Entries Tagged 'personal' ↓

I’m astonished at how many people read this blog, and how many subscribed.

Who the hell are you, and why do you find my rants interesting enough to justify subscribing?

There is a problem though. I started blogging some 4 years ago, at a time where being a French guy put me in the minority. Now in Montreal, “Some French Guy” ain’t nuthin special.

Clearly, the title has got to go. But what should I call this blog? “Daniel’s rants on Code and Politics” or something equally factual and boring? “Great learnings in Experimental Rocket Surgery”?

Ideally, the title should reflect the contents. Being part of that technical conversation is important professionally, maybe it should be in a separate blog? I currently refrain from posting articles that are too technical to avoid boring (most) readers.

In deciding what I want to blog about, I’ve concluded that much of my writing is done via services like Twitter, Delicious and my Google Reader shared items. In some cases, the conversation I care about is happening on other blogs.

So, any ideas? And how many others are having an existential crisis about their blog?

Swish this berry around in your mouth for a minute, and for the next 30 minutes to 2 hours, bitter and acid foods taste sweet. After the NY Times reported on this “Miracle Fruit”, I knew I had to try it:

Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: “Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!”

Given antics such as those, it’s no wonder they call it flavor-tripping.

I’ve ordered miracle fruit and extract (aka ‘miraculin’) from two different suppliers and am anxiously waiting for deliveries. As soon as I get some, there will be a flavour-tripping party right here in Montreal. I’ve never been so excited about eating sauerkraut and Umeboshi.

For more information on synsepalum dulcificum, you can check out the wikipedia page for miracle fruit, information about its history and my del.icio.us bookmarks.

I’m no longer an employee at Standout Jobs; They will be my first freelance client.

Going freelance will let me work fewer hours, spend most of my time learning about the ‘next big thing’ and contribute to open source in the process. Here are a few things that are on my radar:

• IM as command line: Jabber + twitter
• Semantic web: micro-formats and freebase
• Collaborative filtering
• API design
• Authentication

These are interesting times for net heads, with many simultaneous inflection points, lots of freely usable data and ridiculously cheap on-demand computing.

Rails was that ‘next big thing’ about two years ago. I fell in love. After traveling across Canada and South to California, I spent months learning and prototyping. My parents thought I was crazy, spending months without a job. Maybe they’re right, and going freelance certainly won’t dispel that notion.

I fell in love a few times this past year. I’m willing to bet heavily that one of those muses is going to be the ‘next big thing’. Going freelance will afford me the time to pursue them that I just couldn’t have in a startup. It’s exciting, even if I’ll miss working as closely with the world-class team back at Standout Jobs headquarters.

I spent most of my week-end solving the ITA puzzle, while high on codeine. As I write this, I am literally shaking from withrawal. Those pills just take too long to get in your blood stream.

A root canal Friday forced me to make an exception to my usual drug-free lifestyle; the infection had reached the bone, so I’m also taking anti-biotics. Since I couldn’t dance, puzzle solving was the best thing to keep me distracted. I found a solution I’ll post later; it runs over 1,000 times faster than others I’ve seen or heard about.

There’s no way I can maintain a codeine habit, so I may have to try doping my writing abilities with alcohol.

Edit: Comments disabled because of spam

My student loan is no more. From $30,000 nearly 10 years ago, it got paid in lump sums as I settled with collection agencies.

They could have waited for me to get out of school before asking payment. They could have let me pay it off in monthly installments. Some bureaucratic barf-up ensured I never would have the benefit of such sensible policies.

After some phone calls from a collection agency, I would wonder if the banks really didn’t do this on purpose. They could point to default rates to justify the need for more money, as well as justification for more market-oriented policies towards students

I’m not likely to go into debt for schooling ever again. No one should have to leave school with $30,000 in debts.

Next time I hear about students striking against tuition increases, I’ll be cheering.