Jeremey's Weblog

iPhone App!

I'm working with a friend on an iPhone game for toddlers (he's doing the graphics, I'm writing the code). I've learned a ton about the iPhone SDK over the past week and the game is coming along very nicely. I love the iPhone SDK. It's a dream.

Here's the splash screen, FWIW (running in the simulator):

Technorati Tags:
iphone, application, development

The Olympics

Never before have I (or my whole family) been so captivated by the Olympic games. This year's was really special.

From the astonishing and awe-inspiring opening ceremonies to the incredible efforts of many athletes to the glimpse into the heart of the Chinese people, this Olympics feels like a bit of real history. The venues were historic, and the fact that they were in Beijing was historic. The ceremonies were off-the-chart amazing and unlikely to ever be equaled. There is something very universal, very recognizable, and very inspiring in seeing the pinnacle of human achievement in any form, humans at the very top of their game. I felt like we were seeing that over and over throughout the games, including the ceremonies and the army of Chinese who made the whole thing work, as well as the athletes.

There were so many great stories of heroic athleticism, not just Phelps (though that was amazing) and Bolt (though that was amazing too). The Kenyan who finally won the Olympic marathon for Kenya and obliterated the Olympic record by several minutes in very unfavorable conditions. The Chinese domination of diving, especially the women. The Russian pole-vaulter who had already clinched the gold medal, but went on and broke her own world record at the Olympics. The North Korean swimmer who won gold and North Korea's first swimming medal. The sheer number of world records set in swimming. The last 100m of the women's 4x400m final where Sanya Richards came from behind to win gold for the US.

Those are just a few... in every event we watched, it was clear that the athletes had focused most or all of their lives on this one event. Obscure events like table tennis and team synchronized swimming demonstrated athletes that were absolute masters. They weren't just pretty good, nearly everyone was amazing.

All in all, there was a sense of dignity, of sanctity of human endeavor, and of wonder, about the games as a whole. It was really fun to watch, and I don't think my boys are likely to ever forget it. Their heroes are now Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson, Michael Phelps and Jeremy Wariner. And China. Gabriel was so intrigued by China that he wants to learn Mandarin... so he's taking Mandarin once a week on Saturdays (it doesn't hurt that we frequent a number of Chinese restaurants).

I'm looking forward to London, but with the expectation that it probably won't be quite the same. This one was special.

Technorati Tags:
olympics, 2008

Catching Up

It's blogging morning... up before dawn to catch up on things and get to church (I run sound). So here goes...

Siphon Brewing!

I brewed my first pot of siphon coffee this morning, this is an awesome way to brew coffee! I video-ed the brewing process and edited the video down under 90 seconds to make Flickr happy. Here 'tis... check it out, it's so cool. Science!

Technorati Tags:
coffee, siphon, brew, video

Cupping CoE Guatemala

Max put together an awesome cupping at Catalina last night. He had the top 5 Cup of Excellence (go check out their site: http://www.cupofexcellence.org/) Guatemala coffees on hand, we cupped #'s 2-5 and tasted/drank the #1.

A "cupping" is basically a coffee tasting where you're looking to rate specialty (i.e. quality) coffees and identify the complex flavors they contain. I learned a ton, not only about cuppings in general, but also about the vocabulary for describing flavors and aromas... Max had a couple kits for smelling 36 different aromas that might occur in coffee, and we spent some time sampling and guessing those before we cupped. Here are a few of the cupping stations:

One of the reasons I love Catalina is that I'm always learning how much I don't know about coffee.

The #1 CoE Guatemala coffee sold for over $80 per pound, green (unroasted). You can just guess what a roasted, retail pound might go for. Max brewed it in a French press and I could see why it was #1. It was very, very good, and very complex... clearly superior to the others, all of which were outstanding: complex, interesting, delicious.

Very cool experience! I want to do my own cuppings now. :)

Technorati Tags:
catalina, coffee, cupping

Smalltalk

I'm exploring the Smalltalk language, specifically GNU Smalltalk (Wikipedia link... go here for the code). Smalltalk is a very cool language accompanied by a very strange development environment. GNU Smalltalk implements the Smalltalk machine in a more traditional "write code in editor, then run it" approach... so I'm getting my feet wet that way. I dunno that I would really "get" the constant development IDE style (e.g. Squeak).

Smalltalk is pure OO (object oriented) to the core, but not the trashcan OO of C++ or Java. IMO Smalltalk may be the best language to learn programming with, and to model development in other languages on. For example, my Python code easily translates into Smalltalk semantics... I use Python because it fits in traditional Unix systems very nicely, but semantically, I love Smalltalk's elegance, power, and simplicity.

Smalltalk might even be good to teach to kids. There are some really interesting developments on that front, particular Scratch, which is built with/in/from/? Squeak. For anyone interested in Squeak, check out Squeak By Example (open PDF book).

If GNU Smalltalk turns out to be practical for Internet services and protocols, I might actually use it for real projects... even if not, learning Smalltalk is a fantastic way to train your programming brain to think better.

Technorati Tags:
smalltalk, programming, software

Cupping Class @ Catalina

FYI. It may be full, I dunno... I meant to post this a few days ago. :) I'm signed up.

http://catalinacoffeeshop.com/2008/07/29/cupping-cup-of-excellence-guatemala/

My Boys

Judah

Iain

Gabriel