TheCrypto's Blog

After I disappeared from the blog scene, 4 months ago now, I got involved into a number of projects, trying to come up with various web applications to get my life in order. And in the end, it turned out that what I needed was another web framework.

RhubarbTart is a web framework, very similar to CherryPy, but built upon Paste to handle most of the hard parts. I am already using it at my job as a replacement for CherryPy and it works wonderfully. I have just released version 0.5, and you can install it now with just easy_install RhubarbTart. I have also written a long tutorial to give you the basics of using RhubarbTart that I hope is very useful.

In the next few weeks, I am going to be adding a number of features to RhubarbTart that will take it from being just a clone to something much better than what is currently out there. The code isn't terribly large, only about 300 lines, so adding additional features isn't a great burden either.

Making some RhubarbTart,

TC Out

Yesterday, I got on two new webapps, Suprglu and MeasureMap. Since MeasureMap is a stats tracking site and I screwed with the stats because of posting my name to the public Million Dollar Experiement site, I'm going to wait a few days before showing anything from it.

So instead, I'll talk about Suprglu. This site is is similar to an entry I saw win Rails Day but since the site is down for that I can't find it again. However, that site never worked so it's probably best I can't rememember either.

Suprglu tries to aggregate all the RSS feeds we are creating from del.icio.us to 43things and back. Then it puts them into a nice blog style format and lets you reaggregate them. It's an idea almost like the status page idea I had but entirely from feeds. I like the idea and I hope that the team can do more with it soon.

Here is my personal Suprglu as an example.

As another note, more sites should use subdomains for user webpages. It is so much easier than remembering the path to the user information.

TC Out

I've been reading Steve Palina's blog for a while now. He always has interesting stuff going on such as his polyphasic sleep experiment which I read with much interest as a couple of my friends attempted the same fairly recently but ultimately failed.

Today he started another experiment to try and bring a million dollars to people. I originally read about this idea in one of Scott Adams' books (who now has a blog himself). I can't remember which book it was or else I would link to it. But, I never had the impetus to actually do it. If this intention works the way people want it, everyone will be earning a million dollars somehow, and I have a number of idea of what I could do with a cool million. Hopefully, some of them to be posted to this blog soon.

TC Out

I just came down with something, probably a cold. So I thought it would be a perfect time to talk about Merlin Mann's recent post about status pages. I think this is a wonderful idea. I need to code something up for PyBlosxom to do this soon. Maybe when my brain is working again.

My idea would be to have a static page of fields and values, however, the fields are pulled via scripts. So I can do things like post my current word count information for NaNoWriMo or grab 5 random entries from my todo list and so on. Since the status page updates based on information I'm creating, it should actually stay up to date much more than trying to summarize what I'm doing on a regular basis.

TC Out

Over the past couple of months, I have been using a new window manager under Linux. It's called wmii. It is currently attempting to approach the interface of the not quite dead Plan 9. What makes it useful is the keybindings for everything, and a model for organizing the windows that makes sense.

I normally used the tiled layout when I'm doing my work. You have one main window that takes up most of the vertical space, and all the subordinate windows running along the side. To pull a window to the main takes just a slap of a key and the focus follows. The sloppy focus is some of the best I've seen as well. Also the developers are concerned about the quality of their code. Each new snapshot actually decreases the amount of code they have while still adding features.

If you have a *nix box and are looking for a new window mangager. I would defineitly try it out. It's a bit weird to get used too but it still has a much smaller learning curve than ion or evilwm.

TC Out

Exactly 2 months ago was my last post to this blog. Since that time, I have been spending a good amount of my time playing Second Life. I have made a number of new friends in Second Life. Seen some amazing work from avatars to scripts and everywhere in between. It is just an amazing place and growing everyday. You can find me on Second Life in the evening PST every day as TheCrypto Doctorow. I'm always interested in talking.

But I'm going to try and do something more visible this November. For several years, I have attempted to win NaNoWriMo. This is a contest to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It averages out to 1,667 words per day. I have attempted the past 3 years but I hope that the 4th time is the charm.

As well, I'm planning to write at least 100 words per day to this blog. I have been neglecting it and I have plenty to write about, but I haven't forced myself to write. This little entry is 236 words so writing just 100 shouldn't be horribly hard. It will probably be just a link I find that day and some commentary. But it will be something.

1767 words per day is my goal, Good Luck to myself,

TC Out

The last week or so, I've been learning Lisp. I started looking at it again after someone directed me to a book that teaches Practical Common Lisp. Previously, when I had looked for a Lisp tutorial, they always ended with "And that's how you create a list." I would then look at that tutorial and go "Why don't I just use Python then?" This books starts you on the right foot by showing you the advanced features, like macros, and even, amazingly enough, how to get output. I swear, every other Lisp tutorial I found did not explain how to do a simple print statement.

So now that I've been learning all this about Lisp. I'm applying it in another direction. I've also been interested in learning Lojban. And I've got many parts of the general grammar down, but I have almost no vocabulary. I've tried paper flashcards and even the Flashman process but none of them have worked. Many people recommended Supermemo but I don't run Windows so that doesn't work for me, even under Wine. None of other flashcard programs for Linux work well either.

So instead, I'm going to write a flashcard program in Lisp. I already have it parsing the database format I want. Now all I have to do is get it to print out the card on the screen and implement an algorithm for picking a card. Luckily, Supermemo has their algorithm posted.

That's how I think. When I can't find a program to help me learn something, I'll learn something else in order to make a program to help me learn something.

TC Out

Recently, to continue in my Second Life, I've been playing with the scripting language. For a friend, I've been making a animation script. When you sit on a couch it should ask you how you'd like your body animated and animate the avatar. This is actually pretty hard to pull off completely.

The scripting language is a C derivative with some features from other scripting languages, like a real list type. It's a strictly typed language and actually pretty useable. I've almost got the script done, I just have to fix the stand up action.

On this note, with all the recent posts about Second Life, would people prefer that I move them to a second blog or do people not mind?

I will be getting back to some fun Python programming soon, I've just been spending lots of time working in Second Life and at work. But I've also just reactivated trying to enforce a strong Getting Things Done regiment again, so I'll hopefully will be GTD.

TC Out

In a recently slashdoted article, there was a discussion of how MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) will take over the world.

Now as I've recently mentioned, I've fell in love with the word of Second Life which could technically be the MMORPG without a hard RP part. Or even really the G part. It's a completely free form environment for everything. I've seen it used as a chat environment, a decent 3d modeling environment, a shopping mall, a wedding location, a casino, a night club, and the list just goes on. And this is just what I've seen and heard of in the week I've been on it. People are already making a living working on Second Life because of the exchange rate. This is exactly what the article was talking about, but it was glossed over for the bomb that was the Sims Online.

On IT Conversations, Will Wright, the man who invented the Sims and Sims Online spent almost half the time in the questions section attempting to explain why didn't the Sims Online do anything like what Second Life has been doing. It boiled down to that the Sims Online didn't make it free form enough and it didn't promote user interaction as much as it should have.

All that Linden Labs needs to do to get everyone into Second Life is make Second Life the last part of the article that hasn't come about in it yet. That would be making the world the interconnection between all the other MMORPGs. They have the technology to simulate everyone's avatars and move them around in an intelligent way. Even now, the different parts of the world live on different servers. They'd just have to compromise on a protocol for sending the avatar information back and forth.

At the moment, that plan would be pretty much a pipe dream. But if it does come true, Second Life would be the revolution that would not be televised. With the increases in the number of people who are playing MMORPGs and the current advancements in immersion technology, we are approaching the Meta-Verse. And I like that.

TC Out

A bit of a lack of updates here, but I've been stuck in Second Life or SL for short. It's an MMORPG without the RP part. I have been hanging out on there for hours a day, just having a blast watching the various avatars, seeing what people are making, and just hanging out. It really is fun. I'd recommend it to anyone, and it even runs under WINE. If you want to sign up, refer TheCrypto Doctorow and you can find me under that name on SL as well.

Heading back into the game now,

TC Out