Trek, I am.

Apprenticeship Oppurtunity

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 11:34:22 -0400

From some very cool colleagues:

Do you like to solve problems? What about learning new languages and techniques for writing software? Is your idea of a good time spending a day in a room with a bunch of brilliant coders?

Do you like to solve problems? What about learning new languages and techniques for writing software? Is your idea of a good time spending a day in a room with a bunch of brilliant coders?

Then you should apply for the Pillar Apprenticeship and Mentoring Program!

Within 30 days you will learn how to develop software that stands the test of time. You will explore languages and problem domains you have no experience with. Plus you’ll learn how to work with a team of brilliant coders working towards a common goal.

To apply, email hr@pillartechnology.com with a copy of your resume, and a couple paragraphs about why you want to become a pillar apprentice.

Minimum requirements are: familiarity with at least one programming language, a passion to learn new skills, and the ability to smile and laugh.

concentrate interview

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:47:00 -0400

Concentrate Mag: Would you say you present your ideas differently than older board members?
Trek: No.
Concentrate Mag: No?
Trek: I mean, I voice my ideas with more snark than some board members, but that has nothing to do with age, we just have different personalities.
Concentrate Mag: And do you think that the older board members treat you differently?
Trek: No.
Concentrate Mag: Well, I'm really hoping to set up a dichotomy between stuffy boomers and wild, loose cannon gen-xers.
Trek: I wish I had more of a story for you. That's just not how this board is.
Concentrate Mag: I'll go ahead and just make up a quote from you to support my story anyway.
Trek: I knew you would.

[AADL Bug?] FIXED.

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:58:00 -0400

Good news! It’s been fixed.

Seeing an odd bug on the AADL site. Wondering if others can reproduce it.

Start by being logged out (or logging out if you’re logged in)
Go to any item by record number, http://www.aadl.org/cat/seek/record=1296503
Click “Request this title”
You should be redirected to a “Request Verification” Page
Click the “Login and return to this request” link
You’ll end up at a login page. Go ahead and authenticate
If you’re seeing the same bug as I am, you’ll get an error message

Let me (@trek) and/or the AADL (@aadl) know!

Oh, Academics (just fucking put it on github already)

Fri, 29 May 2009 15:05:34 -0400

Trek: Have you considered moving the code to a social hosting site like github or bitbucket so it's easier for people to contribute?

Ziba: That's what we intend to do with Collage and a number of our other projects. One of the hold ups is that is so nice and easy to take UM specific short cuts to implement authentication (cosign) and authorization (umod). We're hesitant to put things in a really public space that aren't ready to be re-used by external organizations without work. When we either give up that ideal or find spare time to implement these features for a non-UM audience, we'll post them right away.

Trek: I think you're logic is backwards. You make it public so that people can refractor the umich-specific parts if that's useful to them. Every OSS project starts out only meeting the specific needs of its creators. You make it public so it can become generally applicable, not make it generally applicable so it can become public.

Ziba: I agree that an OSS project can have the life cycle you describe. The question now isn't really about going "public." The source has always been available to the public. It's more a matter of convenience, promotional timing and our availability to properly foster/moderate a potential developer community surrounding collage. In the meantime, to make it more convenient for contributors, the tarballs that have always been at: http://develop.www.umich.edu/collage/source/ now include the .git directory for our repository. The remote repository can't be interacted with, but it should ease patch creation a bit.

Office Hours

Fri, 08 May 2009 10:37:15 -0400

I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 10:30a - 12:30p. Today’s topics: Web, web, web. Stop by for free consulting.

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This is me today, allergic to life:

Office Hours

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:18:26 -0400

I’ll be at Primo Coffee on Liberty and Fifth this afternoon from 10:30a - 12:30p. Today’s topics: Lightweight APIs with Rack or Sinatra; Rails Code Review Day! Stop by for free consulting.

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I look like this today:

Office Hours (BONUS)

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:50:28 -0400

I’m holding an additional session office hours this week as the semester draws to an end. I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 11a - 1p. Stop by for free consulting.

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This is me today:

Office Hours

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:02:18 -0400

In consideration to late risers and downtowners I’ll be at Primo Coffee on Liberty and Fifth this afternoon from 2p - 4p. Today’s topics: cloud deployment, version control systems, teaching Rails to experienced programmers and anything else you’d like. Stop by for free consulting!

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I look like this today:

Office Hours

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:40:00 -0400

I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 11a - 1p. Today’s topics: Ann Arbor as tech haven, A2B3’s age bias, and various programming questions. Stop by for free consulting.

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This is me today:

Office Hours

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:00:00 -0400

I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 11a - 1p. Today’s topics: Ann Arbor’s hidden design community, the benefits of Open, data you don’t think is tabular (but really is), grid systems, Rails, and Javascript. Stop by for free consulting.

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This is me today:

Office Hours

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:02:34 -0400

I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 10:30a - 1p. Today’s topics: the Ann Arbor DDA, Information Activism, connecting the U’s tech community to the town’s, and Rails programming. Stop by for free consulting.

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I’m bundled up again today:

DDA Info Policy

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:52:57 -0400

to: Susan Pollay <spollay@a2dda.org>

bcc: Mayor Hieftje<JHieftje@a2gov.org>, Edward Vielmetti

Dear Susan,

I’m writing to follow up a (as yet, unreturned) phone call expressing my concern for recent actions taken by the DDA involving access to real time parking data. As you know (summarized here http://www.voiptechchat.com/voip/255/a2dda-blocks-asterisk-parking-data/ and in a number of other articles) the DDA has taken action to prevent access of publicly provided information to specific individuals citing “security risks”.

I would greatly appreciate a list detailing these security risks, the process by which they were identified, and the names and titles of the people at the DDA (or people who the DDA contacted) who have the necessary technical expertise to both determine and enact this identification process. A reply by email is sufficient, although I am willing to submit a formal FOIA request by mail for this information.

To address how these security risks are currently being solved:

It appears that the parties you’ve specifically targeted were accessing a publicly available webpage (http://www.a2dda.org/parking__transportation/available_parking_spots/) and transforming the information on this page into an alternate format.

If you truly believe that providing real-time parking data represents a threat or risk, I’d suggest you remove that information from a publicly available site. There is no difference between human- and computer-initiated requests for a web page. To all the systems involved in the process both human- and computer-initiated request are identical and expose identical risks.

Accessing this public information and repurposing it for different forms of consumption is a trivial computer task for many of Ann Arbor’s technical community.

Here is an application designed for Apple’s iPhone to access that same data http://a2-park.appspot.com/#_home

Here’s is the real time parking data presented in XML format: http://a2parking.heroku.com/

Here are the 30 lines of computer code that make this possible: http://a2parking.heroku.com/source

I’m providing these examples to show that there are several parties who are actively using technology to provide different or supplemental access to real time parking information. I’d also like to note that the technology to repurpose this data is simple enough to craft that your current measures to tighten this alleged security risk (blocking a specific computer address from accessing your site) are woefully inadequate and can be effortless circumvented: a new computer address can be obtained daily, hourly, every minute, or even for each specific attempt to access your site.

I believe the parties you’ve targeted are attempting to resolve this matter personally rather than technically. If you don’t already realize, it’s extremely polite and politic of them to use this as teachable moment to improve the DDA’s (and city’s) information policy. It would be far less effort on their part to make the DDA’s opinion in this matter irrelevant. You should understand their willingness to invest time and knowledge solving their problem in a way that also improves the city as an act of civic volunteerism on par with any other trained expert who offers their free services to the city.

If, as most of us suspect, there are no real “security risks” and you are simply spreading libelous fear, uncertainty, and doubt about local volunteers attempting to provide a valuable, free, and open service I strongly suggest you reconsider before adopting this as the city’s policy for public information reuse.

Difficult though it may be for traditional business people to understand, it’s extremely common in the tech community to both provide services like the one you’ve blocked *and* to release the valuable parts of the service (the code) into the public domain for unlimited reuse by anyone (including the DDA). You don’t stop that kind of innovation; you support it, publicly and loudly, in hopes of fostering more innovation and attracting the dollars of tech companies who would rather stay in a hip city that “gets” them instead of packing up for California or Chicago.

My final request and comment. If you *are* just trying to deny access of publication information to parties who use this information in ways you don’t like (or fully understand) could you at least use the old “it’s for the safety of the children” yarn? I recognize that “security” has recently become the preferred false pretense for pushing through unfavorable policy at the state and national levels, but “safety of the children” has a long, successful history of ushering ill-advised decisions into official policy or law. ”Safety of the Children” doesn’t expose ones ignorance of technical matters or alienate a lucrative industry. It has the added benefit of being nearly impossible to counter with any form of logic because it encapsulates the powerful “Are you saying you don’t think we should protect the children?” retort.

Office Hours

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:24:45 -0400

I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 10:30a - 1p. If you have questions about web application architecture/design, information architecture, javascript, ruby, or ruby on rails stop by for free consulting.

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I look like this today, rocking out like a mad scientist.

Office Hours

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:38:51 -0500

In consideration of early risers, I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this ~~afternoon~~ morning from 9a - 12p. If you have questions about web application architecture/design, information architecture, javascript, ruby, or ruby on rails stop by for free consulting.

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I look like this today, rocking the 5 day beard.

Office Hours

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:16:56 -0500

In consideration of early risers, I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this ~~afternoon~~ morning from 10a - 12p. If you have questions about web application architecture/design, information architecture, javascript, ruby, or ruby on rails stop by for free consulting.

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I look like this today:

Office Hours

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:50:00 -0500

I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 11a - 1p. If you have questions about web application architecture/design, information architecture, javascript, ruby, or ruby on rails stop by for free consulting.

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I look like this today:

"It’s the same for plenty of other products too. You can do all the planning you want. You can focus..."

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:31:03 -0500

“It’s the same for plenty of other products too. You can do all the planning you want. You can focus group. You can beta test. You can theorize. You can project. But nothing will ever match the feedback you get from real people, especially ones who are paying to use what you’re selling. Everything up until then is conjecture.”

- Matt, 37Signals http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1581-the-moment-of-truth-is-a-real-audience

Office Hours

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:50:54 -0500

I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 11a - 1:30p. If you have questions about web application architecture/design, information architecture, javascript, ruby, or ruby on rails stop by for free consulting.

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I look like this today, in colored pencil:

Office Hours

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:59:00 -0500

I’ll be at Biggby Coffee on Liberty and Maynard this afternoon from 12 - 2:30pm. If you have questions about web application architecture/design, information architecture, javascript, ruby, or ruby on rails stop by for free consulting.

Trek, I am.

Apprenticeship Oppurtunity

concentrate interview

[AADL Bug?] FIXED.

Oh, Academics (just fucking put it on github already)

Office Hours

Office Hours

Office Hours (BONUS)

Office Hours

Office Hours

Office Hours

Office Hours

DDA Info Policy

Office Hours

Office Hours

Office Hours

Office Hours

"It’s the same for plenty of other products too. You can do all the planning you want. You can focus..."

Office Hours

Office Hours

I look like this today, in color pencil world.