Take note of how simple a basic Java web app can be. Sure it’s not Sinatra or Flask, but it is still mighty simple.
Folks who claim that ‘Java is dead’ or that it should die, aren’t facing up to where it shines and what it provides. It has a place alongside Python and increasingly JavaScript in my tool belt.
I’m a happy polygot programmer and have used Groovy, and custom DSLs in Java to help speed application development by enabling those who are closest to change, to be able to harness it.
2. Remind yourself: Whatever you are doing – right now – you are practicing.
3. Remind yourself: Whatever you practice – you are improving, you are building, you are growing.
4. Ask yourself: Is this what you want to improve, build or grow?
Do this a few times a day and I’m betting it will re-center you.
Things that compete for our attention are everywhere, I get distracted too easily myself, and I am doing this to retrain my focus when it drifts.
“Right Now” was the theme of last year’s TEDXPhilly. For some terrific thoughts on the theme see TEDXPhilly’s organizer (and so much more in the Philly region), Roz Duffy, and her post “here and now”.
This year’s theme is “The City”. It will be fantastic.
PhillySNAP was launched during the recent Philadelphia Random Hacks for Kindness event and proivdes a service people can use to find affordable, fresh foods around them.
I’ve always believed, due to personal experience, that when you enable people to connect and communicate with who and what they need to, with each other, great things are possible. These efforts provide gateways for those who work in technology to make contributions strengthening neighborhoods, communities, and the world.
BTW – check out the NYTimes piece on IndyHall, founded by Alex, which from everything I’ve ever heard from everyone who has worked there, sounds based on enabling the above.
Erika Meyer shares what it was like learning to play guitar, fighting to make it happen, being a woman, and being told a few times along the way she had ‘no talent’: “How I Learned To Play Guitar”:
In 2000 I was a 32-year-old single mother with a four-year-old daughter. Looking for work as a web developer, I moved to Portland, Oregon, only to find that Portland is a town where it seems EVERYONE is in a band. I would watch my (male) friends in bands and sometimes find myself in tears, because deep down, I still wanted to be part of it. I’d been out of all urban ‘scenes’ and living a pretty isolated backwoods life since 1990, so I was largely unaware of the shifts that had happened in underground rock during the previous decade.
Around my 33rd birthday, I decided to ask for my guitars again, as I had every few years or so since 1990. Amazingly, this time, my mother returned them. I don’t know why she really kept them from me, and I don’t know why she finally returned them, but I immediately started to play. Thinking, “I want my daughter to experience music hands-on”, I bought a little practice amp and picked up where I’d left off, but this time with a new attitude. I decided right away that I no longer cared about ‘talent’. I decided that ‘talent’ didn’t even matter, that what matters, in fact, is passion and commitment. I knew that if I kept on the way I’d had been, I’d go to my death with some serious regret. It was time to take this as far as *I* wanted, regardless of what anyone else thought. I had thought I was playing for my daughter, but really, I was doing it for myself.
That change from a focus on talent and skill to a focus on passion and expression was a huge and important mental switch. I was finally giving myself what no one else had quite given me: permission to play guitar on my own terms. And more than that, I gave myself permission to ‘suck’. And with permission to suck comes the ability to rock, and to overcome all the fears and insecurities that had been holding me captive.
I had begun to understand, also, by this point, a lot more about psychology behind art. I remembered when I was a kid, my friends would tell me, “I can’t draw” and I would say, “Anyone can draw!” I knew it was just a matter of practice and learning to see and to trust your instincts. So I thought, “What if it’s true of music, too? What if anyone can make music?” I also knew by then that artistically frustrated people often try to put down or discourage other artists, so I decided I wouldn’t internalize other people’s negative projections about my abilities or my right to put time and energy into music. I’d focus on what I knew in my heart to be true: that I have just as much right to rock as Mick Jagger does. Maybe even more.
stdout.be talks about what Presentation Systems are and what their responsibilities could be in an environment where the CMS is no longer a single system, but an ecosystem in “The Post-CMS CMS”. It’s a great post, and reminds me of how we’ve defined the role presentation systems play in our solution stack. (via @SeanBlanda)
Friday night I made it down to Fishtown to check out Albert Yee’s show at Gravy, “Hands that Feed Us” a photo exploration and celebration of those working across the region in agriculture and produce. There are many ‘behind the scene’ looks at crisis and issues related to food production, it was uplifting to see organizations and people working towards the humane treatment of animals and sustainable agriculture.
Yee has been working for Fair Food Farmstand for more than three years, and along with his wife, Kate Donnelly, writes a popular Philly food blog, “Messy and Picky.”
His passions are set to collide this weekend, with the opening of his photography show, “Hands That Feed Us,” at Gravy Gallery in Fishtown.
The series of 13 prints represents Yee’s travels to alternative small-scale farms in the Philadelphia region. The show is intended to be a celebration of these producers, upholding them as a model for humane treatment of animals and sustainable agriculture.
“The exposé of huge corporate farms has been done many times over. And I think people are horrified, but they’re desensitized. They don’t need to see piles of dead carcasses,” says Yee. “This is the other side: It’s happy animals and happy farmers working the land. That’s a possibility that’s out there.”
I commented on how I could see a children’s book inspired by this. I’d definitely read it with my daughter because as the description of the essay put it, “Knowing the people who cultivate the raw ingredients you eat can and will make a difference in your life.”
The Gravy Studio has a blog for more information about it.
The show runs all month so if you didn’t make the opening, get on over there.
About the custom motorcycles I mentioned in the headline…
Gravy runs in a space provided by Adam Cramer’s garage in Fishtown. Adam Cramer restores vintage motorcycles and I had the chance to talk with him for a few minutes about his work. I’ve been thinking of getting a motorcycle and if I do, I think I’d be very happy to purchase one from him.
Like Howard Hall, I’m a long time admirer of Albert’s work. He is, like Howard notes, an artist, and his photography has lit my imagination time and again over the years. Not only that, he’s one half of the great food blogger team “Messy and Picky”. Some of the more recent posts here on paradox1x.org have been influenced by Albert’s advice to me to share more of my own story, and his involvement at Philly Future way back when was crucial to it becoming the service it was at the time. I’m so thankful for connecting with him over this half a decade and am very excited to share this event. Get out to this and go folks.
