thirstymind.org: andrew watts' weblog - Latest Comments

Re: Checking the Stock Market from the Command Line

Andrew Watts — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:58:25 -0000

I didn't write in python, because bash seemed better for the job. Personally, I like the first sed line the best, who knew stripping html could be so simple!

Re: Checking the Stock Market from the Command Line

tmarthal — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:50:21 -0000

Why didn't you write this in python? urllib == curl++?

however, that awk line is pretty awesome

Re: Brief Thoughts on PyOhio

Matt Wilson — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:11:13 -0000

Hi Andrew, thanks for the mention! Yeah, I agonized about how much material to cram in to the talk, and I decided consciously to go really fast, and then make the materials available for offline study. I decided it would be better to hear complaints about that rather than complaints about how it wasn't very interesting. And the kids today, with their ADHD, do get bored quick :)

Personally, I'm a very slow learner, so when I listen to a lecture, I don't even try to dig into the details. I just want to accumulate lots of keywords associated with the topic, and then later on my own time digest it all.

Re: Tracking iPhone 3g Retail Stock

Andrew Watts — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:52:41 -0000

Thanks Ben, I am sure there is some delay in the data (not sure how much though), but the data does change throughout the day.

It will be interesting to see when the Michigan Ave store shows none left in the json data feed today. Perhaps, then, we'll get a better of the delay.

Nothings perfect though, and I am just grabbing the data from the json data feed and looking for interesting patterns.

Re: Tracking iPhone 3g Retail Stock

Ben Robinson — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:41:31 -0000

I live by the Chicago Michigan Ave. store and I noticed that the data feed from Apple was incorrect. It is showing all three available right now, but they only had the 16 gigs this morning and sold out by 11ish.

I think the updates they are posting throughout the day aren't up to the minute availability, but rather they are updating what will be available the next day.

Sadly, I don't think the data file will be any help in beating the lines...

Re: AT&T Is Working on Its Own 3D Browser (Pogo). What Are They Thinking?

Matthew — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:16:33 -0000

Re: You Weren’t Meant to Have a Boss

tommy — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:50:42 -0000

were you going to specify which lines or should I just guess? that post could be about 1/10th the current length and still get across the same points. he needs to learn to blog like you - 3 lines or less.

Re: Seth’s Blog: The forces of mediocrity

Andrew Watts — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:28:22 -0000

I think it is important to not get wrapped up in debating the force, you just need to go do something, otherwise nothing gets done and it screws with your head. Also, I think another part is taking time to recognize the achievement. I never take time to enjoy the successes and explain/discuss how it was achieved.

Have you started the dip, i thought i knew the answer prior to reading also, but, i didn't. The book was not what I expected. I'll even go so far to say that if I had read it prior to leaving ng, I would likely still be there.

Re: Seth’s Blog: The forces of mediocrity

tommy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:13:14 -0000

i picked up a copy of The Dip - I figure it will be good reading during my time off... even though I already know the answer.

I've discovered that the forces of mediocrity come from a lot of different places - some of which you wouldn't readily expect, like your friends and family... I think he's dead-on though. Without some doubters whatever you do just wouldn't seem like an achievement...it would just be something you're expected to do - no upside, only a possible downside, everything to lose - nothing to gain, etc :)

Re: Denormalizing Databases

tmarthal — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:03:39 -0000

I think you want a hash of hashes, not a relational database. =(

Re: stereogum: Official Coachella Lineup 2008: See You On The Dark Side Of The Moon

Andrew Watts — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:17:18 -0000

too bad it is not Pink Floyd.

I'll come out but hotel costs are way high. and saturdays lineup doesn't excitement me much, i think friday is the best day.

Re: stereogum: Official Coachella Lineup 2008: See You On The Dark Side Of The Moon

Matthew — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:08:52 -0000

Too bad it's not Gilmour :)

Re: stereogum: Official Coachella Lineup 2008: See You On The Dark Side Of The Moon

Paula — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:34:13 -0000

You coming out for Coachella? See you on the Dark Side of the Moon

Re: More about todos, IM edition

Andrew Watts — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:45:03 -0000

i just spent about an hour playing with rtm and attempting to make it work for me, and there is a lot there, it's very complete (minus the im interface), but it's too complex for me, and there are too many quirky ui things going on for me. and to use with the iPhone it is $25, which i am not opposed to paying but it needs to work and meet my needs. And it currently doesn't.

ive been testing things for the last couple weeks, i really really like it, but it's a desktop app, and will be $49 once it's out of beta. Those 2 items are holding me back from full time adoption.

I think there is money to be made in creating a simple todo list app implementing GTD that has web/sms/im interfaces.

Re: Denormalizing Databases

Andrew Watts — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:57:14 -0000

i am not sure where you are going with that line of thought and what do you mean by distributed (ie: distributed app servers sharing a managed db connection, or distributed clients that each have a different db connections or ?). Managing conflicts, i think, is the job of the transaction manager. Obviously you would still need to ensure ACID, but that is the job of the dbms, and I am not sure much changes when going from a normalized schema to a denormalized one.

I'll have to think about it some more and do some reading. I am no ORM or DB expert.

But the original point was denormalizing improves performance, specifically query performance not update performance. So why not design that way from the start?

I've found that most people and customers don't like waiting for transactions, and the max upper limit on any request/response sequence is about 4-5 seconds before the user begins to get agitated and/or gives up and/or starts cursing the app.

Along with this, most customers, again in my experience, do more searching for data rather than updating data.

So, to date, query performance has been of prime importance for the apps I have worked on.

With that being the goal, it seems one should focus on designing a db that will allow you to achieve that goal, rather than designing a normalized schema, just because your college prof or oracle instructor told you the best way to manage a database was normalizing the schema. Yes that may be the best way to manage a database, but ultimately the customer doesn't care how the database is managed, they just want a fast responsive app.

Re: More about todos, IM edition

Andrew Watts — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:09:04 -0000

i might have to try that, i looked at it awhile ago and it didn't meet my needs, but looks like they have improved it a lot and i may be able to find a way to use it.

Re: Denormalizing Databases

Matthew — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:48:22 -0000

Because now all your data must be added, updated, and deleted together. If you have a distributed application and one client updates one object then you must perform conflict detection and management across the entire row, even if data isn't closely related, and you'll probably end up impacting every client on the system.

Re: Denormalizing Databases

Andrew Watts — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:25:07 -0000

why not?

Re: More about todos, IM edition

Matthew — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:56:04 -0000

Maybe you should remember the milk.

Re: Denormalizing Databases

Matthew — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:53:31 -0000

I don't think it would be very clean mapping the data into objects if it all came from one table.

Re: Twitter as a TODO list???

tmarthal — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:40:26 -0000

i just use my Notes application on my iphone. but instead of daily todos, i only have monthly todos.

Like 'October', 'November', 'December' (with the xmas lists) etc. You talk about ubiquity, but I have my mobile phone on my at all times.

And when im done, i just put an 'X' next to the item, or 'O' if it wasn't completed. then email myself the list after all the items have been exported (to the next month) or completed to archive the list.

works pretty good, except when I know i need to do the stuff and just avoid it. =x

Re: Traveler IQ Challenge on zefrank.com

Andrew Watts — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:55:09 -0000

africa gave me problems also, i just started clicking in the center of western africa unless i knew. I also struggled with the former ussr and random islands.

Re: Traveler IQ Challenge on zefrank.com

tommy — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 19:38:28 -0000

yes, addictive. i can't seem to get past level 6. africa gives me problems.

Re: F*cking programming : Codeulate.

tommy — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:16:16 -0000

I think I just found a new hobby.

Re: I wish Bud Selig would resign

tommy — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:10:42 -0000

well stated. how's this for irony: i believe the brewers (selig is at least part-owner) just signed free agent eric gagne this past week! if selig isn't going to resign he better set a good example by taking care of his own team first... otherwise his credibility is probably going to be questioned.