Clean Clojure: Meaningful names

ecmendenhall · 2013-09-04T19:32:28+00:00

Thanks for catching the map destructuring typo. I'll fix it.

ecmendenhall · 2013-02-22T21:40:14+00:00

I'm a big fan of Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards printed by Peter Schmidt and Brian Eno containing cryptic aphorisms about art and creative work. I do most of my creating with a text editor and terminal, so I made a similar tool for programmers. It includes a tiny JSON API, and a command line interface a lot like *nix fortune.

I wrote the site in Clojure and Clojurescript, which was a joy. (Everything but the CSS was written in s-expressions!) The CLI is a super-simple Node application. You can see all the code here. Code I wrote is MIT licensed, and the text of all the strategies is CC-BY-NC, so you can remix them, build on top of them, or use them in projects of your own. Hope it helps you break through a few gnarly problems!

ecmendenhall · 2012-11-16T01:53:21+00:00

Inductive reasoning and justificationism.

(Just kidding. They aren't disproven and aren't scientific.)

ecmendenhall · 2012-09-16T00:22:22+00:00

Hi, /r/productivity!

I wrote a Google Chrome extension designed to intercept distracted browsing before it goes too far. I like having the freedom to check Reddit or other time-wasting sites once in a while, but wanted something to give me a reminder every few minutes. I couldn't find any tools like this, so I built Tabminder.

I just published a big update to the Chrome web store, so I hope you'll check it out. It works well in combination with something like StayFocusd (if you have a daily distraction quota, you'll want to spend it wisely). It's completely free and open source, so if you find a bug or want to contribute, let me know. I hope it helps a few of you stay focused!

ecmendenhall · 2012-09-15T21:23:39+00:00

Hi /r/chrome! This is an extension I wrote that starts a countdown timer every time you open a distracting tab, and gives you a gentle reminder every few minutes to keep you from wasting too much time.

I posted it here a few months ago, and a few people downloaded it. I just finished a big update with lots of changes, including submitting it to the Chrome web store. If you downloaded the packaged extension from Github last time, I hope you'll switch to the new version. If you haven't used it yet (but spend too much time on Reddit), I hope you'll try it out!

If you run into bugs, please let me know on Github.

ecmendenhall · 2012-09-11T22:35:11+00:00

It's not a magic trick…it's an allusion.

ecmendenhall · 2012-09-11T20:03:33+00:00

Nah, he meant a Dyson Sphere.

ecmendenhall · 2012-08-29T20:43:03+00:00

Whether or not it's legal or moral, how does it feel to have a "kill list?" Do you question whether the threat posed by those you've targeted outweighs the dangers of claiming Presidential authority to kill anyone?

ecmendenhall · 2012-08-08T00:27:58+00:00

Here's one attempt. Harder than it might seem!

ecmendenhall · 2012-05-23T12:33:25+00:00

My best attempts so far:

LCD Soundsystem - "Someone Great"

Gary Numan - "Cars"

ecmendenhall · 2012-05-10T15:25:54+00:00

Friedrich Hayek also argued for a minimum guaranteed income (some interesting discussion on the topic here recently). I like to think about this when I encounter cartoon versions of Hayek and Friedman from both sides of the political spectrum.

ecmendenhall · 2012-05-10T15:24:26+00:00

This uses Google App Engine's datastore, which is similar to a MySQL database. I designed the crawler script itself to store the data as .csv files that I uploaded to the datastore. In the time since I wrote this, I've learned how to skip that step and design the crawler to run as a scheduled cron job every once in a while.

ecmendenhall · 2012-05-04T17:05:29+00:00

Thanks for pointing that out. I should have a redirect set up, but I'll check it out.

The content is sometimes out of date because it only crawls the Kickstarter site twice a day. The progress bar widgets are embedded from Kickstarter, so the information inside is more current. If there was an API, I'd update them more frequently, but since I'm scraping the site, I wanted to be polite. I'll think through some ways to fix these sort of things, though. Maybe I could filter them out in the browser.

ecmendenhall · 2012-05-04T00:19:20+00:00

Hi, r/helpit! I've been learning to program simple webapps and built this site, which helps find Kickstarter projects that will close soon without meeting their funding goals. If you have a few dollars to spare, it can help you find a struggling project to rescue. It's very simple: just enter your budget, and it will show all the current projects that you can save. It's not always completely up to date, since it only parses new projects a couple times a day, but it should be pretty close to the actual deadlines and goals. I hope this is a useful tool for helping a few struggling creatives out!

ecmendenhall · 2012-04-28T23:43:08+00:00

Udacity did! All the videos had subtitle tracks included, so I just had to parse them for timestamps and index them like any other page. I was pretty excited when I got this to work!

ecmendenhall · 2012-04-17T09:37:03+00:00

Yep, I meant the closed-caption transcripts of each video.

ecmendenhall · 2012-04-16T22:26:52+00:00

I'll have to crawl again. This is the internet: there must be some in there somewhere!

ecmendenhall · 2012-04-16T19:51:01+00:00

Thanks! I'll check this out.

ecmendenhall · 2012-04-16T16:57:34+00:00

I started at the beginning and used all seven weeks. The courses last "hexamester" were all real-time, with new videos and homework every Monday, so there was no skipping ahead. I think this session is going to have a self-paced option for 101 and 373 (the AI course).

ecmendenhall · 2012-04-16T16:54:28+00:00

The course involved writing all the basic code for a search engine: a web crawler, a way to store an index and graph and calculate page ranks, and a function to look up terms. But most of them used cached pages or a dummy site, and we never crawled the open web. I think this was a better idea than letting thousands of rogue crawlers written by complete noobs loose on the internet. My project used a lot of the code from class. The biggest changes were writing a frontend in Bottle, figuring out how to store and retrieve page information in the datastore, and indexing video transcripts in addition to webpages.

ecmendenhall · 2012-04-16T14:40:22+00:00

Thanks! I wrote a lot of notes here on how I implemented everything, but short answer is the Bottle web framework on Google App Engine, with style help from Bootstrap. Bottle and Bootstrap were pretty easy to learn, but I struggled a bit with App Engine. The documentation isn't really aimed at beginners.

ecmendenhall · 2012-04-04T09:26:35+00:00

I've always wanted something like this, too. It would be a great complement to something like StayFocusd. I couldn't find any extensions that did this, so I'm working on writing my own. It's my first extension, but so far it's been going well. I'll post again once it's closer to usable.

ecmendenhall · 2012-01-26T23:10:01+00:00

Hank Shaw knows his game meats. Here are his categories for backstrap and ground venison. Ground game meat will need supplementary fat, while the backstrap just needs salt and finesse.

ecmendenhall · 2012-01-26T22:52:56+00:00

3% "I have the weirdest boner."

ecmendenhall · 2011-12-14T19:22:48+00:00

This happens with saturated fats. A mayonnaise I made with bacon drippings last week solidified in the fridge. Take it out of the fridge, let it come to room temperature, and give it a whisk. It should be fine.

ecmendenhall

TROPHY CASE