Author Archives: frank

Is the light on, on, or off?

Posted on 2007-11-28 by frank

This morning as Finley and I left the house for a cool and brisk morning walk, I noticed the cabin lights in our Honda Odyssey were on. I went back in for the keys, opened the front door, and looked … Continue reading →

Tagged Geek | Comments Off

Sharkey’s

Posted on 2007-11-24 by frank

Imagine walking in to Sharkey’s in the early 1990’s and ordering a hamburger made with 6 ounces of certified-organic, locally-raised, grass-fed, free-range beef. I can’t, either, but it’s on the menu now, right above the bison burger.

Tagged Food and Drink | Comments Off

Happy with the maps, unhappy with the vehicle mount

Posted on 2007-11-20 by frank

A while back, we bought a Garmin Streetpilot c330 before a long car trip. We’ve been reasonably happy with the maps in the unit, though my ideal navigation product would include live updates to maps and points of interest when … Continue reading →

Tagged Gadget | 1 Comment

Loading data model with Fixtures in Rails

Posted on 2007-10-21 by frank

I’m putting together a smallish data model in Rails. Some of my data is pre-existing, including a bunch of Items, some of which have SubItems. I found some hints on how to represent the initial data with YAML and to … Continue reading →

Tagged Software development | Comments Off

Economics of Cynicism

Posted on 2007-10-06 by frank

For some reason I thought Joel Spolsky was anti-Apple and pro-Microsoft. Now I realize he’s a cynical guy who used to write about software development, but who’s now busy running a small, successful software company, and who writes about talking … Continue reading →