Ben Church

[isitopen-blog]

You forget what's out there sometimes, what's past your laptop, cell phone, what's past the buildings on your street. 2013 became an amazing year for me, inspired by Cesar Kuriyama's Ted talk late in 2012 I took the time to document everyday I had and go out of my way to try and make each day special in someway. I had my own ups and downs as did my videos but I'd like to think out of this year of unpredictable change I've grown a bit, hopefully. 

[isitopen-blog]

Watching it all float away

Been here since 7pm. Not leaving till 7am. Only 1am. It has been sometime since I spent the night in an airport. I'm in Calgary International again with no body here but the astronaut floating calmly over the escalator.

If I were a normal person I guess I'd be pissed off that I'm spending the next 12 hours curled across these two pleather sofa chairs, but alas I'm not, I'm probably the happiest I've been in a month. Though I've shattered my life more than a couple of times passing through these gates here at YYC, nothing lifts me up higher than settling into the airport, bag in tow, with the fresh smell of a new magazine unrolling in my hands (flavour of this trip? Wired magazine). I may not be flying on to my next adventure yet but I'm certainly preparing for it. With a new job at Semadic waiting for me back in Victoria for the first time in a few years I won't be sitting in a classroom come fall. I'll be a 9 to 5 man, and while my mother is less than thrilled I'm taking on an internship instead of studying, I am ecstatic. I will return to school, I know that, but I am also hoping this turns out to be a 8 month placement rather than a 4 month because though I love my program I really do miss crossing borders. So here's hoping that this time next year Ill either be walking through here with a diploma in hand or crossing through customs debt free.

[isitopen-blog]

I ended up with alot of animal footage in one month so I figured I'd toss it all together in a little short

[stephanebegaudeau-blog]

2012 was the year of the rise of the Javascript MVC frameworks and librairies with countless of those frameworks that were released or that went under the spotlight. Among others, you must have heard about Backbone.js, Ember.js but my personal favorite is AngularJS. AngularJS is a Javascript...

[isitopen-blog]

An Early Mothers Day

A girl stands next to me, a delicate black saurang wrapped tightly round her small waist, with a pair of vaurnet sunglasses hanging readily around her neck, prepared for the looming moment when the soft, gentle shadow that hangs over her face sharply pulls away and once again turns back into the hot bangladesh sun. A girl stands here next to me trapped in time, peering off into the distance, through the cracked glass in my picture frame, a girl, my mother.

I admire all three of my parents, whole heartedly I do, though they might not have realized it at times but I like to think that I've never come off their shoulders, and that to me they still are the giants that can make me feel like an ant. I used find it odd  that something as simple as following your heart can evoke such envy but as I start becoming an adult myself (I know if my mom ever reads this she'll scoff and say "not fast enough") I'm starting to realize that it doesn't take much to get knocked off course. It doesn't take much to loose just who you are.

Yet my Mother still remains today, unchanged, her heart still beating to her own tune, the same warm kindness still flowing from behind her eyes with a commitment to adventure holding strong, unyielding against the wash of time. As I sit here writing this, she calls me to tell me of her plans  for the year, Honduras, Belize, Europe, the end destination is never the point. Just as long as she keeps moving, keeps seeing, keeps exploring, dreaming, that is the point. It's a strength anyone can admire, to pursue your own happiness with what one can only call a beautiful disregard for life's hurdles.

I sit here looking at this photo every day, watching my mom mid stride through the rough sand stone slum, enclosed by a gaggle of school girls in there wonderfully embroidered dresses, and it never ceases to remind me why she still does nothing less than inspire me, why even given their faults all my parents are still nothing less than my role models. 

My mother is still that girl, a perfect reflection, and for that I thank her.

[isitopen-blog]

A good semester.

Today is a good day. Maybe it's the marks, maybe its the compliments or the weather, maybe its the fact that after this I'm going to sit down for a what I'm expecting to be a delicious meal with some good friends. Maybe it's a combination of everything, usually is, like the other side of a perfect storm, the perfect day.

I've come a far in some ways since January, I've stayed the same in others but on a day like today it's almost impossible not to focus on the progress. In January I made alot of resolutions, I had to, my life needed to change. I was unhappy and starting to realize it was ultimately my fault, it's hard to blame anyone else for your own emotions anyway. I made a slew of new years resolutions, and while my one second video a day project has gone along way to keeping me on track with these (My exercise has slipped in the past month, ill blame the cough for now) I place most of my successes firmly on the shoulders of my war on paper. By the end of last semester I was tired of forgetting dates, tired of writting my notes twice because I lost/couldn't read them, I was tired of putting everything off till the last minute, procrastinating 5 hours for every 1 worked. It affected me, it affected those I love, I was a zombie of my own device.

Thankfully I had some time to relax over christmas (like most college students do), I got to decompress, I got to find joy again (deadmau5 concerts, friends and skiing surely are the cure). I had some clarity and after reading through Cal Newport's "How To Become a Straight-A Student" on the advice of a friend I had the necessary strategies and a fresh start coming up to use them. One thing still troubled me though, how was I ever going to shake my technology addiction, with a new iPhone 4s and nexus 7 in my possession I felt I had no chance, a note would never get taken again.

In that instance it hit me hard, like a cold ocean wave to the face, these devices are all supposed to make my life, our lifes easier, not more difficult! So why am I sitting here fearing them rather than embracing them. I said to myself lets see if I can get rid of these calendars that I never write on, these to-do lists I forget about, these notes that never seem to make it into a binder ever and put them on my devices maybe that will help! and it did this was the start of my war on paper. I took my time to amass a small army of apps such as:

Evernote

Google Drive

Clear

Lift

Sunrise

Mailbox

across all my devices and I have yet to look back. I plan to make my next post about my strategy with this all but for now I just want to give credit to a major changing force in my life. With this semester on wrap up mode it's quite easy for me to look back with a smile. I've just recently received a slew of marked assignments all with 80% to multiple 100% and this is coming from someone who's been proudly calling himself a C to B student.

But this isn't about the marks, its about the time I've saved, the time I've gotten back, and the experiences I've gained all because what seemed like something as simple as making my technology work for me again has been as significant as empowering me to (mostly) kick my procrastination habits, reorganize my self and let me enjoy life again.

Here's to technology and to it allowing me to live my past 4 months just a little better. I'm optimistic that this track with continue on and am looking forward to writing again sometime soon and sheding some much need light on just what anyone could do to improve there life with the devices they already own.

[bijan]

Many folks get to experience some of their goals because someone, somewhere along the way, gave them a shot. They took a real chance based on something they felt or saw (vs historical evidence per se).

Early in my life, Lauren took a chance on me. When we started dating, I could barely pay my...

[isitopen-blog]

Off to a good start with this one second a day project! and it's keeping my other resolutions in check as well!

[isitopen-blog]

Hello November!

Ah the smell of moustache hangs heavy in the air today, letting us all know it's ok to flaunt our masculinity this month no matter how wispy.  It reminds us that this November is about taking back our principals, to be a man and to take pride in it once again. To take pride in our lives, our work, our craft. This month I want to make sure my all my endeavours demonstrate the dedicated quality it deserves. My relationships, my school work, and my own projects.... including my code. A craftsman is defined by his work and his skill, A programmer is no different. So what makes up code you can bring home to your parents?

Documentation

Writing great, easy to read documentation isn't hard. It's just takes time. But lets be honest anything worthwhile does and if you want to be great you have to pay attention to those details. While you don't have to put a novel above every class header (though some recommend a narrative) you still want people to be able to use your method on the first pass through your doc. Be clear, keep it to the point.

Manly example: Ernest Hemingway.

Manly tip: write as you go and don't forget variable names count!

Simplicity

Now you shouldn't be wasting time to much time on trying to make your amazing 7 line code into amazing 6 line code but on the other hand I never want to see 100 lines to change a picture into black and white. Though your documentation helps, your code still needs to speak for itself. You want your code to be easy to trace and have first time readers nod along as the go. So take your time and plan out your methods and classes, dont just rush in and start hacking away because you might just end up with something like Homer Simpson's spice rack.

Manly example: Dieter Rams

Manly tip: Take your time and plan it out.

Efficiency

Image

When you take your time to make simple, readable code, efficiency should be obviously on your mind. Code needs to be lean; after you've removed all that excess fat you need to start putting on muscle. If your a self taught programmer it doesn't hurt to look up on your various sorts, data structures and memory management. Proper structure and algorithms can turn your run down VW bus into a pavement eating Bugatti Veyron.

Manly example: Steroids (Disclaimer: steroids wont make be a better programmer, just an much, much angrier one.)

Manly tip: If you haven't already, invest in yourself a bit and take a into into computational algorithm class. You wont regret it.

Modularity

In my very first Computer Science lab in University they had us (in C I'm pretty sure) create various programs, mostly very basic I/O tasks and ANSII image generators. The told us to store these away in a folder called toolbox because we'd 'use these basic functions time and time again'. Now I've come a long way from that day but the idea the my functions are a set of tools I use have never left me. Keeping my code separated and modular not only keeps my code easy to read, it makes it easier to write. I never like to type out the same task twice, it makes my code heavy and costs me time and this goes beyond my current project. When my code is kept into neat little blocks it saves me time later in other projects when I can go back and easily copy and paste old code into a new program.

Manly example: Ford Model T.

Manly tip: If you have to do the process more than twice you might want to make it it's own function.

Reliable

A Man above all else is reliable, he always provides, he is always there, he always gets things done and this should be no different for code. While a good, well thought out structure goes a long way to help create reliable programs alot still needs to be done to ensure all inputs will generate a correct response or an appropriate, anticipated error. Now the only way you can be sure of this is testing, alot of it. Now alot of you might think your smart and perfect but I'm here to tell you that, simply put, you're not. Us humans aren't as good as critical thinking as we thought, thats ok, part of being a man is accepting your weaknesses though unfortunately for us this mean our code is probably gonna have some errors. Cold hard testing is the first approach to this problem and the more often you do this as you go the less likely your gonna be stuck with a labyrinth of errors and extreme cases at the end of it all. Another way is to bring in a second party on the matter, now you can debate Pair Programming vs Code Reviews all you want but the fact of the matter is having an outside perspective helps, alot, and can go along ways to making 'near' perfect code.

manly example: My Gerber Pocket Knife. It's a knife, not a hammer and it lets you know that. It cuts things well and performs as expected in all other cases.

manly tip: Test often and grab a friend, you'll thank yourself in the end.

So plan it out, keep it simple and test and document the shit out of it. Follow this and you should be on your way to writing some god damn code to be proud of this month.

Join this discussion on Hacker News

[isitopen-blog]

Woo Hoo YellowAPI supports opening hours!

WOOOOOOO. Ok I'm a little more excited than I should be. Last year I had an idea for a great web app that needed to use the opening hours for local restaurants. Though I was impressed by the power and shear amount of data behind the Yellow Pages API I was let down that it did not include opening and closing hours. In my spare time I began to work on a python script to get it from their webpages source code but that would take ages to go through the yellow pages data set. I gave up but the other day I decided to check back and see if anything changed and was delighted to see that they had added it! So I can finally start to move on super secret project x10100, well after midterms are done. Maybe I can use that time to figure out if I should pick up rails or django.......

[isitopen-blog]

False prophets and Deterministic Finite Automaton

Last night I found myself deep inside a cramped library filled with people, who just like me were scrambling to make head or tails of old notes, monotonously reviewing old assignments or tackling sets of new problems. Midterms. It's no secret that I'm not the biggest fan of University learning (as it appears alot of top software engineers aren't) and you can't blame me for not enjoying Nondeterministic finite automaton and context free grammars (still holding out for a rails or django class). Luckily though I had a pretty girl next to me who was just as bored as I was. After awhile we came to the conclusion that we had both studied enough and needed a little bit of break and being on campus what better than going to check out the university's cinema (both never been).

We headed over to catch the 9pm showing and see what was playing.

Kumare. Something about a guru.....great. Whatever girl was pretty, I didnt want to study, sure lets do this

So I sat though the whole thing, huge bag of popcorn, large soda.....barely had any of it. The movie was great, to be honest I had to cover my mouth more than once because I was laughing to hard and if you get a chance to see this you'll know what I mean about "The power buffer guy". Anyway blew me away but thats not the point. What I didnt know going into it was the movie was not just about a guru it was about pretending to be a guru. Kumare essentially is the alter ego of of a New Jersey born director Viskar, think Borat to Sasha Baron Cohen. He pretends to be this guru from india and heads into arizona to start his following and disprove guru's by showing that anybody can be one. Proof by contradiction I guess applies to the pumping lemma I was supposed to be studying.

You don't need some mystical man to help you become a better person, you already know what you need to do

Obviously in an expository movie like this there has to be a reveal, where you pull of the veil and show that it's all smoke and mirrors, that it's all a hoax. This is gonna crush people, it's gonna crush his followers and though gullible they are fantastic people just looking for an answer. It's hard for Viskar, hell this would be hard for anyone to stand up to a room full of people you care for and tell them your full of shit. It's at this point that his teachings become less of an act and more of an odd combination of a scapegoat and revelation. You don't need some mystical man to help you become a better person, you already know what you need to do just fucking do it already.

OK so I've given away enough of movie but I still hope someone watches it, but it's that bullshit revelation from a false prophet that got me writing again. It something I've wanted to do for awhile I just needed a bit of a kick from myself. So I grabbed some of the old posts from my elective blog from last year and decided to start doing this on my own. If not to just help me clear my thoughts then it's to keep me away from my old habits of blog surfing. It's alot more healthy to get your own thoughts out then just to keep taking in others.

Ill see where this all goes, for right now I'm gonna be on the tumblr format as it gives me some free hosting but I imagine down the road I'll be navigating towards weebly and wordpress once I get a few of my old projects touched up and online. For now though I'm kind of excited to get those ideas on technology, travel and that odd medium I have pent up out into the world

[jasonshah]

There must be something to learn from the Airbnb user experience.

Airbnb, like many startups following in its path of collaborative consumption or others simply trying to power offline action, have the challenge of earning user trust. While PR, word of mouth, and direct outreach can alleviate...

[blakemasters]

Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay

Here is an essay version of class notes from Class 11 of CS183: Startup. Errors and omissions are mine. Credit for good stuff is Peter’s.

Class 11 Notes Essay—Secrets

I.  Secrets

Back in class one, we identified a very key question that you should continually ask yourself: what important truth do very few people agree with you on? To a first approximation, the correct answer is going to be a secret. Secrets are unpopular or unconventional truths. So if you come up with a good answer, that’s your secret.

How many secrets are there in the world? Recall that, reframed in a business context, the key question is: what great company is no one starting? If there are many possible answers, it means that there are many great companies that could be created. If there are no good answers, it’s probably a very bad idea to start a company. From this perspective, the question of how many secrets exist in our world is roughly equivalent to how many startups people should start.

Read More

[isitopen-blog]

I'd kill to be back on that path

[isitopen-blog]

Do you ever feel trapped by technology?

Does anyone feel trapped by their modern habits more than liberated by their features? I love what technology has to offer, trust me I wouldn't be a CS major if  i didn't, the way I can keep in contact with people cross borders and overseas, the vast availability of information at my finger tips and the amazing constructs I can create in cyberspace all are what keep me in constant amazement. But the tendencies I've developed worry me constantly, I've become an what wired magazine coined an "informnavore", I constantly seek information for entertainment. I can no longer sit and wait, relax or even do homework without constantly mining reddit, reading tech & game blogs, playing angry birds or trolling facebook for updates on friends.

I fear we've become a generation of constant distraction, so bent on eliminating boredom that we've lost the discipline of patience, concentration and endurance. It just takes one look at the increasing diagnosis of ADHD and troubling rise in Adderall abuse and you can see somethings changing in us and it might not all be for the better Our grandparents didn't know the dangers of cigarettes but looking back now it seems obvious right?. Anyway I'm bored of typing, I think I might go watch some Spartacus. Shits bloody.

[isitopen-blog]

Disregard. Unrelated awesomeness (Taken with instagram)

[isitopen-blog]

Sneak Peaks & Color Schemes

I'm new to this whole design thing, really. it was only 2 months ago that i decided I'd help build a website for a friend and now I cant get enough of it.

Here's a screen shot of what's to come for the ghana futures website.

Now theres more going on if you could scroll down and some of the other pages are starting to look really cool but what I want to focus on here is not the content but the color scheme.

Now when I first turned my eye to web design, again 2 months ago, I didn't know where to start and someone told me to pick three colors, just three, and use them well. After looking into things like color theory I settled upon this trio.

I'll admit though, we did deviate a little from the three color rule. My buddy Isaiah loved these teal dresses the girls we were trying to help wore and insisted that we use a teal in the website. now teal in itself is pretty harsh but we found if you use a little bit here and there it turns out really, really cool. I finally settled on this color and have been pretty happy with it.

The problem is now I want to find a set of colours for this blog. When I first started this, I had an idea that I would work on a new design but lately I've been throwing around an idea of making a theme using ghana future's design and selling it to generate some money for the charity.

either way it's still an idea and I'm gonna keep looking for some colours in the meantime.