thecoffman

As a dedicated untappd user (500 unique beers, way more checkins), what does beerquest offer over untappd? It looks beautiful; clearly a very well put together app, but is there a compelling reason to switch? Either way, great work!

What sorting of pricing/space requirements are you planning on offering? I run a boxee server with several NAS devices on my home network and it works great - but it would be nice to watch something at my girlfriend's place without loading it up on a USB drive and carting it over.

While I agree with your similar standard of living statement, I'm not sure that I could name a country that is "substantially more free" with a comparable standard of living. We may have differing definitions of free, but things like relatively unrestricted free speech, minmal taxation, gun rights, etc are all very important and many countries just don't have them in the same degree as we do here.

They may have similar, or in many cases higher, standards of living, but I don't think you can make the argument that they're "more free." Not that America is really all that free anymore either....

To me it all depends on other factors. If you're programming in a Windows environment then I'd pick ASP.NET MVC using C#. I've worked with it before and while I'm a Mac/Linux guy by trade, I found C# to largely be a pleasant language to work with.

If you're on a more traditional Linux stack, I find Ruby has the best ecosystem around web application development. Its not the best for everything (for instance Python tends to have better libraries for more advanced math and statistics work), but I think Ruby is the best for rapidly prototyping and building out a web application. The packaging system, ecosystem, and huge number of available libraries are killer features, and you can always switch to JRuby if concurrency becomes an issue.

If you build your application in the right way you can extract services and port them to Java or something more performant as needed if you hit the limits of a scripting language performance wise. This gives you a clear path forward as you need to grow and scale. Though a well constructed Ruby/Python/whatever app can scale fine if built well.

I'm aware of the distinction - but in this case - to me at least - the cost and the value are the same. The value of streaming songs is exceptionally minimal when they are easily acquired for free via other means. The only value add in my mind is the convenience of not having to download albums in the first place. The value of that convenience is tied very closely to the cost of providing it as I could set up my own streaming service for personal use "at cost" so to speak with a cheap vps and a collection of downloaded music - or use something like iTunes match which costs ~$2.00 a month, if I'm willing to put forth the effort to acquire the music initially.

I disagree on it being priced too low. I realize that in some sense, they have to play to cards they are dealt by the labels - but 10 bucks a month is far too much for streaming music. If Netflix can stream unlimited HD video for 8 bucks a month, there's no (technical) reason audio should be more expensive than that. The only thing holding them back is the politics of the music industry. IMO, a fair price point for streaming audio has to be < 5 bucks a month at the high end. The marginal cost of a song being streamed is basically zero at technical level.

This is awesome - I've often thought about building something like this myself. Have you considered writing a little about your implementation? Background jobs and web scraping? An API?

FWIW - it has been reconsidered in Ruby - all values are truthy except nil and false.

This seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic...

The sigils make variable interpolation easier only in the most generic case "interpolate $me". Anything more sophisticated requires a temporary variable.

I feel like I should point out that if a script to recognize and fix those common patterns is that simple to create - its just as simple for a spammer/scraper to create. This implies its probably not worth obfuscating your email in the first place....

Any chance you have a post sharing your prompt string? It looks quite useful.

You would modify the hidden form values (or add parameters that didn't exist) depending on the situation. These new/modified parameters would appear in Rails' params hash which would then be passed to the update function which, by default, will update any fields you hand it.

We used Moodle in the engineering department at my Uni and let me say - its better than blackboard (what isn't?) but its not "miles ahead" by a long shot. Its still pretty awful. I think the space is ripe for disruption.

I have a Griffin device and you can set them into "international mode" which lets you transmit on frequencies that aren't used by US radio. It works great for me, this review appears to contain instructions for your particular device: http://www.amazon.com/review/R26BNQ42BQKKE9/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe...

I'll admit it - I laughed at "The KFC Famous Bowl of window management"

Great article, picking apart low level code like this can be super informative - and you've explained it well.

Heh, sorry! didn't realize you posted your own here! Deleted :)

Awesome - thanks! Used this one: faFWVKqrpxenRBdJ

Contrary to what you've said here - I've never been a fan of a la carte pricing. I want the unlimited plan. When I get home from work - I generally have netflix on in the background with some documentary or other while I do housework or hack on stuff - same as I'm going to sleep. I probably play 3-4 titles every single day. Clearly a la carte pricing would not be a viable option for streaming 90-120 programs a month.

Congrats guys! I worked with Nathan, and he's a brilliant guy. Well deserved success.

Very cool post - not only is it informative, but you've taken the "oh-so-rare" extra step of actually coding up a solution to what you're talking about - rather than taking the easier approach and just telling others what they're doing wrong but presenting no practical alternatives. Kudos!

Well this is taking a sharp turn into the legal and philosophical - both arenas in which my knowledge is woefully inadequate - but as I understand it, laws against killing people have nothing to do with morality. You can't kill a person (or make CP) because it infringes upon a certain set of "natural rights" which are supposed to be universal and self evident. There isn't a moral judgement involved. You are committing an criminal act by depriving the murdered/exploited person of their rights regardless of any moral context.

Now theoretically you could go a layer deeper and suppose that those natural rights are themselves based on a certain group or culture's morality judgement, although that would be contradictory to their essence as "natural"

Ya, that is why I put it in quotes. Who is to say what truly is moral? I'm sure there are some things which we can universally agree on, but others maybe not so much. Morality is a relative thing. Personally I tend to follow the non-aggression principle which I feel puts me on fairly solid (though not infallible) ethical grounds.

While your point may or may not be true - I fail to see how this pertains to whether the state should be involved in legislating morality? I feel that if you picked some other moral issue - say gay marriage for instance - the majority of us would be of the opinion that the government has no business telling gays that they can't get married because its "immoral." But on this issue its okay for the government to dictate what's moral because you happen to agree with it?

How easily we seem to be willing to trade freedom for comfort when we agree with what's traded. Certainly I wouldn't want a 12 year old's perception of reality to be entirely shaped by video games, but that falls to sound parenting and not the government.

That being said - I'm not entirely sure I even agree with your premise, I grew up on Doom, Wolfenstein, etc which were graphically violent for their time and have turned into a successful well rounded "moral" person.

I think this comment leaves out the possibility that one can be well aware of both possibilities and prefer the suburban lifestyle. Having lived in SF, I can tell you unequivocally that I cannot stand the city lifestyle. Its crowded, loud and bustling - you have no space, no large yard, rarely a garage, and driving is a nightmare. While taking public transit or walking is a nice pipe dream, and maybe it works for some people - its just not a suitable replacement for owning a car when I want to buy groceries (more than just a day or two's worth), electronics, or anything else that might be cumbersome to carry.

Currently I live in the suburbs of St Louis and I cannot conceive of a better arrangement - I have a large yard in which I can grill, socialize in and enjoy - all the conveniences of modern living (big box retailers, etc) and on weekends or whenever I need a dose of culture I can drive into the city (or take the metro) to take in the theater, a concert or show, the casinos, nightlife, festivals... whatever.

Believe it or not - I don't want to walk to the grocery store and frankly wouldn't - no matter how close it was because I buy multiple weeks worth of stuff at a time and don't want to deal with carrying 25 grocery bags around. I would rather deal with the minor inconveniences that come with owning and using a car than deal with the hassle of not having one.

Obviously this isn't the forum to get into an economics debate, so I'll just leave it at this: we have never, ever had true "Laissez faire" free markets. We have always had corporatism/corporate capitalism. There is a very distinct difference between the two. I am arguing in the theoretical "given a truly free market" but we don't have such a thing, and never had, so it truly is theoretical. Given the current situation I largely agree with you - given the right circumstances however, I do think true freedom would work.

I believe that at a minimum you must be given the opportunity to opt out. I've been a "member" of a class action suit on a couple of occasions. I only knew I was a member because mail showed up informing me that I was, and giving instructions on how to opt out. (which I did because I was entirely unaffected by the circumstances outlined in the suit)

In a free society all of those things WOULD be allowed. And most of us sane, rational people would opt not to give those discriminatory companies money. That's what freedom actually is. Its having the freedom to be an asshole, bigot or racist, and its my freedom not to support that kind of behavior with my wallet.

But yes, I agree, there isn't a big difference there, and personally I'm of the opinion that the government shouldn't be in the business of regulating any of it.

I wonder if that has something to do with your home network or isp? I stream HD netflix constantly through my bluray player and xbox and never have so much as a hiccup.