Choose constraints wisely

September 21, 2012

[caption id="attachment_2117" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="Scenic view from the Seward Highway in the Chugach National Forest, Alaska."][/caption] I know it seems odd to write about “choosing constraints”… why would anybody choose a constraint? Wouldn’t you choose to be unconstrained wherever possible? Is it a constraint if you choose it? A constraint does something very useful for you. Here we live in the universe, a place that places extreme constraints on everything in it, but that to an individual human offers an unfathomably large array of choices.

Building Kitify, my first modern web app (in Rails), Part 3

September 20, 2012

development, javascript, kitify, prototype, rails, ruby on rails

[caption id="attachment_2108" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="The first prototype of the Kitify front page. Notice I use the phrase "1999-style page reloads"."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_2109" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="v0 of the actual site."][/caption] This entry is the third in a series about Kitify, a web app I built that was intended to let DIY project creators easily sell kits for their projects. You can see all the published entries by clicking here. Once I had the initial research for Kitify done, I moved on to what I think is the most important actual research step, which is building a functional product.

Working and the information problem

August 19, 2012

big information, bugs, code, communication, engineering, product management, software, work, working

[caption id="attachment_2101" align="alignleft" width="241" caption="Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do"][/caption] _Working_ is an oral history of work in 1960s and 70s America. Historian Studs Terkel interviews a vast range of different people - bookbinders, parking lot attendants, CEOs, retired people, musicians, and many others. In today’s world, and especially in the world I inhabit where I spend almost all my time talking to software engineers, marketers, and salespeople, it’s fascinating to read about what it’s really like to be a garbageman or a baseball player.

Grape bread 2

August 14, 2012

bread, cheese, concord grapes, grapes, rosemary, yeast

Been meaning to write this up for a long time now, but a few months ago I decided to make this grape bread again. This time, I used a different recipe, one that caused it come up much more like a flatbread, rather than something puffy. I also used actual concord grapes (seeded of course). Really excellent served with a sharp goat cheese and some additional grapes on the side. Because this recipe is much crispier - or at least came out that way for me - and because it has a much more savory flavor, brought about the heavy rosemary usage, it was a great appetizer course.

Fixing your own laptop, and the importance of do-it-yourself to society

August 5, 2012

dell, diy, do-it-yourself, laptop, latitude, repair, society, value

[caption id="attachment_2043" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="Removing the keyboard..."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_2042" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="With the screen bezel removed. The hinge is the reverse-L-shaped thing in the lower-right corner of the gray bezel; you can see at the end, next to the yellow circuit board, how the covering (which provided the hinge's friction) has worn away."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_2046" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="Fixed laptop. The hinge actually holds the screen up now!"][/caption] I have a snazzy new Mac now, but for about six years before that I had a Dell Latitude D410.

Building Kitify, my first modern web app (in Rails), Part 2

August 5, 2012

amazon, concept statement, do-it-yourself, kitify, mechanical turk, pitching, rails, surveys

This entry is the second in a series about Kitify, a web app I built that was intended to let DIY project creators easily sell kits for their projects. You can see all the published entries by clicking here. The first thing I did when starting to work on Kitify was (attempt to) validate the idea. There’s a lesson in this very process, which is that in retrospect I would have worked on Kitify no matter what the results had been, thus largely defeating the purpose of doing the experiments and surveys!

A flight deck with a million gauges

August 4, 2012

analytics, decisions, metrics

[caption id="attachment_2015" align="alignleft" width="400" caption="A VC10 cockpit, from Wikipedia user L-Bit. (Click to go to image page.)"][/caption] I think a lot about numbers: I have a fairly quantitative professional (and graduate education) background, including a stint in finance and a few years at a refreshingly quantitative nonprofit I cook, which requires a lot of attention to measurement, time, temperature, conversions, and adjustments I exercise with specific quantitative goals in mind (intervals, speeds, distances, reps)

Visas

July 30, 2012

hackers on planet earth, hope, passports, visas

[caption id="attachment_2011" align="alignleft" width="264" caption="The HOPE visa sticker for Day 2."][/caption] A couple weeks ago, I volunteered at the HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference for the first time. It was my first time attending, too, and it was really nice to be around new, unfamiliar ideas again. I helped run the info desk. “Information” is a loaded word at a conference like HOPE, because it’s a huge theme of the conference – protecting it, scrutinizing it, dispersing it, changing it, hacking it, etc.

Building Kitify, my first modern web app (in Rails)

July 28, 2012

diy, kitify, kits, rails, rubyonrails

[caption id="attachment_2004" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Kitify logo (created in Powerpoint, actually)"][/caption] This entry is the first in a series about Kitify (source code), a web app I built that was originally intended to let DIY project creators easily sell kits for their projects. You can see all the published entries by clicking here. Kitify makes it easy and fun for do-it-yourself project creators to document, share and sell kits for their projects, via web-based “kit creation software” and a backend logistics network for selling complete kits when requested.

A Ulam (prime number spiral) quilt

April 30, 2012

math, quilt, quilting, ulam cloth, ulam spiral

[caption id="attachment_1986" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The completed quilt, it's about 60" on each side."][/caption] More than other fiber arts, quilting depends on understanding the geometry of how the pieces of a quilt will fit together in complex ways. That is to say, it’s math! Justin, my husband (then boyfriend) told me about the Ulam spiral and I thought it’d be a pretty cool subject for a quilt for this reason. Doubly so since the Ulam spiral is also known as the “Ulam cloth”!

Justin Dunham

Choose constraints wisely

Building Kitify, my first modern web app (in Rails), Part 3

Working and the information problem

Grape bread 2

Fixing your own laptop, and the importance of do-it-yourself to society

Building Kitify, my first modern web app (in Rails), Part 2

A flight deck with a million gauges

Visas

Building Kitify, my first modern web app (in Rails)

A Ulam (prime number spiral) quilt