Ethan Turkeltaub

audio

2012-02-21T16:35:00-05:00

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2938195/ethan.heroku.com/2012/02/Madeon%20-%20Live%20on%20BBC%20Radio%201%20at%20Hull.mp3

Madeon performing a live set on BBC Radio 1 in Hull, UK.

video

2012-02-20T20:48:00-05:00

Penn Jillette on the atheist’s perspective of the 2012 Presidential election.

quote

2012-02-20T20:02:00-05:00

Beyond the universe there is nothing and within the universe the supernatural does not and cannot exist. Of all deceivers who have plagued mankind, none are so deeply ruinous to human happiness as those imposters who pretend to lead by a ligth about nature. Science has never killed or prosecuted a single person for doubting or denying its teachings, and most of these teachings have been true; but religion has murdered millions for doubting or denying her dogmas, and most of these dogmas have been false. George P. Spencer

link

2012-02-20T17:18:00-05:00

The Oatmeal — Game of Thrones →

The Oatmeal perfectly describes why piracy exists.

audio

2012-02-20T16:46:00-05:00

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2938195/ethan.heroku.com/2012/02/Disney%20Parks%20-%20Epcot%20Entrance%20Area%20Loop.mp3

I’m in love with the entrance area background music loop for Epcot. It makes me feel like I’m walking past Spaceship Earth on my way to Innoventions!

audio

2012-02-19T10:12:00-05:00

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2938195/ethan.heroku.com/2012/02/Disney%20Parks%20-%20Reflections%20of%20Earth.mp3

At the end of every great day at Epcot in Walt Disney World is the award-winning fireworks, laser, and fountain show IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth. It started in 1999 to celebrate the new millenuium but proved so popular that it continues to this day. The soundtrack is wonderful, and it great for ambient music.

link

2012-02-16T16:00:00-05:00

Dustin Curtis on Web Standards →

Dustin Curtis hits the nail on the head with his critique of the W3C and CSS Working Group. I agree that, in this day in age, they move far too slow to create standards that are useful to anyone but vendors.

Git & GitHub 101

2012-02-10T15:31:00-05:00

Today I gave a presentation to my AP Computer Science class that introduced them to Git and GitHub. I watched as most of it sailed over their heads, so I’m going to try and re-explain it more coherently with text.

What is version control?

Generally, version control system (like Git—others include Subversion, Bazaar, and Mercurial refers to the tracking and control of changes in a project. All of these systems provide the same basic features.

Backup & Restore

If you’re using a website like GitHub, you have code backup built right in. You always have your code, along with its entire history, saved elsewhere.

Synchronization & Collaboration

It is so much easier to share files among developers —no more uploading zipped files or swapping USB sticks. Plus, you can always have current code.

Undo

No mistake is too large (or too small) to handle. Perhaps you add some code to the wrong file and need to revert back. Or you could screw up four hours of work and need to start over. Either way, a VCS can handle it.

History

As you update files, you can see who and where files were changed. Changes can be tracked down to the line number.

Sandboxing

With branching and merging (which I will get to later), you can experiment without damaging the core code.

Why Git?

There is an entire website dedicated to defending the integrity of us Git users.

Local branching — Git allows for you to have branches completely independent (or dependent) from each other.
Git is fast and small — Everything is done locally, so it consumes less disk space quicker.
Easy to learn — It may not seem it right now, but you get used to using Git very quickly.
GitHub — GitHub is a reason in itself for using Git. Nothing else compares.

The Concepts Behind Git

There are several concepts that are necessary to understand to use Git effectively.

Repositories

A repository is, in essence, a directory. This directory is where your project lives, and, most importantly, the .git/ directory. This special, hidden folder acts as a database, tracking changes and users.

A repository is either local or remote. A local repository is where you make changes to the files, stage (prepare) the changes, and push to the remote repository. A good example of a remote repository is GitHub. No changes are made here, but it is a central location for a version of the repository to live.

Branches & Merging

Another important concept is branches. I think the Version Control for Designers said it best.

Branches fulfill the same role as drafts when writing an email. You work on the draft, saving it frequently until it is complete; then, when it’s done, you send the email, and the draft is deleted. In this case, the outbox is not polluted by your frequent changes, until you hit “send”.

Basically, by doing work on new features or radical changes in branches you keep your main branch (in Git, this is called the master branch) uncluttered and always stable.

Once you are done with this new feature, you can incorporate the changes you’ve made by merging the new branch into the master branch. This intelligently replaces the old files with the ones you’ve changed.

Workflow

So, now that you understand the concepts behind Git, how do you actually use Git? For that, there are two options.

Command line — Whether you’re in a Linux Bash Terminal or Windows Command Prompt, this is the way to go with Git.
GUIs — People who use GUIs are either designers or chickens. So don’t be that guy.

I won’t go into detail on how to install Git on your machine. Don’t worry—it’s easy. GitHub has an excellent guide.

The next part is about using the CLI. To learn how to use a GUI, you may have to go elsewhere.

Cloning

To get a version of a repository you use the clone command.

$ git clone git@github.com:eturk/apcs.git folder-name
Initialized empty Git repository in /var/www/folder-name/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 468, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (320/320), done.
remote: Total 468 (delta 158), reused 411 (delta 109)
Receiving objects: 100% (468/468), 3.98 MiB | 1.19 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (158/158), done.

Branching and Merging

Changing to a branch is easy with the checkout command.

$ git checkout other-branch
Switched to branch 'other-branch'

Merging is also easy. Change branches to the branch you want to merge into, then use the merge command.

git merge other-branch
Updating 8bd6d8b..8f7c949
Fast-forward
 more.txt |    1 -
 test.txt |    1 -
 2 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
 delete mode 100644 more.txt
 delete mode 100644 test.txt

Commit

To create a new commit (a notification to Git that you changed some files), you first have to add (or remove) files from the staging area, then use the commit command, usually with the -m flag and a message.

$ git add .
$ git rm some/unnecessary/file.txt
$ git add blah/Poker.java
$ git commit -m "A description of the changes I made."
[master 594f90b] A description of the changes I made.
 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Statuses & Resetting

One of the most confusing commands of Git is reset. First, to see the state of your un-committed or committed files, you can use status.

$ git status -s
 M README
 M hello.rb

If you want to get rid of these files, you can do so by using the following.

$ git reset HEAD -- hello.rb

Don’t worry about what exactly this means for now. It confuses even the most seasoned of Git users, but there is plentiful information online.

Push & Pull

To move or get changes from a remote repository, you use push and pull, respectively.

$ git pull origin master
remote: Counting objects: 4006, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1322/1322), done.
remote: Total 2783 (delta 1526), reused 2587 (delta 1387)
Receiving objects: 100% (2783/2783), 1.23 MiB | 10 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1526/1526), completed with 387 local objects.
From github.com:eturk/test
   8e29b09..c7c5a10  master     -> test/master
   0709fdc..d4ccf73  c-langs    -> test/c-langs
   6684f82..ae06d2b  java       -> test/java
 * [new branch]      ada        -> test/ada
 * [new branch]      lisp       -> test/lisp

Right now, you are pulling from the main remote repository (origin) at the master branch. To push is similar.

$ git push origin master
Counting objects: 25, done.
Delta compression using up to 2 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (25/25), done.
Writing objects: 100% (25/25), 2.43 KiB, done.
Total 25 (delta 4), reused 0 (delta 0)
To git@github.com:eturk/test.git
 * [new branch]      master -> master

So what will my workflow look like?

Here’s an example.

...make changes...

$ git add .
$ git commit -m 'Changed some methods around, rebuilt class?'
$ git push
$ git checkout -b rebuilt-poker-class

...make more changes...

$ git add .
$ git commit -m 'Done with new rebuilt class.'
$ git push
$ git checkout master
$ git merge rebuilt-poker-class
$ git push

Best Practices

If there is anything you can take away from this, it’s commit and pull often. Just like you save a school paper often, the more commits you make, the more specific you can be when reverting and undoing. Pulling often gets you the latest code with the least amount of merge conflicts.

GitHub

Even if you hate Git, you still can love GitHub. Founded in 2008, it has exploded to over one million users and over two million active repositories. Needless to say, there is a lot to like about the site.

Browse code online with syntax highlighting.
View complete project history.
Blame and annotations (who made changes and where).
A powerful online editor.
A Git-powered wiki for each project.
Issues (issue tracking with milestones, labels, and search).
Code Review (Pull Request = Code + Issue + Comments)
Comments (make notes on commits, issues, even specific lines of code).
Fancy graphs to see networks, clone history, and traffic.
Compare view to graphically view the diff between commits.
A strong community (you can find and “watch” interesting projects and developers).

I’m not going into detail on how to use GitHub here, given that their help center is so good.

video

2012-02-09T17:40:00-05:00

Essentially, the team for the upcoming movie Act of Valor just said, “Fuck it, we’ll do it live.” and used real, live ammo instead of CGI in shooting the movie. Yikes.

video

2012-02-06T16:16:00-05:00

Ok Go partnered with Chevrolet to bring this excellent music video for their song Needing/Getting.

video

2012-02-05T20:06:00-05:00

You know, I may be enthusiastic about The Lorax, but Marvel’s The Avengers really looks awesome.

video

2012-02-05T19:30:00-05:00

I love the 1972 animated television special, so I have high hopes for this film, The Lorax. I’m so enthusiastic about this that I’ll let it slide that they’ve cast Zac Efron.

video

2012-02-02T19:05:00-05:00

Kiteboarder Andy Hurdman goes for a leisurely wakeboard ride through an ice field in Alaska.

link

2012-02-01T19:39:00-05:00

Bouletcorp’s Darkness →

Bouletcorp’s Darkness is one of the greatest bandes-dessinees (comics) that I’ve seen. It is so beautifully drawn, and I really like the plot. It’s worth the time to read.

video

2012-01-29T17:31:00-05:00

Wastelander Panda is The Road meets Kung Fu Panda. Odd, but awesome.

link

2012-01-29T12:25:00-05:00

Hollywood Edition →

What became clear from the SOPA/PIPA debacle is that Hollywood still doesn’t understand the Internet. So why don’t technology companies treat Hollywood like they treat technology companies?

link

2012-01-27T15:25:00-05:00

NYTimes — Student Faces Town’s Wrath in Protest Against Prayer →

Jessica Ahlquist is getting finally getting some press with her fight against the unconstitutional prayer banner in her high school auditorium.

quote

2012-01-27T14:08:00-05:00

The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one. But you don’t need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It’s not just an idea. It’s reality. We’re discovering the hidden orders of the universe every day. The inverse square law of gravitation is amazing. Fractals, the theory of relativity, the genome: these are magnificently beautiful constructs. Adam Savage

video

2012-01-27T13:06:00-05:00

Realmac Software demoed their new iPhone app Clear. This is going to be the one to-do list I will actually buy.

Facebook to Path

2012-01-26T21:00:00-05:00

With the explosion in the number of smartphones in high schooler’s hands, the number of teenager users that are using mobile-only apps like Instagram and Oink are skyrocketing. For that reason, I expect a mass exodus of teens from Facebook to Path.

There are already early adopters from my school, and they are trying to spread the network as fast and to as many people as possible. And, as far as I can tell, it’s working. Since I looked last week, thirty people from my school have joined Path. That’s not a signifigant number in the overall scheme of things, but that means that there is a market for networks like these with teens.

Google+ could have been a contender with the teen market. But with Google’s repeated refusal to allow 13- to 18-year-olds into the beginning of the beta, they essentially killed their chances with teens.

I could also see some trouble with Path. The limit to 150 friends and lack of a desktop version will definitely shy people away. Yet I look forward to the time where I don’t even need to visit the increasingly terrible Facebook to catch up with friends.

Ethan Turkeltaub

audio

video

quote

link

The Oatmeal — Game of Thrones →

audio

audio

link

Dustin Curtis on Web Standards →

Git & GitHub 101

What is version control?

Backup & Restore

Synchronization & Collaboration

Undo

History

Sandboxing

Why Git?

The Concepts Behind Git

Repositories

Branches & Merging

Workflow

Cloning

Branching and Merging

Commit

Statuses & Resetting

Push & Pull

So what will my workflow look like?

Best Practices

GitHub

Further Reading

video

video

video

video

video

link

Bouletcorp’s Darkness →

video

link

Hollywood Edition →

link

NYTimes — Student Faces Town’s Wrath in Protest Against Prayer →

quote

video

Facebook to Path