Disqus - Friends of sachac

Re: Google Calendar API and Ruby on Rails

Paul D — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:48:07 -0000

Oh My God! FINALLY! This is such a helpful post, I have been struggling to solve the whole omniauth/oauth2/google-api/signet/rails conundrum. There were enough unknown "ignorance vectors" in this problem that I had almost given up.

And what's so terrible is realizing how simple the solution was :-)

THANK YOU again. This literally is the only working code sample for this problem. Believe me, I have looked. Google Gods, please move this up the rankings!

Re: Google Calendar API and Ruby on Rails

Paul D — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:02:55 -0000

http://pauldac.us/content/b...

Re: Elixir for Rubyists -

Paul D — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 11:35:59 -0000

Please, PLEASE keep writing these sorts of articles! Erlang/Elixir is where it's at, and old broken-down ruby guys like me need these sorts "bridging" pieces. Thanks to you for writing this, and Jose for Elixir!

Re: 22 Ridiculous–and Real–Endorsements You Don’t Want on LinkedIn

Paul D — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 10:07:01 -0000

The point is these a hilariously weird things to "Endorse" someone with.

"Your friend says you know 'Attack & Penetration'" That is just awesome.

Re: Finding the right balance between thinking, learning, doing, and reviewing

Paul D — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:31:10 -0000

Wow... where has this blog been my whole life! Came for the org-mode goodness, stayed for the awesome. Keep it up! This blog is about the most fantastic labor of love I have seen in a long time.

Re: Sketchnote: Visual Thinkers Toronto – Mapping

Paul D — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 20:19:10 -0000

Sacha,

Think about writing a book. You have the chops, you have a truly unique niche.

Certainly this has occurred to you. You have a fabulous & wonderful talent. Do the World a favor, write a book. It scales :-)

Re: Sketchnote: Visual Thinkers Toronto – Mapping

Paul D — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 20:27:34 -0000

Umm... more than Stories from your Twenties :-)

Re: What can you do with PostgreSQL and JSON? | clarkdave.net

Paul D — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 12:43:02 -0000

The article referenced for adding json_enhancements to PG 9.2 does not seem to work:

http://clarkdave.net/2013/0...

paul@paul-desktop:~$ git clone https://bitbucket.org/qoole...
Cloning into 'json_enhancements'...
remote: Counting objects: 3, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), done.
paul@paul-desktop:~$ ls json_enhancements/
README.md
paul@paul-desktop:~$

Re: Think about your delta: increasing the difference you want to make

Paul D — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 19:13:24 -0000

Ahem.... book. :-)

Re: “More Instantly Better Vim”

Paul D — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 16:54:28 -0000

You had me at Star Wars.

Re: “More Instantly Better Vim”

Paul D — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 17:01:02 -0000

OK, this man sold knives on infomercials in a previous life.

Re: Think about your delta: increasing the difference you want to make

Paul D — Sun, 08 Dec 2013 11:59:04 -0000

heh he... seems like that first part is done! "6894 comments"... :-)

Re: Book idea: Thinking With Emacs

Paul D — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 19:57:47 -0000

All I could possibly suggest is that you do NOT do the "usual" coding book. Boring, drab, full of awful screenshots, keyboard shortcuts (in plain blah text). Make it full of your own hand-drawn goodness!

It would be so great to buy a computer book not just jammed full of boring text & code, and instead with a ton of hand-drawn sketches.

Re: Think about your delta: increasing the difference you want to make

Paul D — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 13:05:52 -0000

One of the best books/audiobooks I have ever read/listened to is Richard Koch's "80/20" series of books.

He is a VC primarily, so much of what he talks about is the economics of 80/20, but it is applicable to many things, including how to learn more effectively. He suggests, for example, that you should rarely just begin a book, and read it cover to cover. He says that most of the value of books (or other media) can be extracted in a small fraction of the time it would take to read the whole thing. You have to cherry-pick the valuable parts.

Not sure if this is always applicable, particularly to fiction or "entertainment" reading. And Koch even presents counter-points to 80/20 that are along these lines; eg "The hamburger is the most important part, but you need the bun, pickles, ketchup, etc... or it really isn't a hamburger!"

I find that I am quite easily distracted by lifes trivia, and that I actually like complex problems & I will, given a choice, over-analyze & complicate things. I listen to Koch periodically to try to get grounded about "What" to do (effectiveness), instead of "How" to do things right (efficiency), as I tend to dwell on the latter despite the fact that it is dramatically less important than the former.

Re: Elizabeth Banks: Official Website - A Beginner's Guide to Jenna Marbles

Paul D — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 16:22:19 -0000

2 questions:
1) How in the hell did I end up here?
2) Why am I typing this?

Re: Recurring subscriptions with Ruby, RSpec and modular arithmetic

Paul D — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 18:06:03 -0000

Great writeup! Dealing with date recurrence yields some of the most tortured code ever, and I like pieces that deal with this difficult topic using techniques (Modular arithmetic) I haven't heard of before.

Re: Ramping up delegation

Paul D — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 09:53:11 -0000

I'm not sure if you've thought of using an app of some sort for managing the process (probably have), but it seems like some sort of ticketing system, like R/T, osTicket (both free) or whatever, could help.

I guess if I was thinking of running a small company characterized by small independent tasks, I would try to set up a ticketing system. And use the "Articles" section to build the "library of processes" that you are talking about.

I know that it would be difficult to have a virtual assistant(s) pull straight from a shared queue of tickets in the beginning, but as they become accustomed to things, it would get easier probably.

Just a thought.

Re: Playing with JSON in Postgres

Paul D — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 18:09:11 -0000

Sweet one-liner. I wish PG would use friendlier json "selectors".. this hurts my brain:

subscriber#>>'{subscription, status}' = 'ACTIVE'

This would be more what I am used to:

subscriber['subscription']['status'] = 'ACTIVE'

Re: Automate tasks on the web with Ruby and Capybara

Paul D — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 17:31:02 -0000

The link to Capybara doc's goes 404...

Good article!

Re: How Much Does a Custom Web Application Cost to Build? — Planet Argon Blog

Paul D — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 11:29:33 -0000

So... "3-4 months = $90-120K". I'm guessing about $30K/month. How many people would work on it? Is this an estimate for 3-4 man-months?

Re: 'Poop'-ed SW Bend neighbors try humorous reminders

Paul D — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 12:57:36 -0000

The Real Problem here is lack of enforcement. Nuisance Animals and their irresponsible owners need to 1) Realize that what they are doing is 100% ILLEGAL, and 2) Have the police called on them.
Friendly, funny signs are all well and good, but if you see someone poop in your yard, tell them to pick it up, and if they offer the slightest resistance tell them you will snap their pic and call the cops. Same with dogs off leash, or relentless barking dogs, both these things are a violation of OR statutes.
Next time you see or hear these kinds of things, CALL THE COPS. Let local law enforcement know that you are FED UP with irresponsible pet owners who are in constant violation of the responsibilities of pet ownership. Tell them you want TICKETS ISSUED, NOT WARNINGS. Warnings don't work. These are people who know full well they are breaking the law, and they don't care. The impact of a warning lasts about 10 seconds, and probably encourages bad behavior.
I would like to appeal to the Bend Police Dept, ENFORCE THESE ANIMAL NUISANCE LAWS VIGOROUSLY AND CONSISTENTLY. It could be a huge HUGE source of revenue, while at the same time stopping the constantly degrading quality of life in Bend. It's the Broken WIndow Theory: Ignore it once, and pretty soon it will BE EVERYWHERE. And we are there -- NOW. Irresponsible Animal Owners are now the Rule, NOT the exception. And it's because enforcement "Let It Slide". Don't let it slide. ISSUE TICKETS.

Re: 'Poop'-ed SW Bend neighbors try humorous reminders

Paul D — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 18:11:22 -0000

You call non-emergency 541-693-6911.

Re: 'Poop'-ed SW Bend neighbors try humorous reminders

Paul D — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 18:17:41 -0000

Thanks for the concern! I am not mad, or melting down however. I am telling people that the alternative action to funny signs or "grinning and bearing it" is to call the police. That's all. The non-emergency number in Deschutes County is 541-693-6911, and there is an option (#5 I think) for reporting animal problems. Or just wait for the operator. They are very nice & responsive (little late sometimes on busy days) but they will come out..

Re: More adults in Deschutes than other Central Oregon counties drink to excess; Deschutes ranks high on most health measures, poor on excessive drinking

Paul D — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 09:51:48 -0000

What an strange & opportunistic cut-off point on the graph (Deschutes @ 20.5%, and 20.6% is the "extreme" level of consumption... ummm, yeah).