jfschmakeit #AndroidDevSummit #Sketchnotes pic.twitter.com/w30eLkXZvm https://ejf.io/android/keep_it_secret/ Fri, 04 Dec 2015 10:00:50 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/keep_it_secret/ On November 23 & 24, I attended the first ever Android Dev Summit. The following are notes that I took during talks. I have included the video of the talk as well. Again, these are my notes from the talk, not my original content. Android SSL Training Docs. Protecting the network traffic in your app. High level TLS, and why you should use it Using TLS, checking your work Mistakes and misconfigurations Why The network is not to be trusted. https://ejf.io/android/app-indexing/ Thu, 03 Dec 2015 10:00:03 -0500 https://ejf.io/android/app-indexing/ And, what’s the difference between App Indexing and Deep Linking? Deep Linking - Not new. Opening a link from search or any other app in your app. That same link that would normally open a web page, is opening the same (or very similar) content in your app. App Indexing - New-ish. Reporting back to Google what content and web addresses are being opened by users in your app. Allows for auto-complete of searches with app and previously visited content. https://ejf.io/android/support_lib/ Wed, 02 Dec 2015 13:40:11 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/support_lib/ On November 23 & 24, I attended the first ever Android Dev Summit. The following are notes that I took during talks. I have included the video of the talk as well. Again, these are my notes from the talk, not my original content. Chiu-Ki Chan (Android GDE) took really great notes during the session as well, here’s what she had: Support library by @chrisbanes and @adamwp #AndroidDevSummit #Sketchnotes pic.twitter.com/l3LurcYMeA https://ejf.io/android/intents/part6/ Tue, 01 Dec 2015 06:25:30 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/intents/part6/ This is the sixth post in a series about sharing information between apps. (Series Table of Contents.) In this post, I’m going to discuss some of the feedback that I’ve received so far on this topic. No code this time, but it’s an important part of the discussion, and is going to set the stage for the next few installments. Series Table of Contents Follow the series on the Table of Contents page. https://ejf.io/android/build_system/ Mon, 30 Nov 2015 07:00:53 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/build_system/ On November 23 & 24, I attended the first ever Android Dev Summit. The following are notes that I took during talks. I have included the video of the talk as well. Again, these are my notes from the talk, not my original content. Chiu-Ki Chan (Android GDE) took really great notes during the session as well, here’s what she had: The Android Build System by @droidxav @benol @dochez #AndroidDevSummit #Sketchnotes pic. https://ejf.io/android/android_studio_2/ Wed, 25 Nov 2015 07:30:24 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/android_studio_2/ On November 23 & 24, I attended the first ever Android Dev Summit. The following are notes that I took during talks. I have included the video of the talk as well. Again, these are my notes from the talk, not my original content. Chiu-Ki Chan (Android GDE) took really great notes during the session as well, here’s what she had: What's in New Android Studio by Jamal Eason & @droidxav & @tornorbye #AndroidDevSummit #Sketchnotes pic. https://ejf.io/android/notification_best_practices/ Wed, 25 Nov 2015 07:06:28 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/notification_best_practices/ On November 23 & 24, I attended the first ever Android Dev Summit. The following are notes that I took during talks. I have included the video of the talk as well. Again, these are my notes from the talk, not my original content. Not what you can do, as a developer, but what are the devices for? They’re for people. Respecting User Attention Don’t annoy the user Respect them Empower them Delight them Connect them to the people that they care about API Levels Discussed in this post will be the following: https://ejf.io/startups/ycombinator_visit/ Sun, 22 Nov 2015 13:43:01 -0800 https://ejf.io/startups/ycombinator_visit/ I recently paid a visit to the Y Combinator offices with some fellow Google Experts. Michael Seibel talked about the YC philosophy, and he answered questions from the group. His thoughts on international startups were particularly interesting. The general idea was that international startups can and should focus on their markets, which may be plenty big enough, but that they should probably beware of local investors (with the exception of China). https://ejf.io/random/content_promotion/ Fri, 20 Nov 2015 09:11:11 -0800 https://ejf.io/random/content_promotion/ I didn’t come up with the ideas here, these are my notes from a talk on lessons learned in how to do social media by Google’s social media team. Social media is a way for you to deliver your content to your audience. It’s a way for you to find your audience and for your audience to find you. It allows you to have a conversation with your audience. It allows you to learn about what your audience likes, and what they want more of. https://ejf.io/android/intents/part5/ Mon, 16 Nov 2015 07:46:57 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/intents/part5/ This is the fifth post in a series about sharing information between apps. (Series Table of Contents.) In this post, we’re going to create another demo of an Intents based API. Series Table of Contents Follow the series on the Table of Contents page. Finance Management App Let’s imagine a scenario, Mohammed has built an investing app. It allows users to buy stocks and build up a portfolio. His app is only available on smartphones. https://ejf.io/android/intents/part4/ Mon, 16 Nov 2015 06:13:04 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/intents/part4/ This is the fourth post in a series about sharing information between apps. (Series Table of Contents.) In this post, we’re going to look at an example of an app that provides a public API. Our Aviary example offers a solid example of why this sort of thing might be beneficial, so let’s get right into it! Series Table of Contents Follow the series on the Table of Contents page. https://ejf.io/android/intents/part3/ Mon, 09 Nov 2015 23:05:05 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/intents/part3/ This is the third post in a series about sharing information between apps. (Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.) In this post, we’re going to create a public API that allows other apps to use our app to speak something out loud. Series Table of Contents Follow the series on the Table of Contents page. Text to Speech Example Back to looking at code! Yay! We want to provide to other apps the ability to fire an intent at us, with some text, that will cause us to speak out the text passed in. https://ejf.io/android/intents/part2/ Mon, 09 Nov 2015 22:59:41 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/intents/part2/ This is the second post in a series about sharing information between apps. (Part 1 is here.) In this post, we’re going to discuss why it might be nice to have a public API exposed from a third party app. I’ll be providing videos that cover the text contents of these posts (plus insightful things), so if you want to watch instead of read, check out the video below: If you watched the video, feel free to skip to Part 3, where we’ll look at some code. https://ejf.io/android/intents/part1/ Sat, 07 Nov 2015 09:37:49 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/intents/part1/ This is the first post in a series about sharing information between apps. It will start with the basics, and move on to discuss how we might leverage this to do some interesting things. Additionally, I’ll be providing videos that cover the text contents of these posts (plus insightful things), so if you want to watch instead of read, check out the video below: Apologies for the quality of the video. https://ejf.io/android/intents/toc/ Fri, 06 Nov 2015 20:14:03 -0800 https://ejf.io/android/intents/toc/ This is the Table of Contents for a series of blog posts and videos about sharing information between apps. It will start with the basics, and move on to discuss how we might leverage this to do some interesting things. The following is the table of contents for the series: Part 1 - The basics Launch Activity (w/Extras) Launch Service Send Broadcast Part 2 - Why? Why do we want public APIs? https://ejf.io/coffee/fresh_beans/ Sun, 01 Nov 2015 13:30:36 -0800 https://ejf.io/coffee/fresh_beans/ https://ejf.io/fun/startup_unicorn_halloween/ Sun, 01 Nov 2015 09:58:35 -0800 https://ejf.io/fun/startup_unicorn_halloween/ This year, for Halloween, I was a startup unicorn. I wore my normal clothes (hoodie, t-shirt, and jeans) with a unicorn mask. I also had a thing of bubbles. I don’t think anybody got it (that I didn’t tell). Oh well. https://ejf.io/fun/dino_woman/ Sun, 01 Nov 2015 09:53:12 -0800 https://ejf.io/fun/dino_woman/ Last night, we were out to a party on Halloween in a neighborhood that really gets into it. Next door, there was a woman who had made an amazing costume. The photo doesn’t do it justice, she must have been on stilts, and the dino head moved around. It reminded me of the viking women in Kung Fury riding the dinosaurs. I’m not sure if that’s what she was, but either way, it was impressive. https://ejf.io/coffee/making_espresso/ Sun, 01 Nov 2015 09:44:41 -0800 https://ejf.io/coffee/making_espresso/ I wanted to play around with cutting a video together, and figured that pulling an espresso shot would be a good subject. So, the video is of me pulling a shot of espresso. Of course, I’m using my Expobar Office Lever Pro, Rancilio Rocky grinder, and some freshly roasted beans. https://ejf.io/food/carnitas/ Sun, 01 Nov 2015 09:37:15 -0800 https://ejf.io/food/carnitas/ Last night, Elizabeth and I had gotten home from a Halloween party, and after putting the baby to sleep, realized that we hadn’t had dinner. I found some frozen Costco carnitas meat in the freezer, and put it together with some corn taco shells. I quickly fried them up and topped them off with salsa and guacamole. https://ejf.io/food/chefsteps_will_be_my_downfall/ Thu, 15 Oct 2015 23:56:15 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/chefsteps_will_be_my_downfall/ Once in a while, at night, when I don’t feel like going to bed, I start watching YouTube videos on my Android TV. I really like watching YouTube on Android TV because it keeps auto-playing videos that are related, and I can basically just let it run without interference and watch stuff that I enjoy. Lately, it’s been a lot of Billy on the Street, which Elizabeth has gotten into as well. https://ejf.io/experiments/i_like_the_news/ Thu, 15 Oct 2015 10:31:50 -0700 https://ejf.io/experiments/i_like_the_news/ It turns out that I like the news. I’m ditching my ’no news’ experiment, and re-subscribing to the New York Times. My central complaint from before, about how the news media influences us, and may lead to us believing things that aren’t true. Thinking about this more, while there may be some truth to this, I think that cutting out the daily news may be a case of ‘perfect is the enemy of good’. https://ejf.io/experiments/no_news_is_good_news/ Wed, 07 Oct 2015 07:00:30 -0700 https://ejf.io/experiments/no_news_is_good_news/ Today, I cancelled my subscription to the New York Times. I like the Times, but the reason that I cancelled, aside from a couple of minor issues, was that I’m less sure that consuming the news on a daily basis is a good idea. I’ll start out with a big caveat to this post, I haven’t figured this out for myself yet. I still have a subscription to the Washington Post, because it’s in a free trial. https://ejf.io/coffee/happy_coffee_day/ Tue, 29 Sep 2015 14:24:10 -0700 https://ejf.io/coffee/happy_coffee_day/ May you always be heavily caffeinated, and never accidentally buy decaf.  That was from espresso #3 today. I think I’m ready for #4. Come talk coffee with us on the talk.coffee Slack community. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/docker_nginx_caching/ Mon, 21 Sep 2015 07:53:37 -0700 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/docker_nginx_caching/ Lately, I’ve been working on a little web utility that I decided to write in AngularJS. It started out as a couple of JSP pages, and I quickly realized why things like Angular exist. Anyways, if you don’t run AngularJS from a server, it’ll complain and want you to load internal bits with XHR. Obviously, you don’t want to do this. The solution is to fire up a server. https://ejf.io/food/weekend_of_food_2/ Sun, 20 Sep 2015 20:55:25 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/weekend_of_food_2/ This past weekend was another good weekend for food. While I didn’t go all out like I did Labor Day weekend, I still managed a few nice things. We had brunch, which was eggs Benedict with hollandaise sauce, hash browns, and a home made buttermilk biscuit. I used the immersion cooker for the eggs. I made the hollandaise the hard way, with a whisk, and it came out really pretty good. https://ejf.io/fun/bed_upgrade/ Sun, 20 Sep 2015 20:54:18 -0700 https://ejf.io/fun/bed_upgrade/ With a baby sharing our bed, the queen size was getting pretty cramped. We decided to upgrade. I had built our frame back when we were living in Boston, and it’s very sturdy. I decided that all I really needed to do was to create a platform that was the right size, using 2x4s, and that should be good enough. I was right, it worked out really well, and we continue to have a very solid bed. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/docker_cleanup_commands/ Sun, 20 Sep 2015 20:50:55 -0700 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/docker_cleanup_commands/ Running docker, creating and running containers can make a bit of a mess, depending on how you use it. After a couple weeks of using Docker for development, I figured that it would be good to figure out how to clean up my unused images and containers. Images To remove an image called ’node' docker rmi node To remove all untagged images docker rmi $(docker images -a | grep "^<none>" | awk '{print $3}') To remove all images https://ejf.io/dev_blog/mysql-java-docker/ Tue, 15 Sep 2015 09:08:29 -0700 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/mysql-java-docker/ Recently, I started working on a new server project at work, and wanted to be able to run a local dev environment with Docker. This has become my normal flow for a couple of server projects because of how easy Docker is to work with, and especially for the fact that I don’t need to set up any of the supporting structure on my machine to run the server. I really dislike needing to install things like Tomcat, Apache, or a MySQL server locally on my machine for development. https://ejf.io/coffee/expobar_review/ Thu, 10 Sep 2015 08:33:45 -0700 https://ejf.io/coffee/expobar_review/ I recently took the plunge on a new espresso machine. I had written a review of my previous machine, and how I had been frustrated and disappointed with it. After going without a real espresso machine for nearly two years, I thought that it was finally time to get back into it. I stumbled on the Expobar Office Lever, and realized that it was exactly what I was looking for. First, it was certainly a powerful machine, that I would need to grow into a bit. https://ejf.io/food/labor_day_weekend/ Tue, 08 Sep 2015 10:14:26 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/labor_day_weekend/ This weekend was an amazing weekend for food at home. I didn’t grill at all, but we ate well. I’ll share a couple of the meals that I made, one from Friday night, and the other from Monday’s dinner. I did make pancakes somewhere in there, but forgot about grabbing a photo. Endive Salad First up was Friday night’s dinner, a modified Warm Radicchio Salad, with endives instead of radicchio. The salad was topped with a freshly made chive oil. https://ejf.io/thoughts/life_vacation/ Tue, 08 Sep 2015 08:21:34 -0700 https://ejf.io/thoughts/life_vacation/ A friend recently posted the following quote on Facebook: “My goal is to create a life I don’t need a vacation from.” My first reaction was, “that is 100% my goal”. After having a child, and starting a real family, I’ve started thinking a lot more about longer term. There are two things for me that play into this. The first component for me is burnout. Marissa Mayer wrote a piece for Bloomberg on burnout that I thought was really interesting, and insightful. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/async_java_compare/ Tue, 08 Sep 2015 07:04:08 -0700 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/async_java_compare/ Recently, I was working on a problem at work that had some blocking calls that I thought I may not want to block on. My first instinct was to throw those requests into a thread-pool, but I also needed to get the values out of them. There are some obvious ways of doing this, but they all involve different trade-offs. I’m going to compare a few different methods of doing asynchronous work in Java, and try to think about the pros and cons of each. https://ejf.io/coffee/expobar_shot_video/ Wed, 02 Sep 2015 06:41:44 -0700 https://ejf.io/coffee/expobar_shot_video/ Expobar Office Lever Plus espresso shot I pulled this morning with a naked portafilter. No channeling, perfect shot.This is my second ever shot on this machine. First one went about exactly as smoothly. This is seriously the best piece of coffee equipment I’ve ever owned. I’m going need to try hard not to over-caffeinate myself. https://ejf.io/coffee/talk_coffee/ Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:23:12 -0700 https://ejf.io/coffee/talk_coffee/ I created a new community on Slack called talkcoffee. If you’re interested in talking coffee with myself and others on Slack, then go to the talk.coffee website and fill out the form. I’ll add you as soon as I can. Loading... https://ejf.io/thoughts/internet_interactions/ Sat, 29 Aug 2015 14:17:53 -0700 https://ejf.io/thoughts/internet_interactions/ A friend recently posted about being continually frustrated with seeing offensive posts on Facebook. It seems that she tended to interact with those sorts of posts, Facebook had learned that fact, and showed her more of what she interacted with. My initial advice was to lean on the ‘hide’ and ‘unfollow’ functions that Facebook offers. Then I started thinking a little more about my own behavior. Source XKCD I used to enjoy visiting the skeptic and atheist communities on Reddit quite a bit. https://ejf.io/thoughts/perfect_vs_good/ Thu, 27 Aug 2015 07:40:17 -0700 https://ejf.io/thoughts/perfect_vs_good/ Perfectionism can hurt your ability to accomplish your goals. It’s pretty simple, but the idea is that if you are a perfectionist, and you hold yourself to such a high standard that any sort of failure is unbearable then it will be very difficult to get things done, and you’ll likely be miserable. When you strive to be perfect, and try to uphold a very high standard, you’re dealing in morals and virtues. https://ejf.io/coffee/rok_manual_espresso/ Wed, 26 Aug 2015 07:40:03 -0700 https://ejf.io/coffee/rok_manual_espresso/ Thoughts on the ROK Manual Espresso machine, a completely manual way to pull decent shots of espresso. https://ejf.io/fun/home_gym/ Tue, 25 Aug 2015 07:20:12 -0700 https://ejf.io/fun/home_gym/ This is something that I have been meaning to write about for a while. A few months ago, I built a home gym. Or, I should say that I have started building a home gym, as there still is not much in the way of equipment. I bought a set of P90X3 DVDs, and realized that I needed a few things. While I really enjoyed the difficult workout sessions, my living room is simply not big enough to be jumping around, and doing all of the moves that they do in the program, at least not without bumping into the coffee table or television. https://ejf.io/food/sous_vide_eggs_benedict_hash_browns/ Sun, 23 Aug 2015 11:08:57 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/sous_vide_eggs_benedict_hash_browns/ This morning, I decided to try making eggs eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce, and a side of hash browns. I used the Chef Steps 75ºC egg recipe, along with their recipe for hollandaise sauce. I’ll give the short versions below, what’s really nice about these two recipes is that they are both cooked at the same temperature, so you can actually cook them at the same time. Hollandaise Ingredients list from Chef Steps: https://ejf.io/thoughts/shoulds/ Sat, 22 Aug 2015 21:09:31 -0700 https://ejf.io/thoughts/shoulds/ I used to think that there was a lot of stuff that I should do. I have many interests, and ideally would like to pursue as many as possible. I would make lists, and schedules, and invariably, not get to everything, or not follow the schedule at all. This, would typically lead to guilt, and a general feeling of “I’m not doing what I should be doing”. That I was feeling guilty and already not doing what I should be lead me to skip even more things that I felt I should be doing. https://ejf.io/fun/surf_dolphins/ Sat, 22 Aug 2015 10:08:21 -0700 https://ejf.io/fun/surf_dolphins/ I was out surfing before dawn this morning, at 6am, as I usually do on Saturday mornings. The waves were bigger than expected for near low tide, since there was a bit of wind. While I wasn’t doing so well at the actual surfing, I did happen to see one sea lion, and several dolphins swimming around. I felt like that made the trip well worth it. (Photo was taken back in early July. https://ejf.io/fun/pacifica_beach_day/ Fri, 21 Aug 2015 07:09:40 -0700 https://ejf.io/fun/pacifica_beach_day/ Last weekend, it was fairly hot in our area, so we took the opportunity to head to the beach. I was out surfing at Linda Mar in Pacifica at 7am, and a couple hours after returning home, we headed back there for some relaxing. Lydia had a great time playing. It was a fun and relaxing way to spend a hot day. https://ejf.io/tech_events/sfvr_10/ Fri, 21 Aug 2015 07:09:17 -0700 https://ejf.io/tech_events/sfvr_10/ Earlier this week, I headed to SFVR #10. I had attended their previous event, that included a Google Tango hackathon, and had a good enough time to want to come back. This event didn’t disappoint. There were a handful of demos that were pretty interesting. A couple games, some hardware accessories like an exercise bike as VR input. One especially interesting project was a very simple looking demo that showed how a smartphone (or a smartwatch) could be used for very accurate 2d input, using nothing but sound. https://ejf.io/food/pork_tacos/ Fri, 21 Aug 2015 07:00:25 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/pork_tacos/ Over the weekend, I bought a ton of meat and cooked it all on Sunday. I used the immersion cooker, and froze most of what I had made. From what I didn’t freeze, I took one pork chop, popped it in the food processor, and ground it up. I made pork tacos with it, and they were delicious. It’s pretty much just what you see there, pork, seasoned with taco seasoning and a sliced up chili pepper, lettuce, tomato, onion, and green onions. https://ejf.io/food/ramen/ Fri, 21 Aug 2015 06:57:24 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/ramen/ One of my favorite foods is Ramen, but I have never attempted to make it at home. It’s always seemed a bit daunting to me. My favorite Ramen dishes have included pork belly. Since I bought my immersion cooker, I’ve been thinking about trying this out. I didn’t have pork belly, but I did have a lot of really good bacon. So, I attempted to cook the bacon as if it were pork belly. https://ejf.io/food/that_sugar_film/ Fri, 14 Aug 2015 13:54:04 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/that_sugar_film/ A documentary about all the hidden sugar in “healthy” foods I read this article in the NY Times about an upcoming documentary, styled after “Super Size Me”, where a guy consumes 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. He does this while eating seemingly healthy foods. Reading that made me thankful for my wife, Elizabeth, who has been bringing this sort of thing to my attention for years, and has helped us to avoid this particular problem. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/talkray_on_chrome/ Fri, 14 Aug 2015 10:25:16 -0700 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/talkray_on_chrome/ And other Android apps! There’s a way to pull in Android apps into Chrome, and now have Talkray up and running on my laptop! Here’s hoping that Chrome support gets better. There are two versions of the how-to. The first is something that should work, but that I have not tested. The second, is what I actually did, though it is more work. What’s more, this should work for many different Android apps. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/hugo_site/ Fri, 14 Aug 2015 10:03:04 -0700 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/hugo_site/ Image Source When I decided to build a new website, I knew that I wanted to use a static site generator that could take in Markdown, and spit out HTML. I tried a handful of different options, none of which worked out of the box as advertised. Some were very difficult to install, some would crash when running, some would generate something, but not enough to really get going, and the documentation across the various options was all over the spectrum. https://ejf.io/security/ads/ Fri, 14 Aug 2015 07:24:14 -0700 https://ejf.io/security/ads/ As an experiment, I’ve decided to try out a couple of ad services, Google’s AdSense, and Amazon’s affiliate links. I don’t expect to make much at all from these, but I would like to poke around with them and see how they work. If ads on websites bother you, please read on. Last week, the EFF announced a new browser extension called Privacy Badger. The idea is that while websites should be able to monetize through advertisement, the ad networks should not be able to track you all over the web without your knowledge and approval. https://ejf.io/food/capellini_meat_sauce/ Thu, 13 Aug 2015 21:12:29 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/capellini_meat_sauce/ Tonight, I decided to go with a fairly simple pasta. The noodles are capellini, the cheese is pecorino romano, and it’s topped with a home made red sauce. The sauce was made with: canned whole peeled tomatoes tomato paste fresh garlic fresh basil ground beef shallots mushrooms olive oil Here’s how I made the sauce: Dice the shallots, a few cloves of garlic, and a few mushrooms, and put them into a pan with some olive oil. https://ejf.io/products/echo_review/ Thu, 13 Aug 2015 14:04:34 -0700 https://ejf.io/products/echo_review/ The Echo has definitely grown on me a lot, I have been surprised at how much use I’ve gotten out of it. I’m using it more than I expected to be, and now find myself frustrated with Google’s limited voice actions on other platforms. I’ve had mine since January 2015, and I use it throughout the day. It lives in the kitchen, and it’s primary uses are as follows: https://ejf.io/politics/political_correctness/ Mon, 10 Aug 2015 15:57:57 -0400 https://ejf.io/politics/political_correctness/ There was an article on Vox earlier today that I found very interesting. It was discussing the following tweet: I set up my web browser to automatically change "political correctness" to "treating people with respect" pic.twitter.com/yvNnqUWpNm — Byron Clark (@byronclarknz) August 4, 2015 I posted the above link on Facebook, and got a great response from a friend: The problem now with “political correctness” is that outrage is apparently the only permissible reaction to slights, real or perceived. https://ejf.io/politics/junior_citizens/ Mon, 10 Aug 2015 08:13:43 -0400 https://ejf.io/politics/junior_citizens/ Image source A few years ago, I was an independent consultant, doing various programming jobs for a handful of clients. I also was the project manager for a lot of the time, and was responsible for hiring and firing, making sure that people were getting things done, and that we were building quality stuff. Overall, it was a great experience, and I learned a ton. The rates that I was hiring at were quite low. https://ejf.io/politics/kids_who_die/ Thu, 06 Aug 2015 12:16:58 -0400 https://ejf.io/politics/kids_who_die/ https://ejf.io/politics/ceo_pay_ratio/ Thu, 06 Aug 2015 11:53:18 -0400 https://ejf.io/politics/ceo_pay_ratio/ Image source Wikipedia I was reading this article in the NY Times today that the SEC just passed a new rule requiring public companies to disclose the ratio of the CEO’s salary compared to that of the average worker. The article covers some of the arguments for and against. Transparency against logistical difficulties for multi-national corporations (where pay may vary wildly). There was also the question of whether or not the shareholders will find the data useful. https://ejf.io/products/notifications/ Wed, 05 Aug 2015 14:56:48 -0400 https://ejf.io/products/notifications/ Priority mode on stock Android A while back, there were a few months where I was wearing multiple smart wearables. The wearables were nice, but both of them subscribed to my phone’s notifications. Whenever I got an email, or a text, I would have three things on my body vibrating and making noise. Phone calls were the worst, because they would continuously vibrate and ring until I did something, and I was a little disoriented as to which one to interact with. https://ejf.io/politics/minimum_wage_increase/ Wed, 05 Aug 2015 08:28:11 -0400 https://ejf.io/politics/minimum_wage_increase/ Jens Rushing posted the following on Facebook recently: Fast food workers in NY just won a $15/hr wage. I’m a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of skills: interpersonal, medical, and technical skills, as well as the crucial skill of performing under pressure. I often make decisions on my own, in seconds, under chaotic circumstances, that impact people’s health and lives. I make $15/hr. And these burger flippers think they deserve as much as me? https://ejf.io/products/chrome_tab_suspension/ Tue, 04 Aug 2015 23:36:08 -0400 https://ejf.io/products/chrome_tab_suspension/ For those of you who are like me, and typically have 30-50+ tabs open in Chrome at a time, The Great Suspender might be a very useful extension for you. It allows you to suspend tabs to be reloaded when you actually visit them again. I get into a lot of situations where I’ll have a browser window dedicated to researching a specific topic, or poking around the docs of a project, or whatever. https://ejf.io/products/hoverboards/ Tue, 04 Aug 2015 20:30:18 -0400 https://ejf.io/products/hoverboards/ The past year seems to be the year of hoverboards. Last Spring, we had Tony Hawk, and Doc Brown screaming about HUVr, a real hoverboard that was even better than the one shown in Back to the Future. I was skeptical, the video looked fake, and I sort of figured that a real live hoverboard, at least the first generation, would not be so amazingly mind-blowing as the one in the video. https://ejf.io/security/github_email_stealing/ Tue, 04 Aug 2015 16:48:43 -0400 https://ejf.io/security/github_email_stealing/ Linus did not commit that. In the above, a vulnerability in GitHub is demonstrated where a user is able to steal another user’s identity by setting some local environment variables on their box. Hopefully, GitHub will update with a fix soon. Source Discussion on Hacker News https://ejf.io/dev_blog/intro_ejf/ Tue, 04 Aug 2015 08:33:41 -0400 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/intro_ejf/ Hello to whomever is reading this, you’ve landed on my new blog. This will be my primary collection of junk on the web. I’ve never been super happy with having my content live outside of my control, and this effort intends to fix that issue. That basically means that I will be posting here a lot, and share this content out with to other outlets. This is a work-in-progress. I’ve already imported three separate blog’s worth of content here, and I’m continuing to add the things that I’d like to keep. https://ejf.io/products/google_plus_is_dead/ Mon, 03 Aug 2015 23:34:44 -0400 https://ejf.io/products/google_plus_is_dead/ On the “Google+ is Dead” Meme There seems to be renewed interest in the “Google+ is dead” meme from both media outlets and users. I’m not sure, but I would say that from my perspective, it doesn’t look great. At best, it seems like we’re going to find out if the core offering of Google+ is going to succeed or fail on its own, without the support of all the other Google services propping up its numbers. https://ejf.io/politics/trump_troll/ Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:48:33 -0400 https://ejf.io/politics/trump_troll/ I’ve definitely thought that Trump was trolling the GOP for a while, but haven’t been able to come up with a coherent story on why. This is one possibility, but I’m not sure that I buy it completely. I really don’t think that Trump is a dumb guy, and I don’t think that he would be saying this type of stuff if he were sincerely after the presidency. But, as I said, I haven’t been able to figure out what he might want to get out of such a massive trolling effort (not that I really understand trolls to begin with). https://ejf.io/fun/new_freebord/ Sat, 01 Aug 2015 13:50:00 -0400 https://ejf.io/fun/new_freebord/ I went out on my new Freebord today for the first time. A Freebord is not a skatboard. The idea is that it’s like a snowboard for the streets, I can’t attest to that quite yet, as I haven’t ever gotten good enough with it to compare the two. If you take a look at the photo, you’ll notice that it’s got six wheels, the center two are on casters, that rotate 360º, which enables you to slide on pavement and make similar maneuvers to that of a snowboard. https://ejf.io/politics/china_hacking_response/ Sat, 01 Aug 2015 10:13:48 -0400 https://ejf.io/politics/china_hacking_response/ There’s a really interesting discussion in here of what types of attacks might constitute different types of responses. The biggest take away is that the government doesn’t know how it should respond to this most recent attack, because it’s never happened before. https://ejf.io/coffee/nitro_cold_brew/ Thu, 30 Jul 2015 08:00:54 -0400 https://ejf.io/coffee/nitro_cold_brew/ There is a coffee shop in San Jose, B2 Coffee, that does nitro cold brew. I always grab a cup when I’m in the area. When I was in Canada the other weekend, I was looking around for coffee shops and saw one close by that had posted on their site that they were getting a nitro system in for their cold brew. I went there and was disappointed to learn that it wouldn’t be installed for another week, long after I was gone. https://ejf.io/food/carbonara_poached_egg/ Wed, 29 Jul 2015 12:42:39 -0700 https://ejf.io/food/carbonara_poached_egg/ Tonight was a carbonara with a sous vide poached egg on top, and some parsley for garnish. It was amazing. Holy cow, the egg came out perfectly, exactly as I wanted it. It all came together very well, with some minor issues. I had to make a couple of substitutions, typically carbonara has pancetta for meat, and pecorino for cheese. The grocery stores in the middle of nowhere don’t carry such fancy items, so I had to make due with bacon and romano cheese. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/building-a-docker-image-from-scratch/ Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:28:15 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/building-a-docker-image-from-scratch/ Building a docker image from scratch This post assumes that you have a working docker environment already set up. Here are the really simple instructions: create a Dockerfile open the Dockerfile add a FROM statement with a base image add a RUN statement for running whatever setup commands are needed add any additional RUN statements necessary add a COPY statement for copying stuff over from the local filesystem run docker build -t user/image_name:v1 . https://ejf.io/products/rick_and_morty_instagame/ Thu, 23 Jul 2015 13:20:52 -0400 https://ejf.io/products/rick_and_morty_instagame/ Wow, Rick and Morty have a game on… Instagram. I’m sure others have done this before, but it’s the first of its kind that I’ve seen, and is really slick. If you visit the profile page, it’s got a large mosaic image. Go into one of the images, and see if there’s a tag to another profile. Click on the other profile, and go to a new profile with a new mosaic, with something new to explore. https://ejf.io/startups/a16z_whats_going_on/ Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:29:48 -0400 https://ejf.io/startups/a16z_whats_going_on/ What’s going on with US tech funding? U.S. Technology Funding -- What's Going On? from a16z https://ejf.io/dev_blog/using-cardboard-with-unsupported-vr-viewers/ Tue, 02 Jun 2015 06:21:11 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/using-cardboard-with-unsupported-vr-viewers/ Using Cardboard with unsupported VR viewers The Project Tango booth at Google I/O 2015 On Saturday, I was hanging out with some friends at the SFVR Project Tango Hackathon & VR Expo. The Tango team had handed out Tango devices and Durovis Dive 7 VR masks to develop with. I was feeling pretty dead from Google I/O, and the surrounding parties, but Etienne Caron and Dario Laverde were busy doing their best to build something on the Tango using the Cardboard SDK. https://ejf.io/io15/devtools/ Thu, 28 May 2015 00:13:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/io15/devtools/ What’s new in Android Development Tools Design Tools Faster Emulator NDK Design Android Design Support Library, backwards compatible. Vector drawables Auto-generate the correct asset sizes at build time, may decrease apk size. Allows adding tint programtically (check on that one). Visual Design Editors Don’t need to rely solely on xml editors. Develop Gradle Plugin post 1.0 Correctness Performance NDK Testing Build Steps Performance Jack compiles straight from Java to Dex file PNG Cruncher much faster Coming: aapt Gradle Overhead Building the Model Flavor Build Type Variants …? https://ejf.io/io15/battery/ Thu, 28 May 2015 00:11:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/io15/battery/ Battery Performance for Android Colt McAnlis | +ColtMcAnlis | @duhroach #perfmatters The more things you do, the more battery you use. A study by Purdue University showed that only 25-30% of battery usage is for intended use. The other 70% is being eaten by other things like GPS, Ads, etc. Defer work until the best time for battery Battery Problems Networking There’s a round trip that may happen if you wake up the chip to do a network request. https://ejf.io/io15/containers/ Thu, 28 May 2015 00:10:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/io15/containers/ Containers to back your mobile app Brian Dorsey | +BrianDorsey | @briandorsey How to run backend systems for mobile apps. Why have a mobile backend at all? It enables you to do things that you couldn’t do without a backend. It’s a pain. VM - Cluster -… Containers Nice way to wrap up Linux binaries, and make it portable. So it doesn’t just “work on my machine”. Runs everywhere. Kubernetes Manage applications, not machines. https://ejf.io/io15/keynote/ Thu, 28 May 2015 00:09:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/io15/keynote/ Setting the Stage - IO15 Keynote We walked into a room with a wraparound display around three-quarters of the large room on the third floor of Moscone, that was showing a slick looking wallpaper with floating graphs, and ones and zeros. The wallpaper animation was interrupted for a few games of pong played from end to end on what must be a five hundred foot long display. From there, we saw a Rube Goldburg running on the screen, where they took advantage of the fact that it had been filmed, and took sections in slow motion. https://ejf.io/products/smashed_apple_watch/ Mon, 27 Apr 2015 09:50:46 -0400 https://ejf.io/products/smashed_apple_watch/ Image from Weibo Some people have been reporting that their Apple Watch screens are breaking easily. I cannot imagine that Apple didn’t both test this, and know that this was likely to happen. This is the sort of thing that will very quickly put a damper on enthusiasm for a new form factor. Apple has not been handling this particularly well either. I saw one guy quote Apple saying that it would cost him over $200 to repair. https://ejf.io/startups/how_to_start_a_startup/ Sat, 28 Mar 2015 14:18:22 -0700 https://ejf.io/startups/how_to_start_a_startup/ For anyone who’s curious about startups, there is an excellent podcast series called “How to Start A Startup” (first episode in video form is the above video). It’s a Stanford class, run by Y Combinator (the premier startup accelerator, of which TiKL is an alum), and it goes through just about every conceivable aspect of how to start a startup. While all of the content applies to the specific type of company that startups are, there are really excellent episodes on all sorts of things that people with different interests, and roles will find useful. https://ejf.io/products/nautilus_vr/ Fri, 13 Mar 2015 15:19:23 -0400 https://ejf.io/products/nautilus_vr/ Yesterday, a post showed up in my Google+ feed from a friend talking about Project Nautilus VR. Project Nautilus VR is a Cardboard clone that adds a full face-mask and snorkel to be used underwater. That’s right, underwater VR. And no, this is not a joke, as far as I can tell. That’s right, underwater VR. Nautilus VR in its natural habitat While Project Nautilus VR is an interesting application of VR, I really can’t believe that they’re actually launching this. https://ejf.io/coffee/baratza_grinder_repair/ Tue, 20 Jan 2015 13:58:20 -0700 https://ejf.io/coffee/baratza_grinder_repair/ This weekend, I was preparing a batch of cold brew coffee in my Toddy, and I accidentally broke my grinder. The basket had filled up with grinds and backed up into the burrs. After spending hours cleaning the thing out, I was able to get it back to turning on, but was getting a very inconsistent, very coarse grind. After doing some research, and looking on Baratza’s website, I found that one of the common problems is that one of the burr holders has these little tabs that are designed to break off in the event that things get jammed up, to protect the rest of the machine. https://ejf.io/tech_events/environs/ Fri, 26 Dec 2014 19:06:40 +0000 https://ejf.io/tech_events/environs/ Help for running Android code workshops. Environs is a VM image that can be downloaded to help run Android based workshops. It is a VirtualBox image built off of Ubuntu, and includes the latest Android SDK and Android Studio. Background Earlier this year, I ran my first Google Glass workshop. I learned exactly one thing, people will spend most of the time getting their environments set up, and very little time on the content that you want to get through. https://ejf.io/wearables/some-thoughts-on-smart-wearables/ Sun, 16 Nov 2014 00:26:32 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/some-thoughts-on-smart-wearables/ Some Thoughts on Smart Wearables People said similar things about mobile internet devices (Smartphones, old Windows Phones, PDAs, Nokia Internet Tablets) to what some are now saying about Glass. Back before the iPhone, and really for several years after Android’s introduction, people kept asking why they needed to be able to check their email when they were away from their desk, as if that’s all a smartphone was good for. There was a niche market for this that BlackBerry did a great job of serving. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/going-from-google-glass-mirror-api-quick-start-to/ Mon, 03 Nov 2014 16:57:12 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/going-from-google-glass-mirror-api-quick-start-to/ Going from Google Glass Mirror API Quick Start to Product At this point, you should have either the Java or the Python Mirror API Quick Start up and running. If you do not, please check out this post, and this post (apologies that I don’t have one for Python, just Java). This post is going to discuss how to use the quick start projects to begin making progress on your product. https://ejf.io/thoughts/10k_myth/ Mon, 29 Sep 2014 15:41:35 -0700 https://ejf.io/thoughts/10k_myth/ There was an article on Slate recently, called Practice Does Not Make Perfect, the following is my response to that article. Image Source These sorts of articles really bug me. They might as well have titled it, “Don’t even try, unless you have some sort of natural ability”. That advice might play well for the handful of savants who are exceptionally good at something when they’re young, but doesn’t really mean anything for the rest of us. https://ejf.io/wearables/android_wear/android-wear-ux/ Mon, 04 Aug 2014 23:18:46 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/android_wear/android-wear-ux/ Android Wear UX Android Wear UX I saw the news today about WhatsApp releasing a beta version of their app with Android Wear support. It got me thinking about what makes for a good experience, especially on wearables. This is something that I do think about quite a bit, but I haven’t written a lot about. One thing that popped into my head was that my co-worker and I had solved some of the same problems on our app, Talkray, that WhatsApp is trying to address. https://ejf.io/wearables/android_wear/android-wear-sdk-ux-and-data-syncing/ Wed, 30 Jul 2014 15:40:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/android_wear/android-wear-sdk-ux-and-data-syncing/ Android Wear SDK - UX and Data Syncing Last, night, I gave a talk on the Android Wear SDK at Hacker Dojo. It was listed in a couple meetup groups, and we had about a hundred people show up for the event! The large event room in the Dojo was packed! The main focus of the talk was on UX and data syncing between the phone and the watch. Video Slides Hearty. https://ejf.io/tech_events/results-pre-io-google-glass-hackathon/ Thu, 10 Jul 2014 16:08:52 +0000 https://ejf.io/tech_events/results-pre-io-google-glass-hackathon/ Results - Pre-I/O Google Glass Hackathon The results are in. We have a series of videos of most of the presentations, captured by John Scott. First place: Calligraphr Calligraphr improves the Chinese calligraphy learning experience with augmented reality. The project interactive character animations on a piece of real paper. User can simply trace down the character with a brush pen. Second place: Outcome Tracker Outcome is an application for Glass that allows you to access information about a client easily and check off any objectives you want them to achieve during your meeting. https://ejf.io/tech_events/how-to-run-a-hackathon/ Wed, 09 Jul 2014 18:34:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/tech_events/how-to-run-a-hackathon/ How to run a hackathon. About three months ago, I decided it would be a good idea to run a hackathon. I suppose that I thought that it would be fun, and that I’d probably learn something, since I had never run one of these before. The truth is, I had not attended that many hackathons either. No matter, I was decided. About This post is going to give an outline of what went into the planning, mainly different details and considerations. https://ejf.io/tech_events/the-story-hackathon/ Wed, 02 Jul 2014 16:20:30 +0000 https://ejf.io/tech_events/the-story-hackathon/ The Story - Hackathon About three months ago, I decided it would be a good idea to run a hackathon. I suppose that I thought that it would be fun, and that I’d probably learn something, since I had never run one of these before. The truth is, I had not attended that many hackathons either. No matter, I was decided. This post discusses how the event planning got on its feet initially. https://ejf.io/tech_events/thank-you/ Mon, 30 Jun 2014 16:02:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/tech_events/thank-you/ THANK YOU! After months of planning, the Pre-I/O Google Glass Hackathon is finally over, and I couldn’t have done it without the help of a bunch of people. Sponsors First, a huge thank you to our sponsors, who made this event both possible, and worthwhile for all of our participants. Entangled Ventures was the first to step up, and basically underwrite the event. They secured a great venue, as well as contributing prize money. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/lowfreqlivecard-example-of-a-low-frequency/ Mon, 19 May 2014 15:53:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/lowfreqlivecard-example-of-a-low-frequency/ LowFreqLiveCard - Example of a low frequency LiveCard using GDK for Google Glass I wrote an example of a low frequency LiveCard using GDK for Google Glass. The master branch uses Gradle, the legacy branch is able to be imported into Eclipse. This code is heavily based on the Live Card documentation on the GDK section of the Glass developer docs. The reason that I wanted to do this was that I wanted something that required as little code as possible to run. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/witness-a-simple-android-and-java-event-emitter/ Mon, 19 May 2014 15:18:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/witness-a-simple-android-and-java-event-emitter/ Witness, a simple Android and Java Event Emitter Source. I found this in an image search for ‘witness’. Had to use it. =) I’ve been working on a project for Google Glass and Android that requires asynchronous messages to be passed around between threads. In the past, I’ve used Square’s Otto for this, but I wasn’t thrilled with the performance. Additionally, Otto makes some assumptions about which thread to run on, and how many threads to run with, that I wasn’t crazy about. https://ejf.io/tech_events/pre-io-glass-hackathon-announcement/ Mon, 12 May 2014 16:56:26 +0000 https://ejf.io/tech_events/pre-io-glass-hackathon-announcement/ Pre-I/O Glass Hackathon Announcement! Finally, I have enough of the major pieces in place to be able to make a real announcement about this! Come hack with us! The weekend before Google I/O 2014, we are holding a 24 hour hackathon to build Glassware for Education. Smart Glass and Wearables will be enabling innovation across many industries in the coming years, one such field is Education. Entangled Ventures has a special interest in seeing leaps forward in Education using technologies like Google Glass. https://ejf.io/wearables/are-wearables-doomed/ Fri, 02 May 2014 15:59:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/are-wearables-doomed/ Are Wearables Doomed? A number of articles have appeared in the last week, asking if wearables have already peaked. I think that the answer is a solid no. I’m going to break this down into a few parts, tracking devices, health and smart wearables (Glass, smart watches, etc.). Tracking While, I do think that the fitness tracking space is limited, I think that has to do with the appeal of these devices. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-9-gdk-with-eclipse/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:37:02 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-9-gdk-with-eclipse/ IDE Imports Part 9 - GDK with Eclipse This is the ninth of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This post will cover importing a GDK project into Eclipse. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-8-java-mirror-with-eclipse/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:25:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-8-java-mirror-with-eclipse/ IDE Imports Part 8 - Java Mirror with Eclipse This is the eighth of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This post will cover importing the Java Mirror Quick Start project into Eclipse. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-7-legacy-gdk-with-android/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:15:28 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-7-legacy-gdk-with-android/ IDE Imports Part 7 - Legacy GDK with Android Studio This is the seventh of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This post will cover importing a Legacy GDK project into Android Studio. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-6-java-mirror-with-android/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:07:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-6-java-mirror-with-android/ IDE Imports Part 6 - Java Mirror with Android Studio This is the sixth of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This post will cover importing the Java Mirror Quick Start project into Android Studio. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-5-gradle-gdk-with-android/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 04:56:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-5-gradle-gdk-with-android/ IDE Imports Part 5 - Gradle GDK with Android Studio This is the fifth of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This post will cover importing a Gradle GDK project into Android Studio. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-4-java-mirror-with-intellij/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 04:42:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-4-java-mirror-with-intellij/ IDE Imports Part 4 - Java Mirror with IntelliJ This is the fourth of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This post will cover importing the Java Mirror Quick Start project into IntelliJ. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-3-gradle-gdk-with-intellij/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 01:27:48 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-3-gradle-gdk-with-intellij/ IDE Imports Part 3 - Gradle GDK with IntelliJ This is the third of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This post will cover importing a Gradle GDK project into IntelliJ. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-2-legacy-gdk-with-intellij/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 00:59:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-2-legacy-gdk-with-intellij/ IDE Imports Part 2 - legacy GDK with IntelliJ This is the second of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This post will cover importing a legacy style GDK project into IntelliJ. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-1-git-clone/ Mon, 28 Apr 2014 00:08:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/ide-imports-part-1-git-clone/ IDE Imports Part 1 - git clone This is the first of a series of posts discussing how to get Google Glass Mirror (Java) and GDK projects set up in various IDEs. One of the most common questions that I get from people during workshops is how to get set up either the Mirror quick start, or the GDK project into Eclipse, Android Studio or IntelliJ. This first post will simply cover pulling down a project from GitHub. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/hearing-aid-glassware/ Sun, 13 Apr 2014 23:37:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/hearing-aid-glassware/ Hearing Aid Glassware Image source Last night, I received an interesting email from Ajay Kohli. I met Ajay at the CodeChix Glass workshop back in February. He’s a Med Student, working at Kaiser, as well as a Glass Explorer. When I met him, he was very excited about the possibilities for using Glass in hospitals to assist physicians with all sorts of things, in particular during surgery. Anyways, his email mentioned that he was working with a cochlea surgeon, and they were discussing a rather interesting application for Google Glass. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/google-glass-mirror-api-java-quick-start/ Mon, 07 Apr 2014 16:16:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/google-glass-mirror-api-java-quick-start/ Google Glass Mirror API Java Quick Start I recently ran a workshop at Andreessen Horowitz, which was an introduction to Google Glass. It was a lot of fun, so I figured that I would create a screencast out of the content. This is the second of two posts on the subject. This one is discussing the Mirror API Java Quick Start. Part 1 may be found here. Related Material: All slides: http://goo. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/a-high-level-look-at-the-mirror-api/ Mon, 07 Apr 2014 16:14:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/a-high-level-look-at-the-mirror-api/ A high-level look at the Mirror API I recently ran a workshop at Andreessen Horowitz, which was an introduction to Google Glass. It was a lot of fun, so I figured that I would create a screencast out of the content. This is the first of two posts on the subject. This one is discussing the Mirror API at a high level. Part 2 may be found here. Related Material: https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/why-buy-google-glass/ Fri, 04 Apr 2014 16:13:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/why-buy-google-glass/ Why buy Google Glass? … or any other smart wearable? There have been several recent posts on how Google Glass is a failure, written by so-called tech experts. Here’s a quick list, I’m sure you can find more: How Google Fumbled Glass — and How to Save It +Robert Scoble - Context. One Of Google’s Biggest Fans Calls Glass ‘An Expensive Nightmare’ On top of that, one third of early wearable adopters have stopped wearing them already. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/my-take-on-nprs-glass-story/ Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:48:51 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/my-take-on-nprs-glass-story/ My take on NPR’s Glass story NPR ran a story on distracted driving and legal challenges with Google Glass on All Things Considered The piece highlights some of the legal issues, states proposing legislation that would mark wearing Glass on the road as distracted driving. Unfortunately, the politicians do not seem to understand Glass, and the Explorer that they interviewed was allowing himself to be distracted by Glass while driving, reading off Field Trips information and claiming that it was OK because the screen was transparent. https://ejf.io/wearables/samsung-gear-how-to-fail-at-ux/ Fri, 21 Mar 2014 17:35:03 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/samsung-gear-how-to-fail-at-ux/ Samsung Gear - how to fail at UX These devices look interesting, and I’m very excited about smart wearables shipping with built-in heart rate monitors. However, it looks like Samsung has totally failed on the UX front. These things look incredibly cumbersome to interact with. Specifically, in clip of setting the wallpaper, when the wallpaper is selected, why are they returning the user to the wallpaper selection screen, as opposed to going straight back to the home screen? https://ejf.io/dev_blog/aws-s3-utils-for-nodejs/ Thu, 20 Mar 2014 18:11:46 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/aws-s3-utils-for-nodejs/ AWS S3 utils for node.js I just published my first package on npm! It’s a helper for S3 that I wrote. It does three things, it lists your buckets, gets a URL pair with key, and deletes media upon request. The URL pair is probably the most important, because this allows you to have clients that put things on S3 without those clients having any credentials. They can simply make a request to your sever for a URL pair, and then use those URLs to put the thing in your bucket, as well as a public GET URL, so that anyone can go get it out. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/glassgif-notes-for-a-live-coding-session-using/ Thu, 13 Mar 2014 05:17:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/glassgif-notes-for-a-live-coding-session-using/ GlassGif - Notes for a live coding session using the GDK This post is intended to serve as a guide to building a GDK app, and I will be using it as I build one live on stage. The code that will be discussed here is mostly UI, building the Activity and Fragments, as opposed to dealing with lower level stuff, or actually building GIFs. If you’re interested, the code for building GIFs is included in the library project that I’ll be using throughout, ReusableAndroidUtils. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/hacking-glass-101-video-from-the-meetup/ Mon, 03 Mar 2014 22:43:12 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/hacking-glass-101-video-from-the-meetup/ Hacking Glass 101 - Video from the meetup The following are videos from the Hacking Glass 101 meetup, held at Hacker Dojo on 2/18/2014. My talk on Mirror API, Mirror from Android and node.js: Here are some extra resources from my talk. Demo of Play Chord GDK Glassware, by Tejas Lagvankar: Lawrence had some technical difficulties with his GDK presentation, but here’s what he was able to cover: Dave Martinez wrapped everything up for us: https://ejf.io/dev_blog/crashlytics-is-awesome/ Wed, 19 Feb 2014 20:57:40 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/crashlytics-is-awesome/ Crashlytics is awesome! I recently started playing with Crashlytics for an app that I’m working on. I needed better crash reporting than what Google Play was giving me. I had used HockeyApp for work, and I really like that service. My initial thought was to go with HA, but as I started looking around, I noticed that Crashlytics offers a free enterprise level service. No down-side to trying it! I gave it a shot, they do a nice job with Intellij and Gradle integration for their Android SDK, so setting up my project was quite easy. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/mirroring-google-glass-on-your-desktop/ Wed, 19 Feb 2014 00:44:21 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/mirroring-google-glass-on-your-desktop/ Mirroring Google Glass on your Desktop http://neatocode.tumblr.com/post/49566072064/mirroring-google-glass I’m using this for a talk I’m giving tonight. Very useful! neatocode: Google’s new wearable heads up display is being shipped out to the first wave of people who signed up to be testers and is showing up more and more at meetups and hackathons. Here’s how to display the output of Google Glass on a desktop or laptop. It’s extremely handy when presenting and demoing! https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/mirror-api-for-google-glass/ Mon, 17 Feb 2014 01:00:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/mirror-api-for-google-glass/ Mirror API for Google Glass I’m giving a few talks on the Mirror API for Google Glass, and I needed to organize some thoughts on it. I figured that writing a blog post would a good way to do that. Here is the slide deck for the shared content of my Mirror talks: Since I don’t want to miss anything, I’m going to follow the structure of the slides in this post. https://ejf.io/fun/a-bit-of-a-diversion-its-really-fun-to-play/ Thu, 13 Feb 2014 01:52:08 +0000 https://ejf.io/fun/a-bit-of-a-diversion-its-really-fun-to-play/ A bit of a diversion; it’s really fun to play! prostheticknowledge: Sesame Street Fighter Sesame Street meets Street Fighter in this typing game put together by cocoalasca. Created in HTML5 and Processing.js, you have to type words as fast as you can to hit the opponent, but the stronger the character, the harder the vocabulary. Try it out for yourself here https://ejf.io/dev_blog/demos-using-aws-with-nodejs-and-an-angularjs/ Sat, 01 Feb 2014 19:45:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/demos-using-aws-with-nodejs-and-an-angularjs/ Demos using AWS with Node.JS and an AngularJS frontend I recently decided to build some reusable code for a bunch of projects that I’ve got queued up. I wanted some backend components that leveraged a few of the highly scalable Amazon AWS services. This ended up taking me a month to finish, which is way longer than the week that I had intended to spend on it. (It was a month of nights and weekends, not as much free time as I’d hoped for in January. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/hacking-crappy-customer-support/ Wed, 29 Jan 2014 18:51:14 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/hacking-crappy-customer-support/ Hacking Crappy Customer Support The Situation We had an issue at work the other week. Basically, we were running into some pretty serious problems with one of the SAAS services that we use (I will leave which one to the reader’s imagination). This is a mission critical service for a couple of our offerings, and it’s not particularly cheap, at $200/month for the pro service (which is what we have). This is a service that is structured in such a way that for anybody that uses it, it’s likely to be a mission critical service. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/netflix-and-audible-on-glass/ Wed, 29 Jan 2014 18:39:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/netflix-and-audible-on-glass/ Netflix (and Audible) on Glass! Did you know that you could install regular Android apps on Glass? What’s more, some of them don’t crash immediately, and actually kind of work! This one’s pretty simple, here’s what you’re going to need: Google Glass Bluetooth keyboard and mouse Settings.apk Ability to get apks for whatever apps you want to install Android SDK installed Ability to build and install Android apps from source I’m not going to post links to apps’ apks, because that’s not cool. https://ejf.io/experiments/going-back-to-cds/ Wed, 29 Jan 2014 00:02:49 +0000 https://ejf.io/experiments/going-back-to-cds/ Going back to CDs After more than a decade of getting my music almost exclusively via digital distribution channels (yes, legal ones), I’ve decided to go back to CDs. I started a project of ripping all of my CDs into several formats, mp3s for the car, Apple Lossless for listening on my Macs, and FLAC for my phone. I have a DAC, and decent headphones, and I’ve started to be able to hear the difference in quality between streaming music, and lossless stuff that I have locally. https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/the-space-monkey-upgrade-scam/ Wed, 01 Jan 2014 05:46:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/the-space-monkey-upgrade-scam/ The Space Monkey Upgrade Scam Earlier this year, Space Monkey launched their Kickstarter campaign for their device and service. Before I get into my issue, I’ll give you a short background. About Space Monkey Space Monkey is a cloud storage solution that offers 1TB of storage for $10/month, by doing things a little differently. They give you a device to use, you put your files on the device, your data is encrypted on the device, then chunked up and backed up across their network via Bittorrent. https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/verizon-support-call-quality/ Fri, 13 Dec 2013 19:14:47 +0000 https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/verizon-support-call-quality/ Verizon Support Call Quality Why is the call quality of Verizon’s support so terrible? They are supposed to be a telecom company, which is usually supposed to mean that they’re going to be responsible for handling all of your calls. So, why is the quality of their support lines so poor? I’m not talking the service that the reps give, that’s a whole other story. It seems like if you have a call with perfect clarity, it should be to the mothership. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/google-glass-with-stereo-earbuds-my-new-stereo/ Wed, 04 Dec 2013 23:18:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/google-glass-with-stereo-earbuds-my-new-stereo/ Google Glass with stereo earbuds. My new stereo earbuds came in today, and I’m pretty excited about them. The stereo earbuds are the single biggest improvement I’ve seen in Glass so far. The bone conduction speaker was interesting, but inaudible in most normal situations. This is going to allow me to actually use Glass for several different things that while possible, was impractical before, like using it as a headset for calling, listening to music and being able to actually hear directions. https://ejf.io/android/an-android-app-to-slow-your-test-device-down/ Tue, 26 Nov 2013 16:40:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/an-android-app-to-slow-your-test-device-down/ An Android app to slow your test device down. I’ve got a bunch of Android devices at my desk, most of which are several years old. I need them for testing the apps that I work on, both to make sure that they work consistently across OEMs, but also to see how the app performs on older devices. The problem that I kept running into was that the old devices would feel faster than my newer phone, simply because there wasn’t as much running on them. https://ejf.io/android/intel-haxm-on-os-x-109-mavericks-is-broken/ Tue, 05 Nov 2013 19:24:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/intel-haxm-on-os-x-109-mavericks-is-broken/ Intel HAXM on OS X 10.9 Mavericks is broken HAXM is an Intel driver for running a hardware accelerated version of the Android emulator. It works really, really, really well. When it works. However, there appears to be a bug in the latest version of OS X where trying to load a HAXM accelerated Android emulator will cause a kernel panic, and you’ll need to kill your Mac. Here’s the link to the thread on Intel’s forums: http://software. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/talkray-special-delivery-we-got-a-special/ Thu, 31 Oct 2013 23:59:24 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/talkray-special-delivery-we-got-a-special/ talkray: Special Delivery! We got a special delivery here at the TiKL office today, a brand new Nexus 5. As soon as we opened it, we booted it up, and installed Talkray on it. It is a fantastic device. Fun day at work! https://ejf.io/dev_blog/python-sweetness-how-to-lose-172222-a-second/ Sat, 26 Oct 2013 16:42:56 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/python-sweetness-how-to-lose-172222-a-second/ python sweetness: How to lose $172,222 a second for 45 minutes http://pythonsweetness.tumblr.com/post/64740079543/how-to-lose-172-222-a-second-for-45-minutes The actual loss was $465M, as opposed to $172,222. Regardless, it’s a good read. pythonsweetness: This is probably the most painful bug report I’ve ever read, describing in glorious technicolor the steps leading to Knight Capital’s $465m trading loss due to a software bug that struck late last year, effectively bankrupting the company. The tale has all the hallmarks of technical debt in a… https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/connecting-to-a-captive-portal-on-glass/ Wed, 23 Oct 2013 02:26:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/connecting-to-a-captive-portal-on-glass/ Connecting to a captive portal on Glass I figured out a work-around for wifi networks that have a specific type of captive portal. I’m actually at an Informal Glass Office Hours right now at the Hacker Dojo, who happen to have a captive portal. The Hacker Dojo’s wifi is set up such that you can connect to their network, then when you visit the Dojo’s web page, it redirects you to the captive portal, where all you need to do is click the ‘agree’ button. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/kaiser-permanente-administrators-barged-into-my/ Mon, 21 Oct 2013 23:07:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/kaiser-permanente-administrators-barged-into-my/ Kaiser Permanente Administrators barged into my exam room Executive Summary I had three hospital administrators barge in on me in an exam room the other day. I feel that this was inappropriate, and that the situation could have been handled in a more professional manner. I had submitted the following as a complaint to Kaiser, which they claim they respond to within two business days. That was two weeks ago. I was not going to publish this if they had responded even within two weeks. https://ejf.io/experiments/soylent-weekly-recap-106/ Thu, 10 Oct 2013 03:30:47 +0000 https://ejf.io/experiments/soylent-weekly-recap-106/ Soylent: Weekly Recap 10/6 http://blog.soylent.me/post/63348494473/weekly-recap-10-6 Looking forward to getting my week’s worth of Soylent in a couple months. Really curious as to whether that will be sufficient for me to switch over most of my meals. soylentme: First off, apologies for those who have been checking their emails for Backerkit invites — turns out we needed a few customizations made by the Backerkit team before we could get started. We’ll start rolling out invites on Monday. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/tikl-on-glass/ Mon, 30 Sep 2013 22:12:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/tikl-on-glass/ TiKL on Glass This weekend, my co-worker, Darrel, and I (we work for TiKL, Inc. - YC W12) attended a Google Glass hackathon a Markerly’s headquarters in Menlo Park. We were working on a version of TiKL, a walkie-talkie app for Android and iOS (with 27 million users!), that works on Glass. We made some good progress. Hopefully over the next week we can carve some time out in the evenings to turn Glass into a walkie-talkie with TiKL. https://ejf.io/experiments/giveaway-raspberry-pi/ Mon, 30 Sep 2013 16:43:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/experiments/giveaway-raspberry-pi/ Giveaway - Raspberry Pi I’m giving away my Raspberry Pi. I haven’t used the thing in months, and I’m trying to get rid of all of the things that I have that fall into that category. I would sell it, but it’s simply not worth enough to justify the effort. So, instead, I thought that I might try something a little different. Post a comment on Reddit, telling me why I should give you this RPi. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/a-different-kind-of-app/ Fri, 20 Sep 2013 14:50:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/a-different-kind-of-app/ A different kind of app The Play Store is an interesting thing, it’s incredibly cheap to have a developer’s account (or two, whoops), there’s no review process to get your app approved in the store, so you could literally get something written, published and delivered within a few hours, if you were motivated to do so. Well, I’ve had this idea for a couple of months now, that I wanted to try out, sort of an experiment, I wanted to make an app for my wife that would take the place of a greeting card. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/zapier-and-google-glass-im-just-getting-around/ Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:25:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/zapier-and-google-glass-im-just-getting-around/ Zapier and Google Glass I’m just getting around to checking out Zapier’s Glass support, and it is more compelling than I expected. While it would be nice if there were simply more apps available for Glass, Zapier sort of fills in the gaps, and allows you to do some interesting things. For one thing, I can now get notified on my two other gmail accounts on Glass. Since I use my work email way more than my personal, this is going to be a very useful feature. https://ejf.io/android/very-simple-example-of-a-loader-and-loadermanager/ Thu, 05 Sep 2013 03:42:37 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/very-simple-example-of-a-loader-and-loadermanager/ Very simple example of a Loader and LoaderManager in Android Loaders in Android are great, they allow you to asynchronously load data to be used in Adapters. I have found CursorLoaders very useful for getting data from a database to the UI in a way that minimizes blocking calls on the UI thread. Alex Lockwood has posted a great, and detailed four part discussion of the Loader pattern on his blog. https://ejf.io/android/androidserialsql-solving-some-problems-with/ Wed, 04 Sep 2013 16:26:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/androidserialsql-solving-some-problems-with/ AndroidSerialSQL - solving some problems with SQLite in Android I created an Android project library that intends to solve the problem of concurrent write attempts from different threads to an Android SQLite database. Get the project here. Quick Edit This solution is intended to solve a specific problem, not to be used in the general case. In a larger, more complex application, you might have data coming in from different sources asynchronously (on different threads), being written to different tables, at random times. https://ejf.io/android/android-sqlite-locking/ Wed, 04 Sep 2013 16:03:27 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/android-sqlite-locking/ Android Sqlite Locking touchlabblog: Recently I’ve been doing quite a bit of work with the Android Sqlite database. Mostly with the android piece of ormlite. The Android examples cover some basic Sqlite usage, but they really don’t go into depth with regards to proper usage patters, and more importantly, improper usage patters. Most examples and documentation is slated towards using very basic database queries, and beyond that, creating a ContentProvider. What never really seems to be covered is stuff like: https://ejf.io/android/trying-slidingpanelayout-with-fragments-in/ Thu, 29 Aug 2013 02:17:56 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/trying-slidingpanelayout-with-fragments-in/ Trying SlidingPaneLayout with Fragments (in Android) Building on my last few posts, I wanted to try out the new SlidingPaneLayout that’s being offered in the support library. For the uninitiated, here’s a Google I/O presentation that presents SlidingPaneLayout along with a few other new UI concepts for Android: This was super simple to do, so I’m going to go fairly quickly again. Instructions 0 My last few posts, are prerequisites for this one. https://ejf.io/android/gradle-please/ Mon, 26 Aug 2013 16:55:28 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/gradle-please/ Gradle, please Gradle, Please Someone posted this awesome tool on r/androiddev recently. Looks pretty sweet, I’ll certainly be using it! Basically, it helps you find the compile string for a Gradle dependency that exists in Maven Central. https://ejf.io/android/implementing-the-new-navigation-drawer-in-android/ Mon, 26 Aug 2013 16:39:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/implementing-the-new-navigation-drawer-in-android/ Implementing the new Navigation Drawer in Android I wanted to try out the new Navigation Drawer that’s provided in a recent release of the Android Support Library. I was hoping that it would be fairly straight-forward, and it was. Here’s the official documentation, it’s what I’m basing this on, including the entirety of my MainActivity.java code, if you’re interested in just looking at that, have at it. There’s lots of code, and even a sample app to download. https://ejf.io/android/setting-up-the-new-actionbarcompat-in-android/ Sun, 25 Aug 2013 05:27:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/setting-up-the-new-actionbarcompat-in-android/ Setting up the new ActionBarCompat in Android Studio Continuing from my previous post, I’m toying around with a couple new projects, and I wanted to use some of the new compatibility libraries that Google’s offering for Android. Unfortunately, the setup is a bit involved, and the instructions are a bit scattered. I figured that it might be worth collecting them in a quick post. My main source of this info was the following DevBytes video: https://ejf.io/android/android-studio-intellij-and-gradle/ Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:18:03 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/android-studio-intellij-and-gradle/ Android Studio, Intellij and Gradle I know that I had written a month or so ago about using vim a bit more heavily instead of an IDE. That was kind of silly. While I did use vim quite a bit for doing things in JavaScript, it just can’t compete with a proper IDE. Long story short, I switched over to Intellij at work for doing some stuff with AngularJS, and finally got over the hump, and really liked it. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/chromebook-pixel-woes/ Tue, 20 Aug 2013 07:57:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/chromebook-pixel-woes/ Chromebook Pixel woes I need to take a minute to complain a bit about my Chromebook Pixel. In order to understand where I’m coming from a bit, I think that I should explain a bit about the Pixel, and about my impressions prior to buying it. Several months ago, when the Pixel was announced, it was certainly an interesting looking machine. I was in the market for a new laptop at the time that the Pixel was announced, but I was looking mainly at the MacBook Retinas. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/neatocode-techniques-super-human-vision-with/ Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:16:39 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/neatocode-techniques-super-human-vision-with/ NeatoCode Techniques: Super Human Vision with Google Glass http://neatocode.tumblr.com/post/53113748050/super-human-vision-google-glass neatocode: Google’s new wearable computer and display, Google Glass, can be used to enhance your abilities beyond human! This fits with the recent idea covered by The Verge at Augmented World Expo that, “every game-chaning technology can be recast as a human superpower.“ At the recent AngelHackNYC I… https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/talking-to-glass-from-android-via-the-mirror-api/ Sun, 18 Aug 2013 17:39:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/talking-to-glass-from-android-via-the-mirror-api/ Talking to Glass from Android via the Mirror API This week, I started prototyping a stripped down Java implementation of a Mirror service for Talkray, the awesome mobile communications app that I work on at work. The typical flow for installing Mirror Glassware is to visit a website, click an ‘install’ button, pick your Google account and grant access, and Google returns you back to the website, giving the website your token. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/sweat-and-my-weekend-without-glass/ Mon, 12 Aug 2013 16:27:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/sweat-and-my-weekend-without-glass/ Sweat and my weekend without Glass As I tend to do, I went to a Meetup last Thursday at Google, for a presentation on Chrome Packaged Apps. It was a very well delivered presentation, and the pizza was a bonus. Yay pizza! And, as always, I rode my bike to the meetup, and then from Google back home, which is almost twice my normal commute. I was getting fairly sweaty on the ride, and when I was getting close to home, Glass started freaking out. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/google-glass/ Mon, 05 Aug 2013 06:48:17 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/google-glass/ Google Glass As I mentioned in my last post, I recently picked up an Explorer Edition of Google Glass. It’s been a couple weeks now, so I figure that it’s been enough time for me to gather some thoughts about it and write them down. There is certainly an adjustment period, where when you first get it, interacting with it while walking might cause you to walk into a post, it takes a few days to get past this. https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/getting-started-with-the-mirror-api-using-nodejs/ Sun, 04 Aug 2013 18:17:58 +0000 https://ejf.io/wearables/glass/getting-started-with-the-mirror-api-using-nodejs/ Getting started with the Mirror API using node.js I recently accepted an invite to purchase an Explorer Edition of Google Glass. Well, actually, the company I work for accepted (man, I love working for TiKL, Inc.), and I’ve been the one working on everything Glass at our office. (In case you’re wondering, a write-up on my thoughts about Glass so far is in the works.) So far, my efforts have been focused on building apks to run on Glass, which is incredibly easy if you’re and Android hacker like myself. https://ejf.io/android/moto-x-announcement/ Thu, 01 Aug 2013 20:00:12 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/moto-x-announcement/ Moto X announcement I’m quite disappointed by the Moto X announcement. It’s a well designed phone, battery life should be spectacular, and they got rid of some of the terrible themed junk that they put on their Droids, but it falls down on a few major points. Running 4.2.2, not 4.3 - how am I going to use BLE? To be priced as a high-end phone, even though it’s not really Sold on contract, as opposed to unlocked, sold outright Launching with a dated version of Android, and updates will need to be approved by carriers Google Play Edition missing at launch I really don’t want to buy another phone that ties me to a particular carrier (and phone) for another two years, when it’s likely that the phone won’t provide me with a good experience for more than one year. https://ejf.io/android/viewpager-inside-a-viewstub-inside-a-tabhost/ Wed, 26 Jun 2013 00:23:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/viewpager-inside-a-viewstub-inside-a-tabhost/ ViewPager inside a ViewStub inside a TabHost inside a ViewStub This is a wacky experiment to hash out what’s necessary to create some views. I had some specific needs in a project that I’m working on. I needed a TabHost within a ViewStub, which contained ViewStubs, when inflated became ViewPagers. I also didn’t want to use fragments for this, so this is all done with normal views. It should be a fairly lightweight strategy. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/angularjs-with-indexeddb-using-a-helper-library/ Mon, 24 Jun 2013 17:02:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/angularjs-with-indexeddb-using-a-helper-library/ AngularJS with IndexedDB using a helper library In working on my podcast app, podrad.io, I wanted to be able to persist data, so that users could keep their subscriptions between visits, without losing anything, and without my needing to do anything server-side. When I was writing podrad.io, however, my goal was to get something written as quickly as I could, get it out, and then iterate on it as I have time. https://ejf.io/thoughts/restore-the-national-moto-e-pluribus-unum-we/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:53:01 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/restore-the-national-moto-e-pluribus-unum-we/ Restore the national moto “E Pluribus Unum”. | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/restore-national-moto-e-pluribus-unum/58JXzNBB Go back to our original motto, as opposed to the religious one that was introduced in 1954. “E Pluribus Unum” means “out of many, one”, a unifying statement that does a great job of summing up the true nature of this country. https://ejf.io/thoughts/meta-art/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 06:22:49 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/meta-art/ Meta Art I had an idea for an art project that I’ve been wanting to try out for a few months now, and today, I finally got around to doing it. The general idea was to create some painting, or piece, and then attach a description to it, as you might see in a gallery, or in a museum. My idea was a bit more meta. Before I describe much more, let’s look at the results: https://ejf.io/thoughts/my-request-to-the-us-copyright-office-to-make-the/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:16:35 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/my-request-to-the-us-copyright-office-to-make-the/ My request to the US Copyright Office to make the exemption of circumvention of hardware permanent for mobile computing devices Originally submitted by emil10001 on Thu, 01/26/2012 - 14:44 I am writing in to request that the exemption of circumvention of copyright protection systems be made permanent for device classes 4 and 5. Not extending the exemption will harm both the consumers and the manufacturers of mobile computing devices. Not allowing software modifications may violate the license of the software that the manufacturers use. https://ejf.io/thoughts/oppose-protect-ip/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:16:11 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/oppose-protect-ip/ Oppose PROTECT-IP Originally submitted by emil10001 on Wed, 11/02/2011 - 10:01 I wrote a letter to Congress, and you can too! The PROTECT-IP act, if passed, has the potential to break the internet. Claims could be made about a website that the operators of that site would be unable to defend, and their site would be permanently blacklisted. My letter follows. Oppose S. 968: Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 https://ejf.io/thoughts/beliefs-vs-assumptions/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:15:46 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/beliefs-vs-assumptions/ Beliefs vs Assumptions Originally submitted by emil10001 on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 11:57 There are some interesting differences that result from making decisions based on beliefs as opposed to making decisions based on assumptions. Since you can rarely be in a situation in which you have all possible information available to you in making a decision, you will need to rely upon either beliefs or assumptions, or some combination of those to make your decision. https://ejf.io/thoughts/my-response-to-a-whole-foods-post-promoting/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:15:20 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/my-response-to-a-whole-foods-post-promoting/ My response to a Whole Foods post promoting homeopathy Originally submitted by emil10001 on Thu, 10/20/2011 - 10:04 I just saw an article on the Whole Foods blog that I thought deserved a response. The post was promoting homeopathy, and I felt it necessary to point out both what homeopathy is, why it does not make sense, and its dangers. I decided that it would be a good idea to post this here as well, since I am not sure how long the post will stay up on the Whole Foods site. https://ejf.io/thoughts/bad-peerguardian/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:14:47 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/bad-peerguardian/ Bad PeerGuardian Originally submitted by emil10001 on Sat, 10/01/2011 - 16:10 I will try to make this one brief. If you are on a mac, do not install PeerGuardian. This application gave me weeks of trouble for something that I had only used once or twice. Basically, PeerGuardian is a safety tool for using P2P. The idea is that it will blacklist certain IPs/domains based on whether the IP address might be dangerous. https://ejf.io/thoughts/ethics-and-real-estate-agents/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:14:22 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/ethics-and-real-estate-agents/ Ethics and Real Estate Agents Originally submitted by emil10001 on Sun, 06/05/2011 - 20:58 I was recently doing some apartment hunting and found myself trying to answer a difficult question: do I think that it is ethical to use more than one real estate agent in my search for an apartment? I found myself leaning towards a qualified ‘yes’, but it was difficult for me to produce a worthwhile answer under the circumstances. https://ejf.io/thoughts/attacking-the-soul/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:13:54 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/attacking-the-soul/ Attacking the Soul Originally submitted by emil10001 on Tue, 12/21/2010 - 10:35 I think that the soul is an often overlooked weak-point in the theist’s beliefs. It seems that it would be possible to make some very good arguments against the soul that don’t appear to be attacking their central belief system, but will cause them to seriously look at those other beliefs. If we can get people thinking seriously about their beliefs, and really attacking them critically, then I think that’s a step in the right direction. https://ejf.io/thoughts/shifting-the-intuitions-of-the-folk/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:12:34 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/shifting-the-intuitions-of-the-folk/ Shifting the Intuitions of the Folk Originally submitted by emil10001 on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 21:48 Executive Summary The findings of experimental philosophy studies that show the folk intuitions on Free Will to show a Dualist Libertarian leaning. This paper tries to show that it is possible to shift the intuitions of the folk through narrowly focused discussion. The discussions executed in preparation for this paper seem to indicate that this might be a worthwhile effort. https://ejf.io/thoughts/rapoports-rules/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:11:59 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/rapoports-rules/ Rapoport’s Rules Originally submitted by emil10001 on Wed, 12/15/2010 - 23:27 I am taking a course with Daniel Dennett, and he laid out some rules for constructively criticizing your opponent. The point, he said, was to make sure that your opponent knows that you understand very well their idea, that you get them to like you as a person and then when you deconstruct their idea, everyone involved will be enlightened. https://ejf.io/thoughts/my-open-letter-to-al-franken/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:11:35 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/my-open-letter-to-al-franken/ My Open Letter to Al Franken Originally submitted by emil10001 on Fri, 12/03/2010 - 12:37 Now, it may not make much sense for me to be posting this here, but I think that anybody who wants to utilize the internet should care about this issue. Recently, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to reintroduce the COICA, aka the Internet Blacklist Bill. The bill was originally put forward by the entertainment industry so that they could shut down any site that they claim is violating their copyrights. https://ejf.io/thoughts/discussions-with-seminary-students-on-free-will/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:11:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/discussions-with-seminary-students-on-free-will/ Discussions with Seminary Students on Free Will Originally submitted by emil10001 on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 14:02 I have a completed four discussions that will be used for my paper. I have included the full, uncut, discussions after the jump. According to various experimental philosophy papers, the folk intuitions on Free Will are that of Dualist Libertarians. This is in opposition to the views of the philosophical community, whose majority identify themselves as Physicalist Compatibilists. https://ejf.io/thoughts/the-burden-of-proof/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:10:34 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/the-burden-of-proof/ The Burden of Proof Submitted by emil10001 on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 21:37 Shelly Kagan has done a brilliant job of summing up our responsibility when asked to prove that something does not exist: Do I, as a physicalist who does not believe in the existence of souls, immaterial entities above and beyond the body, do I need to disprove the existence of souls? “Well, there’s no soul here, no souls there. https://ejf.io/thoughts/thought-experiments/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 03:09:56 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/thought-experiments/ Thought Experiments Originally Submitted by emil10001 on Fri, 11/26/2010 - 15:36 I was listening to some lectures by Shelly Kagan, where he is discussing the idea of self, identity and what do we follow to determine where the self is. He lays out three options, the soul, the body (more correctly, the brain), or the personality. He dismisses the soul argument as not being compelling, and I agree. He then says that he is sort of stuck on which to follow, the body or the personality. https://ejf.io/thoughts/my-answer-to-the-question-would-you-like-to-know/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:43:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/my-answer-to-the-question-would-you-like-to-know/ My answer to the question ‘Would you like to know the time and cause of your death?’ Originaly Submitted by emil10001 on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 10:48 I might first ask if the knowledge of my death would have any impact on the time and cause. If it does have an impact, I might ask if I will live longer if I know the time and cause. Then, if it is in my best interest to know, then I would like to find out. https://ejf.io/thoughts/speed/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:39:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/speed/ Speed Submitted by emil10001 on Fri, 11/19/2010 - 12:56 My cell phone just hit 6mbps down 1mbps up from my apartment. That is faster than my dorm connection was throughout college. It’s faster than what typical cable internet speeds were 5 years ago. And my phone is faster than desktops were (about) a decade ago. I just did some checking and found that my phone calculates pi to a million digits a bit faster than a 3GHz P4 processor (my phone does 0. https://ejf.io/thoughts/values/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:38:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/values/ Values Submitted by emil10001 on Thu, 11/18/2010 - 01:23 I remember when I was at University, while taking a course on Nietzsche, I decided that I would really think about what values I wanted to have for my life. I think that a lot of people don’t do this explicitly, and if you asked them, they probably couldn’t really tell you what they value. Some people might be able to list off some things, and a few might be able to back up some of those values. https://ejf.io/thoughts/discussions-with-dualists/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:37:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/discussions-with-dualists/ Discussions with Dualists Originally Submitted by emil10001 on Wed, 11/17/2010 - 15:27 I am planning on writing a paper about how to have a constructive conversation with a Dualist, on the topic of Free Will. I have read several papers from experimental philosophy that suggest that the intuitions of common people are that of the Dualist Libertarian position. I think the best way to describe myself would be a Phsyicalist and as a Compatibilist (if Determinism were true). https://ejf.io/thoughts/an-argument-for-compatibilism/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:33:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/an-argument-for-compatibilism/ An Argument for Compatibilism Originally Submitted by emil10001 on Wed, 11/17/2010 - 15:05 There was a post recently on r/atheism that suggested a proof that an omnicient God is incompatible with Free Will. I think that the author was incorrect in their proof, and I would like to try to take it apart. If perfect foreknowledge of a being’s actions exists, then that being does not have free will (its actions are predetermined and cannot deviate). https://ejf.io/thoughts/the-big-idea/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 02:31:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/thoughts/the-big-idea/ The Big Idea This is my humble blog. I intend to write about philosophy, science, religion and maybe some technology. Instead of hosting comments here, I will just submit the story to Reddit, and post a link that directs to that discussion. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/code-walk-through-of-podradio/ Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:25:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/code-walk-through-of-podradio/ Code walk-through of podrad.io Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been learning about AngularJS, and I’ve had this idea of building out a podcast client web-app that I could use to consume podcasts while on my Chromebook Pixel. For those who don’t know, AngularJS is a client-side JavaScript framework that intends to simplify Ajax style web-apps. If you haven’t taken a look at it before, you might want to head over to their site and click through the tutorial or at least look at the getting started page. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/podradio/ Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:44:46 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/podradio/ podRad.io Last weekend, I decided to try an experiment. I wanted to see how long it would take me to write an MVP podcast client web-app, using AngularJS. Now, I had never written anything with AngularJS before, and had only done some basic reading on the subject. It took me 20-24 hours to write what I’ve got now. PodRad.io is a very simple podcast client, which allows you to subscribe to various podcasts and consume them. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/when-ides-change-i-give-up-and-use-vim/ Mon, 20 May 2013 01:10:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/when-ides-change-i-give-up-and-use-vim/ When IDEs change, I give up and use vim As you may have read, Android is switching its main IDE from Eclipse (ADT Bundle) to Intellij (Android Studio). While I was at Google I/O this past week, I decided to stop by the JetBrains booth and talk to a couple of the reps about what Intellij offers, as I’ll probably be switching, at least for Android development. Android Studio is Intellij 13 From what they said, Android Studio is basically Intellij 13 (which is currently in preview mode), with some features removed or turned off. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/cloud-9-ssh-workspace-issues/ Fri, 03 May 2013 16:44:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/cloud-9-ssh-workspace-issues/ Cloud 9 SSH Workspace issues Recently, I decided that it would be a really cool thing to have access to a nice Cloud IDE that I could play around with. I landed on Cloud9 IDE, using an SSH workspace. I had a bunch of issues trying to set up an SSH workspace on Cloud9 IDE, mainly due to using nvm (nodejs version manager). I started out getting these really strange hash mismatch errors. https://ejf.io/android/a-much-simpler-http-lib-for-android/ Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:50:59 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/a-much-simpler-http-lib-for-android/ A much simpler HTTP lib for Android A couple of days ago, I wrote up a post about Square’s OkHttp library. That was ok (pun intended), but kevinsawicki’s HttpRequest library is much simpler. This is an excerpt from a demo app using HttpRequest, and it does the exact same thing as my OkHttp demo app: Compare that with OkHttp’s version: Notice the difference? HttpRequest only needs one line to do it’s thing, OkHttp needs a bit more. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/chrome-remote-desktop-on-ubuntu/ Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:31:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/chrome-remote-desktop-on-ubuntu/ Chrome Remote Desktop on Ubuntu Well, that was an adventure. I just got Chrome Remote Desktop set up on my home server, running Ubuntu, following these instructions. There were a few wrinkles, mainly caused by my wanting to try out a several different desktops, and then not wiping them out properly. Once I had gotten to the point of being able to connect, I was seeing a wallpaper on a giant desktop that I couldn’t do anything with. https://ejf.io/android/trying-out-squares-okhttp-client/ Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:53:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/trying-out-squares-okhttp-client/ Trying out Square’s OkHttp client This is a simple example of implementing Square’s OkHttp library in an Android app. Basically, OkHttp is intending to provide a fast HTTP+SPDY java client. OkHttp Step zero is getting OkHttp either as a jar, or pulling down the project and building a jar with maven. When I built this, the jar was not available, so I needed to build it myself. This was quite simple, all you need to do is make sure you have Maven2 installed, and follow the instructions on OkHttp’s github page. https://ejf.io/android/playing-around-with-otto-on-android/ Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:12:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/playing-around-with-otto-on-android/ Playing around with Otto on Android There are a few nice Open Source libraries for Android that Square has published. One of them is Otto, which is a Guava-based event bus system that uses annotations and code generation. Basically, it saves you from needing to create a bunch of interfaces and register them between various parts of your code. Instead, all you need to do is register with the singleton bus, and subscribe to events. https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/verizon-wireless-broke-my-brand-new-chromebook/ Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:07:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/verizon-wireless-broke-my-brand-new-chromebook/ Verizon Wireless broke my brand new Chromebook Pixel LTE Wow, looking at my last few blog posts, I’ve had a bad few weeks dealing with corporations. After this, I promise to get back to my regularly scheduled programming and not complain so much. Alright, on to today’s story. Why I’m writing about this Chromebook Pixel LTE owners should read this if they’re planning on activating their SIM, especially if they’re adding it to an existing shared data plan, as opposed to simply activating it through the guided tool provided with the device. https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/kaiser-permanentes-billing-system-is-insane/ Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:03:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/kaiser-permanentes-billing-system-is-insane/ Kaiser Permanente’s billing system is insane. I work for a very small startup. We are small enough that buying a company insurance plan doesn’t really get you anything over individual rates. A couple of us are also on spouses’ company insurance plans, only leaving two or three of us actually going through our company for insurance. As a result, our structure is that we choose the insurance that we want, pay for it out of pocket, and then submit the monthly bills for reimbursement. https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/open-letter-to-citibank-on-their-horrible-surveys/ Mon, 01 Apr 2013 22:45:57 +0000 https://ejf.io/dealing_with_companies/open-letter-to-citibank-on-their-horrible-surveys/ Open letter to CitiBank on their horrible surveys I recently activated a new Citi Card, and had a pretty decent experience with the customer service there. I thought they did a really good job, mainly because they didn’t ask me to repeat anything and two seconds after I said that I needed the card activated it was done, and I was able to get off the phone and move on with my live. https://ejf.io/android/facebook-updates-as-malware/ Fri, 15 Mar 2013 22:19:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/facebook-updates-as-malware/ Facebook updates as malware Recently, on my Android tablet, I started noticing these odd notifications about Facebook having downloaded an update, where it wanted me to click the notification to install it. This is a very odd paradigm on Android, and I was immediately concerned that it might be an attempt by a drive-by download to get malware installed onto my device. Maybe this is a good point to take a step back and explain a few things. https://ejf.io/dev_blog/gists-in-tumblr/ Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:53:08 +0000 https://ejf.io/dev_blog/gists-in-tumblr/ Gists in Tumblr Displaying github gists in tumblr is not as difficult as I have seen it written. All you need to do is copy the regular embed code into your post. A couple of caveats, first, it won’t show up in the preview. Second, it seems to work best if you’re in markdown mode, instead of text or html. I have a post which uses multiple gists in a single post, so that works fine too. https://ejf.io/android/image-scraper-test/ Mon, 04 Mar 2013 03:23:47 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/image-scraper-test/ Image scraper test The following blog post was written over a year ago. The app discussed, Pin’d, has since been completed, published, and removed from the Google Play Store. I have decided not to modify the post, because it still contains lots of useful information. I also open sourced this image scraper since the original post. I’m excited, I just got my image scrapper up and running for my Pinterest Android app, Pin’d. https://ejf.io/android/creating-tabs-in-the-actionbar-in-android/ Mon, 04 Mar 2013 02:40:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/android/creating-tabs-in-the-actionbar-in-android/ Creating Tabs in the ActionBar in Android The following blog post was written over a year ago. The app discussed, Pin’d, has since been completed, published, and removed from the Google Play Store. I have decided not to modify the post, because it still contains lots of useful information. In working on my Pinterest app, Pin’d, I decided to switch from a list navigation to using tabs. I also wanted the tabs to hang off of the ActionBar, instead of needing to manage them separately, as this would be the least amount of refactoring, and would fit in nicely with the rest of my app. https://ejf.io/about/ Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:21:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/about/ About This blog is here because I’m being lazy. My previous blog is not in a great state right now. I also wanted to put this somewhere that could handle any load that might come from HN, or elsewhere, should a post be worthy of such traffic. Finally, I wanted a really low barrier for myself to write up my thoughts, and observations. I’ve probably lost quite a bit of what I had wanted to write about over the last 6 months because publishing anything had the pre-requisite of actually completing the feigdev code. https://ejf.io/food/tostada-taken-with-instagram/ Fri, 05 Oct 2012 03:39:27 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/tostada-taken-with-instagram/ Tostada (Taken with Instagram) https://ejf.io/food/pizza-stuffed-zucchini-are-we-really-eating-a/ Thu, 27 Sep 2012 02:56:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/pizza-stuffed-zucchini-are-we-really-eating-a/ Pizza stuffed zucchini. Are we really eating a vegetable instead of a crust?? Seriously so good. Click on the picture for the recipe. https://ejf.io/food/smashed-pizza-taken-with-instagram/ Mon, 17 Sep 2012 02:17:52 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/smashed-pizza-taken-with-instagram/ Smashed pizza. (Taken with Instagram) https://ejf.io/food/swedish-meatballs-and-smashed-potatoes-taken/ Thu, 13 Sep 2012 03:48:49 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/swedish-meatballs-and-smashed-potatoes-taken/ Swedish meatballs and smashed potatoes. (Taken with Instagram) https://ejf.io/food/spicy-chicken-vindaloo-taken-with-instagram/ Mon, 10 Sep 2012 02:11:27 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/spicy-chicken-vindaloo-taken-with-instagram/ Spicy chicken vindaloo. (Taken with Instagram) https://ejf.io/food/toastada-pizza-taken-with-instagram/ Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:23:56 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/toastada-pizza-taken-with-instagram/ Toastada pizza. (Taken with Instagram) https://ejf.io/food/veggie-soup-taken-with-instagram/ Sun, 29 Jul 2012 02:15:16 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/veggie-soup-taken-with-instagram/ Veggie soup. (Taken with Instagram) https://ejf.io/food/whole-wheat-pizza-with-homemade-tomato-sauce-red/ Sat, 21 Jul 2012 03:01:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/whole-wheat-pizza-with-homemade-tomato-sauce-red/ Whole Wheat Pizza with homemade tomato sauce, red peppers, fresh mozzarella, salami, and basil. Eating it right now :) https://ejf.io/food/i-love-peanut-butter-its-amazing-what-you-can-do/ Tue, 17 Jul 2012 04:11:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/i-love-peanut-butter-its-amazing-what-you-can-do/ I love Peanut Butter. It’s amazing what you can do with it. Have you heard of Peanut Butter N’ WHAT? And just feast your eyes on this recipe: PB Chicken and Fruit Lettuce Wraps makes 1 wrap ½ cup chopped cooked chicken breast 3 tablespoons chopped Fuji apple 2 tablespoons chopped black or red grapes 2 tablespoons All Natural Peanut Butter 1 tablespoon lite mayonnaise 2 teaspoons honey Iceberg lettuce Source: http://www. https://ejf.io/food/lunch-taken-with-instagram-got-the-idea-for/ Sat, 14 Jul 2012 21:38:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/lunch-taken-with-instagram-got-the-idea-for/ Lunch. (Taken with Instagram) Got the idea for the avacado and tomato toast from the bon appétite blog. Picked up the stuffed mushrooms at Sprouts. https://ejf.io/food/chicken-salad-and-spanish-rice-taken-with/ Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:39:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/chicken-salad-and-spanish-rice-taken-with/ Chicken salad and Spanish rice. (Taken with Instagram) Here’s where the recipe came from. https://ejf.io/food/first-cooked-meal-since-my-move-to-south-bay-it/ Tue, 03 Jul 2012 22:49:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/first-cooked-meal-since-my-move-to-south-bay-it/ First cooked meal since my move to South Bay. It was time for a good healthy home-cooked dinner after several weeks of eating out and getting take out. But wow, is the food in South Bay AMAZING :) I found a great Grocery store for all our fresh produce needs: http://sprouts.com/. Roasted Chicken marinated with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Sweet and Savory Brussels Sprouts. I recommend Pink Lady apples.  https://ejf.io/food/three-cheese-grilled-cheese-taken-with-instagram/ Tue, 19 Jun 2012 03:31:26 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/three-cheese-grilled-cheese-taken-with-instagram/ Three cheese grilled cheese (Taken with Instagram) https://ejf.io/food/chili-with-ground-turkey-homemade-soft-pretzels/ Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:57:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/chili-with-ground-turkey-homemade-soft-pretzels/ Chili with ground turkey. Homemade soft pretzels on the side! See recipe below. https://ejf.io/food/homemade-pretzels-taken-with-instagram-recipe/ Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:47:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/homemade-pretzels-taken-with-instagram-recipe/ Homemade pretzels (Taken with instagram) Recipe. https://ejf.io/food/mexican-veggie-salad-chopped-romaine-lettuce/ Wed, 30 May 2012 15:27:34 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/mexican-veggie-salad-chopped-romaine-lettuce/ Mexican veggie salad. Chopped Romaine lettuce, brown rice, freshly made tortilla chips (made from soft corn tortillas, quickly deep fried), diced tomato, green onion, cilantro, with a cooked blend of chopped onion, red bell pepper, chili peppers, summer squash, black beans and corn, with a small amount of taco seasoning. All topped off with a bit of shredded cheese. https://ejf.io/food/sesame-chicken/ Wed, 30 May 2012 15:21:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/sesame-chicken/ Sesame Chicken One of John’s favorite chinese dishes is Sesame Chicken. A while back he decided to try cooking his own. After much searching and a couple of failed attempts, he has perfected the dish. It’s less than half the calories of takeout and the taste is almost identical (if not better!). *One tip: Since it’s just the two of us, we save some for leftovers the next day. If you are going to do this, make sure you put the sauce in a separate container. https://ejf.io/food/homemade-coconut-bubble-tea-recipe/ Tue, 29 May 2012 03:01:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/homemade-coconut-bubble-tea-recipe/ Homemade coconut bubble tea Recipe: http://www.ehow.com/how_7768645_make-coconut-bubble-tea.html https://ejf.io/food/creamy-artichoke-pasta/ Mon, 28 May 2012 21:48:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/creamy-artichoke-pasta/ Creamy Artichoke Pasta Another vegetable I’ve recently fallen in love with is Artichokes! I googled for an artichoke pasta recipe and found the perfect one. The cottage cheese and sour cream combination is wonderful. You can substitute greek yogurt for the sour cream. The original recipe calls for butter but it doesn’t need it. We also used 100% whole wheat farfalle (bowtie) pasta instead of spaghetti. Ours is significantly less calories and fat. https://ejf.io/food/sweet-and-savory-brussels-sprouts/ Mon, 28 May 2012 17:42:02 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/sweet-and-savory-brussels-sprouts/ Sweet and Savory Brussels Sprouts We love brussels sprouts. They are delicious just steamed with some butter or olive oil but why not kick it up a notch and try it with something sweet! You can use either raisins or currants, or both. Try pancetta instead of bacon. This is a quick and easy recipe and very healthy and filling. Ingredients makes 4 servings 1 lb brussels sprouts 8 thick slices bacon ¾ cup currants or raisins 1 apple, diced 1 tablespoon honey 1/3 cup pine nuts Nutritional Information https://ejf.io/food/steak-with-baked-potato-and-creamed-kale-and/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:30:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/steak-with-baked-potato-and-creamed-kale-and/ Steak with baked potato and creamed kale and spinach *Just a picture for drooling and not the healthiest choice but you get your protein, vegetables, and good carbs. https://ejf.io/food/sesame-pork-with-snow-peas-and-green-onions/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:29:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/sesame-pork-with-snow-peas-and-green-onions/ Sesame Pork with snow peas and green onions. *Just a picture for drooling :) https://ejf.io/food/chicken-parmesan-from-scratch-breaded-the-chicken/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:28:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/chicken-parmesan-from-scratch-breaded-the-chicken/ Chicken Parmesan from scratch. Breaded the chicken and roasted it in a cast iron skillet in the oven. Sauce was made from about 4lbs of tomatoes, blanched, skinned, diced, simmered and combined with a small amount of tomato paste and some basil and garlic. Pasta itself was 100% whole wheat. https://ejf.io/food/chicken-curry-with-rice-and-garlic-bread-balls/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:25:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/chicken-curry-with-rice-and-garlic-bread-balls/ Chicken curry with rice and garlic bread balls. *Just a picture for drooling :) https://ejf.io/food/baked-enchiladas-with-fresh-corn-tortilla-chips/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:24:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/baked-enchiladas-with-fresh-corn-tortilla-chips/ Baked enchiladas, with fresh corn tortilla chips, rice and a black bean soup. *Just a picture for drooling :) https://ejf.io/food/not-quite-health-food-but-we-were-really-happy/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:22:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/not-quite-health-food-but-we-were-really-happy/ Not quite health food, but we were really happy with how this came out. Being from the Buffalo area originally, it is sometimes difficult to find decent wings down here in South Florida. *Just drool https://ejf.io/food/23623992515/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:19:01 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/23623992515/ https://ejf.io/food/chicken-caesar-salad-romaine-lettuce--boneless/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:19:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/chicken-caesar-salad-romaine-lettuce--boneless/ Chicken Caesar Salad. Romaine lettuce, ½ boneless skinless chicken breast (grilled), caesar dressing, croutons, shredded carrots and grated parmesan cheese. https://ejf.io/food/rob-roy-cocktail/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:17:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/rob-roy-cocktail/ Rob Roy Cocktail Ingredients 3 oz Scotch 1.5 oz Sweet Vermouth Bitters 1 Maraschino Cherry Nutrition calories: 278 fat: 0g sugar: 2g carbohydrates: 6g Directions: Combine the liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake it. Pour the results into a glass with a maraschino cherry. Discussion: A classic cocktail. A slight twist on a Manhattan, this drink calls for Scotch instead of Whiskey. When I make one of these, it’s 3oz of Scotch, 1. https://ejf.io/food/elvis-sandwich/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:13:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/elvis-sandwich/ Elvis Sandwich Ingredients 1 Bagel 1 Banana 3 tbsp Peanut Butter 2 strips Bacon Directions: This is an amazing, yet very simple sandwich. It is literally just bread (or a bagel), peanut butter, banana slices and bacon. I made mine on a toasted bagel. Start by toasting the bagel. After it’s toasted, spread about 3 tablespoons of peanut butter on both halves of the bagel, I prefer the cruncy kind. Then add one sliced up banana to one half, and a couple of strips of crispy bacon to the other. https://ejf.io/food/whole-wheat-pizza-with-pesto-sauce/ Wed, 23 May 2012 20:07:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/whole-wheat-pizza-with-pesto-sauce/ Whole Wheat Pizza with Pesto Sauce Dough 1 tsp White Sugar ¾ cups Warm Water 1 tbsp Active Dry Yeast 1 tbsp Olive Oil 1 tsp Salt 2 cups Whole Wheat Flour Pesto Sauce 2 oz Fresh Basil 2 tbsp Olive Oil 1 tbsp Pine Nuts 1 tbsp Cashews 2 pieces Sun Dried Tomato 1 tbsp Parmesan Cheese Toppings ½ lb Fresh Mozzarella ¼ Bell Pepper ¼ Red Onion 1/8 lb Prosciutto ½ cup Parmesan Cheese Nutrition https://ejf.io/food/black-bean-and-cabbage-wraps/ Wed, 23 May 2012 19:52:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/black-bean-and-cabbage-wraps/ Black Bean and Cabbage Wraps Hot 1 can Black Beans ¼ Red Onion Hot Chili Peppers 1 tbsp Olive Oil Cold ½ Head Red Cabbage ¾ Red Onion 1 Carrot 8 oz Colby Jack Cheese 1 Avocado ¼ cup Cilantro 8 Whole Wheat Wraps Nutrition Per serving, includes 2 whole wheat shells calories: 660 fat: 28g protein: 27g sodium: 954mg carbohydrates: 82g Directions: This dish is easily split into two parts, the hot part and the cold part. https://ejf.io/food/chicken-tikka-masala/ Mon, 21 May 2012 19:10:00 +0000 https://ejf.io/food/chicken-tikka-masala/ Chicken Tikka Masala ** ** Main dish 1 Onion 1 Pepper ¾ lb Chicken Breast ¾ cup Cashews ¼ cup Olive Oil 4 Chopped Chili Peppers 1 tbsp Lemon Juice 1 Clove Minced Garlic ¼ cup Chopped Cilantro ½ cup Half and Half Cream Sauce 1 cup Plain Yogurt 2 Tomatoes 6 oz Tomato Paste 3 tbsp Curry Paste 2 tsp Ground Cumin 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon 2 tsp Cayenne Pepper 1 tbsp Minced Ginger 4 tsp Salt 2 Cloves Minced Garlic 3 Chili Peppers ¼ cup Fresh Cilantro 2 tbsp Cashews Nutrition: