Blogs

slavin: Hi Google. Can we agree that “definitions” should be clearly separable from “sponsored results” and that a sponsored definition is, basically, the evil that you promised not to do?

Writing this in routes/api.js… exports.posts = function(req, res) { var posts = []; data.posts.forEach(function(posts, i) { posts.push({ id: i, title: post.title, text: post.text.substr(0, 50) + ‘…’ }); }); res.json({ posts: posts }); }; exports.posts = function(req, res) { var id = req.params.id; if (id >= 0 && id < data.posts.length) { res.json({ post: data.posts[id] }); } else { res.json(false); } }; [d'oh! Note the two `exports.posts`.] …and then attempting to run the Node server will through a less than helpful error: ...

Put those dang media-specific styles at the bottom of the sheet. Cascading means cascading. When inserting ZURB’s Foundation Icons, trying to write <i class="fi-social-github"></i> as <i class="fi-social-github" /> makes for some funny [in hindsight] repetition of the icons. I thought Viewport Resizer was going to save the day for iPhone testing. I thought wrong. Not directly related, but Cyberduck has a “reload” button for transfers. Sure beats clicking and dragging the same file repeatedly.

Open up a terminal and type: $ cd /home/somedir $ python -m SimpleHTTPServer That’s it! Now your http server will start in port 8000. You will get the message: Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 … Now open a browser and type the following address: http://192.168.1.2:8000 You can also access it via: http://127.0.0.1:8000 If the directory has a file named index.html, that file will be served as the initial file. If there is no index.html, then the files in the directory will be listed. ...

Our final project for MakerSquare: an app for booking flights to Mars. Whimsical? Absolutely. Ahead of its time? Slightly. Completely ridiculous? Only if you’ve forgotten how to dream. [goto](http://marsattracts.com)

Although the protocol is optimized for use as a payment scheme it is suitable for the transfer of larger amounts. The protocol is also suitable for use as an access control or resource allocation mechanism. With modification the protocol could be made to provide anonymity guarantees. W3C proposal for a micropayment transfer protocol…from 19 years ago. 

The red, green and blue colors derive from stages of Mars’ transformation from barrenness to life depicted in the epic “Red Mars,” “Green Mars,” “Blue Mars” trilogy written by Kim Stanley Robinson. Red, green and blue are also the primary components of the spectrum, symbolizing unity in diversity, as well as light itself, and thus reason and enlightenment. The tricolor form also traditionally represents the republican values of liberty, equality and justice. The flag was sewn by Maggie Zubrin and brought aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery at the invitation of astronaut John Mace Grunsfeld. ...

Day 35 of MakerSquare. Morning: lesson on node.js and gelato. We got a quick and dirty introduction to node, its asynchronicity, and the Express.js framework. In the span of the class, we Installed node.js and npm, the Node package manager Registered API keys with Facebook and Twitter Ran our first node.js server Ate homemade gelato - cookie dough flavor! Poked around the Jade page renderer Ran a node.js server to collect our Twitter stream Posted through the server to Facebook when “JavaScript” was mentioned in said Twitter stream Played Bomberman, as built with node.js Built a chat server Whew. ...

Day 34 of MakerSquare. Morning was perhaps our last lesson on vanilla JavaScript. We learned about prototypes and the .call method. Unique about our preparation was that Gilbert had recorded a version of the lesson as a video for us to watch the night before. I felt that viewing the video and then sleeping really primed my brain for maximum absorption. Moral of the story? Take more naps. Spent more time this afternoon on getting Mars Attracts to a solid place with the Rails portion. We’re growing our databases and are not without pains. But we hammer down the errors as they pop up and keep on developin’.

Day 33 of MakerSquare. Morning lesson was on algorithms and using Big O notation to note how long they should take to run. The basis for the lesson came from a co-founder’s conversation with a Google recruiter and her suggestions for what we should know for technical interviews. I enjoyed the lesson because ti was stretching a different, but parallel, part of the brain. Afternoon was project work. We worked on figuring out where our hackathon project had holes and how to patch them. I added dropdown menus that populate from the database. It works for now, but it looks like we’ll be restructuring our models & it probably won’t work tomorrow. Probably means it’s time to start writing tests. ...