France sent me a cool link the other day to musicplasma : the music visual search engine. Basically you enter in you enter in a band/artist name and it create a list of bands/artists with similar style, and other genres that also are of similar tastes. No clue where he compiled the info that said what related to what, but for me it seemed pretty accurate and gave me an few other people to try and listen to.
I found a comment in an article by Dave Shea over at mezzoblue.com to be a tad… well… idiotic. In this article (which is a followup to this artcile where he announced an overhaul of his site) he states the following:
…most issues discussed on this site are about building for the web. If you’re here to discuss that, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have a site of your own.
Now, I just barely got into the whole “blogging” thing myself (see the whopping 9 “articles” below this one??). If I commented on a blog prior to now, I definately wouldn’t link people to my work or hobby sites as they have no bearing whatsoever on the topic at hand. Of my community of coding friends, only one other one has a “what I’m coding these days” site, and even then he’s only put a few things on it. The rest have their hobby sites, and family sites… none of which I think would be appropriate to put as their link in a techno-blog comment.
Does that make them any less good at what they do? I don’t think so. As one comment following the article stated:
I have a few acquantences that I would consider experts far more than those listed on this site, and a few of them do not have a, now considered expert, weblog.
I will fully admit to not even looking at his list of experts yet, and so I will not say that my friends blow his out of the water… but they are some VERY smart guys, and I have learned more from them then I have from reading any blogs. So how is it that because they have decided to spend more time with their family, or are pulling extra hours at work, or whatever their case might be… and decided not to put extra time into creating a blog of their activities, they are less of a coding expert, and so their comments are worth less? Heck, I don’t even have time to write in my site either, I’m depriving myself of sleep to write this just cause I think it needs to be said… if for no other reason then to get it off my chest, but think that if I didn’t spew out this lame site a few weeks ago, my opinion could be considered worth something (althought I haven’t really proved that here yet… give me time).
This reminds of a guy that came to help our High School football team one year… I was a lineman, and so when my coach said they were bringing in a guru on the “line”, I was waiting for the incredible hulk to walk in. But in walked this old(er) man that weight in at 125 soaking wet… who couldn’t possibly have ever played as a lineman as he would have been broken like a twig. But my 300+ pound, ex-professional lineman, who could bench 400+ without breaking a sweat, coach… respected this man as an expert in the field. He taught us many amazing things, all from his love of the game and studying the details of what was needed in our specific part of the field. He had never played the position (that I know of) but was one heck of an expert.
Does this equate exactly to this situation… no, since as I said that my friends do code and are quite good at it. But just because they don’t put it all out their for the world to see, doesn’t mean they don’t know their stuff.
Anyway, for the 2.5 people who actually might visit here by accident… am I off base here? Or is it a pre-requisite to have a website to know what you are talking about and provide comments for others to see and not be thought less of? I mean no disrepect to the great and powerful Oz… I mean Dave Shea, and no his comment didn’t bring to pass this disertation all on it’s own, it’s something I have pondered on for quite a while… his comment was just the catalyst for me actually saying something about it. So apologies to Dave if this seems directed squarely at him, as it’s not. It’s more to the general feeling that his comment represents, in that people who don’t code 24/7 are less then those that do. Some have a gift, some have to work at it, and some do it just for the love of the game. But I don’t think anyone is less of a coder because they don’t have a site to tell the world of their coding escapades.
Doesn’t really look all that spiffy does it? Well it probably won’t get much better any time soon. I love to code… it’s what I do professionaly, and what I do as a hobby, but I can’t “design” to save my life. I can code up most anything someone puts in front of me, but can’t come up with anything that looks remotely good on my own. It’s probably some left brain vs right brain thing… and I’m probably supposed to know which is which, but I don’t.
Anyway, so I may do minor tweaks here and there as I notice things, but I don’t ever expect it to be majorly cool looking, or get major overhauls. I just wanted a place to link to cool articles that I bump into every now and then, and a place to post my thoughts. Occasionaly I’ll write up something on some new code I wrote or other coding issues I’ve overcome, but I’ll probably be the only one reading them anyway.
In my daily clicking around, I ran into a very thought provking article by Eric Meyer about one of the worlds perfect foods… French Fries. I loooove my french fries. If needs be I may choose fries over the entree at hand (burger, dog, etc). Although for me, it is more of a vessle for the transportation of condiments which is my true favorite. Ketchup, mustard, ranch dressing, BBQ sauce… and the not so well known fry sauce are what make fries what they are.
I really like McDonalds and Wendy’s fries… BK’s “major fry overhaul” well… wasn’t. But can’t really say I’ve met a fry I didn’t like.
Back to that fry sauce thing. Seems to be a Utah based thing (where I was born and raised) as I can’t seem to find it anywhere outside of there. The basic idea of it is a mixture of equal parts of ketchup and mayonaise (miracle whip is my preference) and then there are dozens of versions that break off from this point with their secret ingredients and the like. Fry sauce in Utah, is similar to BBQ sauce here in Kansas City. Places can be known for their quality sauce… *sigh*… I really miss my fry sauce selection.
The first Incredibles trailer just came out over at Apple (and a few other places). A few thoughts…
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