Dan Mayer's Blog

What's up dude? Well...

2009-07-17T23:49:16Z

* Erin got a couple of offers in DC, not all what she wanted... But where she wanted to be, turned down some stuff she wasn't as interested in that was in CO. * I climbed my first 14er last weekend Mt Bierstadt. It was a good time, it took about 6 hrs... Partly because it is packed. I don't think I will do many other 14ers as they are to popular and it kind of kills the whole be out in nature when you are walking in a line of people nearly the entire way up and down. Erin and I have been trying to do some hiking every weekend. * I cooked up half a raw chicken from scratch. Dealing with raw unprocessed meat is gross. The fried Franks chicken and fajitas were awesome though. Hooray only one more step until I can say I really know where my food comes from when I eat free range meat. Time to kill a cow or chicken myself and prepare a meal from that... I will be looking for a good opportunity to do this... * Erin got a job she really wanted in D.C., at NACCHO. She will be helping local health depts prepare for emergencies, and starts on the 27th and will be traveling to FL for a conference on Aug 3rd... That is one way to get to know your coworkers. * I was hit by a Semi as the back trailer came into my lane... The Suburu was flattened a bit on the side, but no one was hurt. Since we were the victim vehicle, hopefully everything will be covered by the other insurance. I am just hoping they repair my car and don't try to call it totaled. * I decided to move to D.C. with Erin cause it is about time for us to live in the same place for longer than 6 weeks at a time. I will be most likely be moving there Aug 9th (which is when my 9 week lease in Boulder) is up. If not I will be moving soon after, as long as I can wrap stuff up in Boulder OK.

One day I will accept...

2009-06-29T04:38:41Z

That there isn't enough time in life to do all the things that I want. That sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you will fail. That what you think is obvious, will go unnoticed. (Take the time to say I love you) That a large effort will go unappreciated. (Sometimes it is just worth actually telling someone that you are trying) That sometimes the difference from what one person says to what another person hears can be night and day. That so much time is wasted and unimportant, but with out such time there is no joy. That you need to give up on some goals and move on and not punish yourself to much for never getting to it. That some things are completely worth the problems and pain and should be fought for. That you can't give up everything for anything one thing. Self improvement is masturbation, but if you aren't even trying to improve you probably don't even know your issues. That I don't really write on my blog enough anymore. That occasionally I miss being a kid. That sometimes there is just one of those days. That somethings can't be taught but only experienced. That advice isn't worth much, but ignoring it all is foolish. That dreams can be real, and can be amazing, but every day can't be perfect. That everyone is different and trying to be open to differences is always worth it. That I spend to much time at my computer... (Although Erin and I are working on that with much more hiking) A nice sunset from our new office's rooftop

My Startup and What I Do

2009-06-22T00:03:26Z

So as most of my readers know I am doing a tech startup. The problem is a bunch of people I know don't really know what we are doing. Since we are now bringing on new users as quickly as we can, we are starting to push a bit more on PR. This includes trying to clarify our messaging and make sure it is simple and clear what exactly we do. From our new site: "Devver runs your tests in parallel on our cloud, so your test run will complete in as little as 1/3 of the time. That means you can get the results you need – faster. Devver can run tests written in Test::Unit, RSpec, and Shoulda. Find out if your project is supported." We have done a couple of things recently to help with our PR push, we launched a new version of our website which tries to explain what Devver is. We also finally announced our funding from O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), which lead to our Devver TechCunch coverage. So check out some of our stuff, and let us know if it is all clear and makes sense to you. Hopefully we will stop hearing about people that have heard of Devver, but don't have any idea of what we do...

Lazy Mornings

2009-06-20T18:26:07Z

Things are moving so quickly that I don't think I have been very good at keeping track of everything. One of the things that slips through the cracks is writing in my blog, but I am sure there are many others. At least with my blog there are frequent reminders to update it at some point. Unlike say changing my address or renewing my car registration. My favorite thing lately has been lazy mornings with Erin, most weekends the rule is we don't set an alarm, and then we enjoy coffee and breakfast in bed. It is great to get to wake up next to each other. Then read our email chat about little things, point out interesting articles to each other. A day that begins lounging around together in bed is hard to beat. So I think this is the shortest lease I have ever had. With Erin's career location uncertain, and where I would end up still up in the air. I signed a 9 week lease at my current apartment... Moving everything in was horrible as I always remember moving. It was made much easier thanks to Erin's family loaning me there van (thanks). I like our little apartment even with its problems, the kitchen is about the size of a shower, the water seems to have no consistent temperature, our neighbors don't pick up after their dogs so the yard is full of shit. All of that doesn't really matter thought because finally getting to live together again after 2 years of long distance and back and forth travel are completely worth being in a crappy college apartment. The only thing that is hard about it is to realize we will have to deal with moving again in just a few weeks. In case you didn't see it on Erin's blog, during the move we were missing many things in the kitchen like a can opener. Here is a picture of how I opened a can with a screwdriver and a hammer, hooray! Since Erin has been around we have been enjoying frequent walks and exploring paths and trails that we can take spot on. It is great to get some time out doors and can be really enjoyable when there is nice weather. Unfortunately since Erin moved back here Colorado forgot that it is supposed to have over 300 days of sunshine and converted into a Seattle like place with gray skies and frequent rain. We have had to cheat on our no alarm weekend rule some to get out early in the day before the storms to enjoy some hikes in the mountains. Lastly my bro is in town which is nice. It was great to get to catch up with him a bit. Since he is in town for a wedding and we have a different wedding we actually won't get to see him much. Glad he got to stay one night in Boulder with us and enjoy a quick hike with Erin, but I hope we will get to meet up a bit more with him and Doc before he takes off.

Erin is blogging

2009-06-12T03:14:34Z

Erin is getting back into blogging again, perhaps that will finally motivate me to get back into blogging... I am trying I promise. Erin Miller is breaking the silence!

Blogging

2009-06-07T19:03:30Z

I am failing at one of my new years resolutions, which was to write more. I haven't blogged here much. I haven't done as much on the Devver Blog lately. I have been pretty active on my twitter account, but that isn't really the same kind of writing. Anyways, I am going to try to get back in the habit a bit. It was a crazy couple of months but I thinks have calmed down a bit. Quick life update. Erin has moved in with me to my new apartment in Boulder, which is awesome. Unfortunately we have no idea how long she will be here, as all the job offers are in the east coast. I don't have to travel anywhere for like a month and I am really excited about that. Seriously super excited to just get to have a normal schedule for awhile.... I moved around the blog a bit, and added a bunch of new links to other people I know on the web so check out some of the new stuff in my blog roll.

Ignite Boulder 4

2009-04-30T23:24:29Z

Last night we went to the really interesting Ignite Boulder event. This was the 4th event in Boulder and by far the largest. Over 400 people showed up to hear the presentations ranging from serious, interesting, thoughtful, funny, and confusing... I had a great time and was glad I was able to make the event. It did leave me thinking even more about gender and technology. Namely because of the currently raging debate around gender / professionalism in the Ruby community. The comments on the heckle wall seemed to have a bit of the same feel... Anyways, the heckle wall was shut off halfway through the event and I think the event went much smoother after that... Anyways here is a list of the topics with my quick 2 cents on the talk... My Mom Just Joined Facebook. Now What? Ryan Wanger * Mostly just fun, but also some tiny tips on how to deal with it and things to be careful about... How I almost died: Traveling sparsely and the creative process Alex Skazat * About this travel hippy guy... He bikes around the would and has some amazing travel Stories. He got stranded alone in the mountains for 3 days. How to be a successful musician knowing that you’re never going to make money selling music Chris Reinhard * Funny, very hilarious mocking of hipsters... Joking that music isn't about the music. To Influence or Be Influenced …That is the Question Brett Greene * Um some marketing guy trying to basically convince others to learn more about marketing from him... Lame “Ye Olde Prince of Bel-Air”, a medieval translation David Mason * This was simple amazing translating the words of the fresh prince theme song to Olde English, funny. Possibly my favorite. On Curiosity Niel Robertson * Very cool quick discussion on the loops and information on wikipedia. Exploring associations on wikipedia. Interesting, another favorite. Mystery Deck Battle * Um funny as an idea but really not that funny in practice... Why Mommybloggers Suck and What We Can Learn From Them Aimee Giese * Kind of interesting, about the niches and types of bloggers that are involved in that topic. Good to hear about another tight group that I am not involved in Fame. Fortune. And Hula Hoops. How To Not Suck. Laura Blakeman * Amusing bent towards personal branding. With lots of hula hoop dancing... Confession of a NiteRide Driver Jen Newell * Very interesting hearing about what it is like, who works there, and the funny stories that occur. Great talk, rock on. How To Be A Dance Ninja (or not) Nicole Glaros * Teaching funny and bad dance moves to the whole audience... I was impressed they got the whole audience to stand up... Once standing I could see nothing... Peak Oil: Does This Mean There Won’t be iPhones? Lilly Justman * Interesting topic but to slow paced for the crowd basically got heckled to the point you couldn't tell what she was talking about... The Heckle board / rude audience ruined this one. Everything in life can be learned from the movie Road House Sam Breed * Fairly funny talk about stupid lessons learned from Road House Anyways you should definitely check out Ignite Boulder if you can make it to the next event. Also look for the videos of the talks to start to come online soon. Videos from the previous Ignite Boulder 3

System Update Frustration on OS X

2009-04-15T17:21:14Z

I was running OSX system update -> 'I need to restart' -> OK -> failed to restart because of firefox 'should I save tabs before closing' -> close FireFox manual restart -> 'there are updates waiting to install should I install before restart?' NO that is why I tried to restart in the first place! This short update was brought to you by the fact that Twitter only allows 140 characters.

My Sketch becomes Architecture

2009-04-03T04:51:02Z

While taking notes I have a tendency to sketch things. I was doing little doodles and I liked a tiny little one in particular. I decided to send a picture of it to my friend, just for the hell of it. He received the blurry photo below with a single subject line... "I designed a house build it" He being an awesome architect decided to create something of this and actually turned it into the cool renderings below. Thanks Dom you are awesome and today you partially made my day!

His response "I present the Dan Mayer downtown Art and Cultural Center."

Pictures from a Day in the Dominican Republic

2009-04-02T02:56:44Z

We have more pictures as well, but we went on a day trip to another island in the DR. That day we bought a cheap underwater camera and took a bunch of pictures. These are the pictures from that camera. The pictures that look like they are just pictures of the ocean are actually of dolphins which you can sort of make out in a couple of the shots.

Guitar Hero, Grand Theft Auto, and the Effects of Video Games

2009-03-30T06:13:32Z

I have been thinking about about this issue for awhile. When I was younger and much more into gaming I thought all arguments for video games changing behavior were ridiculous. As I grown up I have started to realize that everything you do changes you a little, games included. I still really believed that video games like Grand Theft Auto (GTA), didn't increase violent tendencies or make me want to go kill people. After buying Guitar Hero, the discussion was reopened as the game renewed my interest in wanting to learn an instrument. It made me want to take time to learn the drums again. The question raises is If Guitar Hero changes my behavior and makes me more interested in learning an instrument, does that mean violent games like GTA are slightly increasing my urge to engage in violent behavior? While there has been a ton of research trying to prove the link between video games and violence, [2] including research from a Standford PhD supported by the APA [2]. There has also been contradictory research saying games do not increase violence [2]. Some of the claimed links have been debunked, by an MIT Professor. I would say there is slightly more research supporting the link than against it, because of this the law has looked at a number of solutions including taxing violent video games or punishing parents that allow children to play violent games. I want to cover my thoughts on how I think video games do slightly affect behavior. I don't propose any crazy restrictions, parents should be responsible for their their kids and be aware of what they are up to. Even if a link was completely accepted, taking into account the deaths caused by video games (2 or 3 a year) there are many things that have caused more deaths than video games. I think there are a few points to consider, about games affecting behavior. How based in reality a game is. Is the action in the game a substitute for the real behavior? The players intent and belief as they place themselves in the game world. Lastly if they see the assumed role is something the player would actually strive for in reality or actively avoid in the real world. I think the point about similarity to reality is important. If the game's world is so different from ours, I don't think it even make sense for us to attempt to emulate it or have our thoughts about behaviors altered by the game. For instance, Mario which involves eating mushrooms and running around jumping on turtles and evil mushrooms. This game doesn't make me want to get high on mushrooms and run around the world jumping on things and killing turtles. I would say that it doesn't affect younger more impressionable children that way at all either. In some games with fighting like in StreetFighter or GTA the violence can sometimes a substitute for actions you can't and never would want to make in the real world. In modern society I think we are constantly trying to repress our aggression and violence. Our fight or flight responses made a lot more sense in the past than they do now, but it doesn't mean we aren't tempted to punch someone once in awhile for doing something incredibly stupid. After an incredibly frustrating day, I in the past on occasion had run around GTA shooting everything. This was a substitute or a way to release my anger in a controlled manner and not releasing it in the real world. Is this a healthy substitute? Is this any different from a therapist telling you to punch a pillow, screaming out loud, or pretend you are yelling at someone from your past to get some closure? If you can't substitute games, what is an acceptable substitute? Some games have larger goals than GTA, but still in theory are about violence. A good example of this is StarCraft, which you simulate a general commanding vast armies to eradicate all of another race. A War simulator then should have the same effects as GTA? I highly doubt it as StarCraft is far more like playing a game of chess than playing GTA. I doubt games like chess, checkers, or StarCraft really have any effect on behaviors except possibly making a person think more about long term strategies and effects. I think the player doesn't personify or have any emotional connection or view with the characters in StarCraft. In GTA since you are a single person interacting with a city, with individuals that react to you, the player is more likely to put them selves into that characters role. In GTA the intent is to make you feel as if you are that character running around the city, in StarCraft their isn't really individual characters to relate to. The last point is tricky, but I still think it holds some value. The closer an activity is to my current outlook on the real world the larger the effect is likely to be. For instance I would love to be a competent drummer, I don't ever want to run around a city shooting people. Since the first idea fits in my basis of reality I am more likely to identify with the activity I am experiencing. The concept of having a gun and running around and shooting people is so ludicrous to me that my association and my ability to absorb that behavior seems less likely. Now this means that games themselves effect each individual differently based on their life experiences. Since this is true in nearly all other forms of media I assume it holds true for gaming. The issue is because you relate and react to games differently does it still affect your overall behavior the same or to the same extent? After reading through my thoughts above, it probably becomes clear that I do think video games can affect your behavior. They can make you more or less accepting to certain ideas. They can likely increase your interest in music, or make you slightly less sensitive to the thought of shooting someone. Does that mean that parents or the government should ban all violent video games? No, certainly not. If games were to go so would, books, music, films, and the freedom of speech. It does mean that I see good reason to allow stricter enforcement of game ratings and who can purchase violent games (games rated 18+, but nearly anyone can actually purchase). It does mean as with many things in life I will slightly alter my actions to reflect my current thoughts on gaming. I have started to believe a bit more that you become the things around you. This is probably a bit due to my slightly hippy girlfriend always wanting to avoid negative energy, but it is also based on life experience. So if I surround myself with negative games full of violence and dark and depressing imagery I will likely slide a bit more into a negative outlook on the world. Some people try to turn their back on everything negative in life, but that is no way to live either. Unfortunately all the depressing things in the world can't be avoided because there are real tragedies and problems that must be addressed and they must be addressed with eye open an knowledge of the issue. One way to gain experience and knowledge of the realities of the world is books, movies, and yes even video games. Games like GTA that expose people to an entire criminal world. I think I will try to avoid playing as many of the GTA type of games. I will stick to a little less real world style of FPS like Half-Life where I am fighting evil aliens. I will try to play more of the happy and meaningless games like Rock Band, World of Goo, and StarCraft. I won't quit anything entirely, namely because I believe in everything in moderation, but also sometimes running around shooting everything is just a damn good time. I just enjoyed some Rock Band and I think later tonight I will play some StarCraft see you in the games.

Why Wastedbrains

2009-03-11T05:36:50Z

Lately I have been getting more questions about why I use the online name Wastedbrains online. I don't do much with wastedbrains.com anymore, it really just serves as an archive of stuff I had done and put online in the past. For many services I still create the user Wastedbrains. It has served as my online persona longer than nearly anything, short of Captian2. Captian2 was created with a misspelling, which amazingly one person before me had already created a misspelled Captain user name on AOL. Since I have taken more then enough crap in my life for spelling, I didn't continue using that online name. WastedBrains came about while trying to think of a good website name when I wanted to create a hobby site. It was a site that was supposed to host all of my friends and I's various side projects that were a 'waste' of time. The waste of time aspect was what the name referred to, unfortunately that isn't normally how it is taken. Around the same time as Wastedbrains.com was born, the term wasted seemed to become more commonly used to refer to someone who was drunk or high. The belief that my account Wastedbrains meant I was a partier or a stoner persisted. I recently was playing a game of half life online, and the moderator on the server told me I had to change my name to something that doesn't support drug use. That seemed like the final draw that I needed somewhere on the internet to explain my reasoning and original intent behind my long lived Wastedbrains persona. So yes, many of the projects and the things I do online are a waste of time. Wasting time with games which I have played for years like Starcraft and Half Life. Wasting time making silly videos, art, growing beards or posting things on YouTube as user Wastedbrains of course. I haven't posted a video on YouTube for likely 2 years, but just realized the videos living there have racked up over 120,000 views. The Wastedbrains lives on in many services I have used, projects, code, and other things I have released online. I might have wasted a lot of time online, but not everything you do should really have a purpose. When in life is left to experiment and learn if everything you do has a purpose. I experiment, I explore, and I have learned a lot as my online time wasting persona. So hopefully we will see some things done and released by Wastedbrains again in the future.

Taking Down My old Highschool Room

2009-03-06T07:55:37Z

Many people have seen my old room. Back in the day it was a hangout for many people. It has been years since anyone has lived in my room. I basically visit it once a year around Xmas and wax nostalgic, for a bit. It was time to finally start cleaning up the house a bit, which meant finally taking all of my stuff down. Then getting someone in there to paint the walls and replace the carpet (it is amazing what teenagers can do to a room). Anyways, it brought all kinds of thoughts and emotions into my mind as a disassembled everything. It took a few hours every day to even get everything down, which gave me plenty of time to reflect on things. I didn't even finish with all the tacks, stickum, and tape on the walls my mom had to finish it all up after I left. I have tons of memories both good and bad from those times back in my room. Many firsts in my life occurred during that period, and many aspects of who I have become were formed then. Oddly I think about how much I have changed now from who I was during those times and sometimes it makes me wonder how much of the old me is still around. I am surprised by how much my priorities and focus on life has changed. Either way I know many pieces of my past are carried on within me every day. So it was sad to pull my past a part, throw much of it away, and box up the rest. I have some things I collected from the wall (collage?) that people might want, I will be emailing out some pictures of some items to people to see if they care about any particular memento. If there is something you see in the pics posted below that you particularly care about let me know. Ah to grow up, and realize half the stuff you wasted so much time being upset about just doesn't matter at all in the long run. The second picture cracks me up because the crappy stitching software inverted one of my walls. A nice closeup of what the majority of the wall collage looks like up close. One of the coolest things of my oldroom is that all of my friends left a hand print on one wall. One of my favorite wall paintings was this Batman by Ben. Another painting I liked was done on the ceiling around the fan, by Jesse. Room Photo Album on Google Picasa:

YouTube and CopyRight holders

2009-03-05T04:27:00Z

Seriously copyright holders are insane! I am talking to you RIAA, MPAA, etc. They honestly are spending time and money) having software watch every damn YouTube video and if they think it contains music they have rights to they make YouTube mute the sound on the video. Have they heard the quality of the music on many YouTube videos? half of them sound like static filled radio while a 747 flys by off in the distance. As a result of this there are tons of videos that have muted audio. Even just kids dancing to music in the background and instructional exercise videos. There are many stupid results of this muting. Youtube muted one of my videos, with music that I don't even like like Kid Rock. I am just pissed because my video had speech by people like my friends and myself in the video. I never made the original audio so YouTubes suggestion that I replace the audio is ridiculous. Then I just cut out all the voices and talking. Clearly no one is skipping buying CDs to listen to "All the Single Ladies" on YouTube with a couple babies or a fat guy dancing to it. Even if they were worried about that, how about just pull all the TV recorded music videos or songs obviously ripped straight from the CD overlaying a video. My video has a ton of audio content with no music going on and they mute the whole thing. I can't understand the RIAA wanting me to hate them so much. I now purposefully try to only buy small labels music. My muted and therefor annoying skydive video...

My Bedtime Routine

2009-03-03T05:13:17Z

I suck at sleeping. If sleeping was a class, I would have failed it. Because of this I do all sorts of things to try to get better sleep. I try to cover and tape over the little lights on nearly all my electronics, wall strips, chargers, and clocks keeping my room dark as possible. I have started trying to work out more often so that my body is actually tired not just my mind. I try to get outside so the sunlight hits my skin for awhile during the day, to appease my old animal instinct internal clock. I have found that if I work right up to bedtime I am only thinking about problems and solutions and I can't sleep. I try to give my mind a break and escape from work and problems before bed. I have slowly developed this routine and I find that I quite enjoy it now. I even miss it when I can't follow it. When I am done for the day I make a glass of sleepy time tea, with a bit of honey and milk in it. I then watch a TV show so that I forget about work and I am basically thinking about nothing. Finally, while drinking some water I read until my book feels heavy and it is hard for me to keep my eyes open to read. Then I shut out my final reading light and roll over to go to sleep. It might not be the best sleep routine, but it sure is hell beats out the time when I was all OCD like. In my OCDish sleeping stage of life (junior/senior year of college) I had to follow these 5 steps, if any where interrupted I would have to start over. 1. I needed to go pee. 2. I needed to turn my light on and off 3 times. 3. I needed check my closet for trolls (don't ask). 4. I needed to check my sheets for black widows (we found one in that appatment (not in anyone's sheets)) 5. Finally I once again had to turn my light off and on 3 more times. So what is everyone else's night time routine?