11th Avenue
April 24, 2008 – 9:29 pm
JT Concert
April 19, 2008 – 1:48 pm
This is what I like to call a “Stone Soup Broadcast”. We pulled together equipment from many different places to make this happen. Thanks to Tom Bowar, Ken Larsen, South Bend, and many others for their time and equipment.
Wow. I want to see this.
March 7, 2008 – 4:37 pm
“Big Ben” Heads North to Minneapolis
The barge that will be used to install the pre-cast segments on the bridge is on its way to Minneapolis. It left Homa, Louisiana — near New Orleans — on Tuesday afternoon, March 4. Traveling at an average speed of about four knots, it will make its way upriver over the next three weeks or so, passing through 29 locks along the way. The ringer crane that will be mounted atop the barge is being trucked to Minneapolis from Seattle. When the barge and the crane arrive later this month, they will be assembled on-site. The barge-mounted ringer crane has been nicknamed “Big Ben,” after Project Manager Peter Sanderson’s grandson.
March 6, 2008 – 10:37 pm
We had an awesome conversation at MIS dinner tonight. I took rough notes.
Should we use Facebook? Is it a lost cause?
People doing stupid stuff on FB
Not directly FB’s fault.
Is this a good reason not to use FB?
You can also do stupid stuff in public.
Very bad privacy policy?
For a time, when you deleted your account, all of the information would stll remain, and you could come back at any time.
“I spend too much time on FB.”
Why do they do it?
“It’s cool.”
“Everyone else is doing it.”
“All of my friends are on it.”
Stay in touch with people (requires less effort)
Contact Directory
Why the poke? Developers say they just wanted to see what would happen.
It’s an American way of socializing. Some people in the UK are worried that it will change the way people relate to one another on a day to day basis.
“I’m more ok with putting my info online than my parents.”
Is it a good thing to make it easy?
If I already know what you have been doing, why should I talk to you?
Helps for trans-geographical communication.
For some people Facebook is their primary form of online communication, above email.
The story Jeremy found and shared last December. “At least he could have facebooked me.”
They are not sending some long detailed message. The facebook message box is fairly small.
Email is more useful for actually acomplishing things.
It is very hard to acomplish things with facebook.
Facebook groups don’t really help things get done. Today, Chris took a video of something that a facebook event accomplished.
Might be useful for:
-Directory info
-Some long distance communications
FB is used for many things that arn’t useful. A ton of stuff that does not matter.
Currently it is a somewhat childish way to communicate, but sometimes that can be fun.
Can we make useful facebook apps?
We could make an app that lists stuff that people have and are happy to lend out to people.
an app that lists skills that people are happy to teach.
A travel/ride finder similar to dopplr.com. Could be nice for carpooling between cities. Along with this, we could make a shipping app where you could send something to someone and take advantage of the inter-city travel.
Video Ideas - people could list interesting ideas for intersting youtube style video shorts.
New Vine & Branches and New Song Books
March 6, 2008 – 5:43 pm
New Vine & Branches about the New River Ridge
Also, the new song books are in South Bend ready for the music conference starting tonight.
3 Things
March 5, 2008 – 5:57 pm
One:Ten found an interesting article by Wired, Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business. It goes into the business models and economics of Free 2.0.
These two are very encouraging:
Jon tells us to create instead of sitting around entertaining ourselves.
In January, Josh wrote about getting stuff done, even when you are not in the mood. This part stuck with me:
I recently realized that if i feel like i need a cup of coffee, sometimes i can think to myself “look, you can do a bunch of stuff in the next half hour, regardless of how sluggish you feel” sometimes i can get a bunch of stuff done. Sometimes i can’t though.
I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but this applies to more than just coffee. I’ve started to ask myself throughout the day, “Can I go 30 minutes without this?”. Almost all of the time the answer is yes.
11 Guests across Dinkytown for Dinner tonight
March 1, 2008 – 11:39 pm
Many people are currently in town and it is really neat to catch up with everyone.
Head Cook and the Section that is Cooking Dinner
February 15, 2008 – 6:06 pm
Monday: Action (Kristin)
Tuesday: MIS (Kevin)
Wednesday: Mission (Colleen)
Thursday: Finance (Jeremiah)
Friday: Action & Mission (Colleen)
New Blog just for Code
February 11, 2008 – 10:23 pm
I’ve noticed I’ve been posting a lot of code on this blog, so I made another blog just for code.
Closures in Python
February 8, 2008 – 2:13 pm
def incorrect():
fruit = ['apples', 'bananas', 'peaches']
printers = {}
for food in fruit:
def output():
print food
printers[food] = output
printers['apples']()
printers['bananas']()
printers['peaches']()
def correct():
fruit = ['apples', 'bananas', 'peaches']
printers = {}
for food in fruit:
def create_output(food):
def output():
print food
return output
printers[food] = create_output(food)
printers['apples']()
printers['bananas']()
printers['peaches']()
>>> incorrect()
peaches
peaches
peaches
>>> correct()
apples
bananas
peaches
