whatknows :: do you?

July 29, 2009

Because I only don’t turn 30 one more time.

Filed under: Personal — Jed @ 11:03 pm

Yesterday day was my birthday, and it was amazing. Rather than any large productions, it was a day of thoughtful generosities.

As midnight approached, Steve eagerly waited for it to officially be my birthday before he produced a gift. Simultaneously the most ridiculous and awesome gift ever, I got the world’s only internet connected bunny, a Nabaztag! (Really, it is kind of crazy, so you should just click on the link.)

Peru the Nabaztag!

After promptly naming him “Peru”, I struggled for about an hour to introduce him to his new Internet-based home (turns out that Airports need some extra configuration – why? No clue.), and then somehow let a couple more hours slip by teaching him to wake me up in the morning, play NPR, read Twitter tweets, and practice Tai-Chi. (You didn’t click that link, did you? You might want to now.)

(more…)


July 26, 2009

Scootering Away, Rolling Forward

Filed under: Personal — Jed @ 7:14 pm

Vino ScooterIn one month I am leaving D.C. and, as if the city was helping me prepare for the move, my scooter was stolen this week. I walked outside one morning to find that “Gui” was simply not there. I stood there for a moment, as if his absence was a trick of the eye. However, despite how hard I looked at his typical parking spot, or how many times I blinked, he was gone.

Honestly, I think that Steve was more upset than I was. I promptly filed the event under “what can you do?” and “am I going to be late to work?” I then quickly checked my calendar to see when the day’s meetings were, and then my watch to see if I could catch the work-shuttle from Dupont Circle.

Don’t get me wrong, I was upset, but I didn’t really know what one could do besides twitter regret into the cloud:

Scooter stolen. Le sigh. I suppose it was only a matter of time.

On Facebook, my friend George (who seems to always have the best comments) wrote:

DC’s way of saying good bye :(

Carly was far more… emotive:

total effing crap. screw that city.

This wasn’t a surprise. (Love scooters? Read on…)


July 25, 2009

Nutritional Confessions

Filed under: Personal — Jed @ 8:10 pm

Gummy Bears!

Much to my mother’s chagrin, I have never quite gotten into the habit of taking a daily vitamin. Now I am a fairly nutritionally minded individual (just don’t ask my gym buddy); this largely means I know my macro-nutrients, the details of the Krebs cycle, what a ketone is, and drink a protein shake after my workouts (most of the time).

But when it comes to a simple daily vitamin, I have never quite gotten there. Perhaps this the byproduct of a mother for whom one vitamin quickly explodes into a dozen more to supplement the first’s deficiencies. Perhaps this is a Pavlovian response to too much vitamin B dumped on a dehydrated and dancing body, and the inevitable sick stomach and vomiting the occurred to often during my undergraduate days. Honestly, the pills are huge, and they scare me a bit.

The vitamin search continues…


July 5, 2009

JavaScript and Dead Frogs

Filed under: Technology — Jed @ 1:07 pm

A frog on my Camera BagThere is a debate at work right now. Granted, it is a bit ideological, but it is one of those classic web developer debates we feel compelled to return to every couple of years:

Should we expect our users to have JavaScript enabled?

Perhaps more importantly, what should we do when they don’t?

Ever since Google Maps ripped open the possibilities of web-based development (with turn-by-turn directions no less), we have been stuck with this bizarre requirement: JavaScript. Sure, it makes the web go round, but I still have nightmares of trying to get the University of Utah labs to upgrade to Flash v7, and our web analytics show a stunningly high level of Netscape v4.

Frogs at risk after the jump…