Vim & Vision

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[ #187 ] Some problems are so complex... Permalink

Cool Added less than a year ago

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

[ #127 ] Hacking YourWorldOfText Permalink

Perl, Cool Added less than a year ago and last edited about two months ago

YourWorldOfText is a novel site that is like a big, collaborative whiteboard. It uses JQuery AJAX to send what you type to the server. I have reverse engineered (ha ha, that's the type of pretentious wanker I am, I use the term 'reverse engineered') the co-ordinate system and created a Perl script that let's you do some tricks with the site.

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use constant MAX_X => 15;
use constant MAX_Y => 7;

my @thing = (0);

my $bigx_start = $thing[int rand scalar @thing];
my $bigy_start = $thing[int rand scalar @thing];
my $x_start = 0;
my $y_start = 0;

my $bigx = $bigx_start;
my $bigy = $bigy_start;
my ($x, $y) = ($x_start, $y_start);

my $starttime = (time() - 20) . '000';
my $output;
$output .= "\narr = [";

my $count = 0;
while (my $line = <>) {
    chomp($line);
    my @chars = split '', $line;
    $bigx = $bigx_start;
    for my $char (@chars) {
        $char = q(\\") if $char eq '"';
        $char = q(\\\\) if $char eq '\\';
        my $newtime = $starttime + ($count * 17);
        $output .= qq|[$bigy, $bigx, $y, $x, $newtime, "$char"], |;
        $x++;
        if ($x > MAX_X) {
            $x = 0;
            $bigx++;
        }
        $count++;
    }
    $x = $x_start;
    $y++;
    if ($y > MAX_Y) {
        $y = $y_start;
        $bigy++;
    }
}

$output .= "];\n";
$output .= "\n";
my ($prevbleep, $curbleep) = (0, 200);
while ($prevbleep < $count) {
    $output .= "setTimeout(function() { jQuery.post(window.location.pathname, {edits: arr.slice($prevbleep, $curbleep)}, YourWorld.editsDone, 'json') }, 10*$prevbleep);\n";
    $prevbleep = $curbleep;
    $curbleep += 200;
}
print $output;

chmod +x this script, run it and paste in some ASCII art (or figlet output, or whatever.) It will then print the javsascript code you need to insert the ASCII art on the site. You will need firefox and firebug - paste the JS into the firebug console and hit run... then wait to see your art come up on the site.

Pro Tip: Start with a small image, or only a word or two with figlet. Larger stuff takes longer.

[ #76 ] The Cult of Done Manifesto Permalink

Cool Added a year and a bit ago and last edited a year and a bit ago

This has been posted in a gazillion other places but I still feel the need to propagate it.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

(1) There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

(2) Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.

(3) There is no editing stage.

(4) Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.

(5) Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.

(6) The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.

(7) Once you're done you can throw it away.

(8) Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.

(9) People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

(10) Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

(11) Destruction is a variant of done.

(12) If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.

(13) Done is the engine of more.

I love the energy of this (even if it is a parody.) I love that it flies in the face of the naysayers and the deniers. It reminds me of the Futurist Manifesto, and it reminds me of this Chinese proverb:

Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it.

Joe The Peacock hates the C.O.D.M, and has outlined an argument against each point. He's taking it too seriously. The C.O.D.M is just inspirational stuff for people who procrastinate too much - it is designed to help you change your habits. If you don't need your habits changed then don't follow the advice!

[ #27 ] Interviews Considered Harmful Permalink

Cool Added nearly two years ago

This article is brilliant. It attacks the notion of asking logic puzzles in interviews, using the classic Microsoft question as an example:

How would I move mount Fuji? I wouldn't try and move it at all. Moving a mountain has never been attempted by anyone, ever. Any attempt to move a mountain would likely run vastly over budget. It's likely the technology doesn't even exist to do this in an environmentally friendly way; although the Russians did happen to experiment with nuclear weapons in civil engineering. Why do you want to move the mountain anyway? There's probably an easier way to do whatever it is you want to achieve and it will almost certainly cost a lot less money.

[ #8 ] Launch Day Permalink

Cool Added nearly two years ago

... and we're live.

I figured it's best to get this blog out the door in an unfinished state first - that way I will be more enthusiastic to develop it as it's facing the world.

As one of my old bosses used to say:

Software is not like baking a cake where it's either cooked or not, it's like tending a garden. It requires constant care and time to grow.

So, hello world.

[ #7 ] My Favourite Quotes Permalink

Cool Added nearly two years ago and last edited nearly two years ago

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils. The thing is to supply light and not heat

Woodrow Wilson

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

Ellen Goodman

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Socrates

In a mad world only the mad are sane.

Akira Kurosawa

Any great work of art . . . revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world -- the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.

Leonard Bernstein

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

Mark Twain

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true.

George Bernard Shaw

It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.

Author Unknown

Of those who say nothing, few are silent.

Thomas Neill

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

William James

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(Nothing Older) ... (Nothing Newer)

Colophon

Django Python 960.gs Git Vim NetBSD Nginx

The Author

This is the blog of Brad Willis, a software engineer living in Brisbane.

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