A revelation on the fundamental difference between developers & business

geek 6 Responses »
Mar 022011

Ya Internet

The coding style of keeping it DRY (don’t repeat yourself) is the exact opposite of what business people do (repeat, repeat, repeat until someone hears you). A good developer builds bits to be reusable, leaving repetitive tasks for automated tools like test suites. A good business person will continually send the same person an email until he gets a response, increasing daily frequency if necessary.

This explains why geeks are so bad at dating! Yes, you CAN send her multiple okcupid messages, nerds. It explains why developers have trouble being heard in mixed (dev+biz) meetings, and why devs don’t like meetings to start with. Many meetings are about topics previously discussed but have yet to reach a decision.

Geeks primarily use repetition for non-human or indirect human interactions (games) in which they have some control over the outcome. Perhaps business people are just insane1.

I’ve been rolling and squishing this thought in my brain and I feel it explains a lot of behavioral differences, though I could be completely off-base here. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

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1. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” – Einstein

Posted by Karen at 3:56 am

The iPad is here!

apple, geek, technology, video 6 Responses »
Jan 272010

anyone? anyone? bueller?

I was hanging outside the Apple announcement today with Justine. We tried but nobody gave us a press pass. Even though we didn’t get to see anything, I’m esploder over the product. They call it the iPad.


hanging out at the announcement on youtube

I’m absolutely thrilled about the new iPad. The wi-fi model is coming in 60 painful days, but I’d have to wait even longer for the 3g model- 90 days! I’m bathing in the kool-aid. Isn’t it lovely?

The skinny:
1/2 inch thick
1.5 pounds
9.7 inch IPS display (some fancy pants type of LCD)
1GHz Apple “A4″ chip
speaker & microphone
bluetooth
802.11 wifi
accelerometer & compass

Detailed specs at Apple

What I want to know is, why no camera?

cue heavenly music

Posted by Karen at 9:21 pm

A summary of CES

computer, geek, movie, technology, travel 3 Responses »
Jan 122010


A trip through CES on Youtube

This is a little bit of everything we did at CES. I was shooting with a Canon 960is which I borrowed from a friend. I have since purchased and received it just in time for Mexico. (Yep, I’m currently in Mexico.) The touch screen at the Intel booth was absolutely beautiful and a lot of fun. It was running the Intel Core 7 chip. Fancy!

The 3d tvs were amazing. I put on a pair of glasses, and then realized that hundreds of people have been putting them on their faces. Eww! I blame my giant face pimple on those glasses. I saw a lot of devices that made it easier to mirror content from your computer to your tv. Watch out, cable tv. The now is watching streaming content from the computer.

Justine participated in the Build your own pc race. It was so much fun. Next year we are totally going to try to win. We also rode The Big Shot in the Stratosphere. It was a freefall ride at the tippy top of the Stratosphere. I’ve never done this kind of ride before and I seriously regretted it as I was getting strapped in. Turns out, the anticipation is the worst, and it was a lot of fun.

We also stopped by the It won’t stay in Vegas party where I saw Brent Spiner and LeVar Burton. Eeep! They were completely surrounded by a massive crowd of fans and I was afraid I was going to get trampled.

Justine made a ton of videos from CES, so check them out here. The pc race one is great.

I saw some amazing new tech and had a fantastic time. I’m already looking at going next year.

Posted by Karen at 5:13 pm

BaconCamp!

geek, video 3 Responses »
Mar 122009

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been more than a month since I thought about organizing BaconCamp. It’s a little more than a week away, and I can’t wait. Everyone has been so supportive and helpful. I’m feeling and appreciating all the love.

Don’t forget to get your ticket early.
BaconCamp San Francisco
when: March 21, 2009 1pm-5pm
where: 500 3rd Street, Suite 510
cost: $0-20 donations – proceeds go to American Heart Association

Vanessa and I made this video to help you learn all about bacon:

We are still looking for more submissions for dishes and art so please tell your friends and sign up today. Sign up by Monday, March 16th so that we can guarantee you a spot and make sure you have what you need to shine.
You only have 4 days left! We’ll have a few open slots for presentations the day of, but you want to sign.

Need a little inspiration?Check out this post for ideas and suggestions of what you could present for BaconCamp

Scott also put together this great video of bacon memes:


BaconCamp – The Internet Bacon Meme in 60 Seconds from Bac'n.com on Vimeo.

Hope to see you guys there!

Posted by Karen at 7:20 pm Tagged with: , ,

My first tweet! What was yours?

geek, video, web 2 Responses »
Mar 102009

It’s around that time again, when my twitter feed is flooded with conversations about sxsw. Many claim that Twitter was put on the map by SXSW 07, when throngs of geeks and bloggers used the service to praise and criticize panels and to find out where the partying was happening.

My first tweet!

Fortunately, Twitter has become much more stable since then, and is now a pretty reliable service. I got curious to see if I could find my first tweet. They still have the data! Check out the little video I made about my first tweet.

I want to know what was your first tweet? Tag your tweet #my1sttweet. It’ll make it much easier to search for your tweets. If you’re not on twitter, you should join!

If you’re not going to SXSW this year, and do not want the constant barrage of tweets from your friends, try Twitter Snooze to silence them for a few days.

EDIT: Looks like Twitter doesn’t keep the data for all users depending on how many tweets you have. Try finding your earliest tweet. :)

Posted by Karen at 6:49 pm Tagged with: ,

The Lego Turing Machine

computer, geek, video No Responses »
Feb 172009


Lego Turing Machine on Youtube

This is as geeky as it gets. Behold the awesome power of the Lego Turing Machine. If you don’t know about Turing Machines, you can still enjoy that it is made of Legos. I was really into CS theory in college, so this video provides endless enjoyment for me. I hope they make a sequel for multitape Turing Machines.

Posted by Karen at 6:56 pm Tagged with: ,

Social networking for social change

geek, video 2 Responses »
Feb 052009

Have you heard of Twestival? Twestival is an event to bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water. The organization helps provide clean water in Africa. You know how you’re not supposed to drink the water in Mexico because you might get diarrhea? Imagine that water a zillion times worse. Now imagine that people drink it, because they have no choice.

San Francisco Twestival

Location: Harlot. 46 Minna Street, The Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom Street @ 11th Street, San Francisco, CA
Date: February 12, 2009
Time: 6pm

There are Twestivals around the world, so check out the sidebar on the main site for one near you.

Would you drink this?

I made this video to contribute to Justine’s video. If you want to add your bit to her collaborative video, read the full details on her blog.

And here is her video:

I’m very excited about this event because it executes beautifully on a concept I’ve talked about (and am attempting with BaconCamp): Geeks getting together to help make the world a better place. More than 180 Twestivals are being organized around the world.

The story of Charity:water is inspiring. Billions of people don’t have access to the clean, safe drinking water that is right beneath them, so they don’t have to drink from dirty streams and ponds. Typhoid, Cholera and other water-related diseases devastate communities, who’s medical facilities (if they exists) don’t have the capacity to help all the sick and dying.

The organization helps build and repair water wells in Africa. Weibel met the founder, Scott, a few year ago at Sundance. You can read his story here. I believe we tried to put a yvideo/jumpcut network together for his organization, but it unfortunately never worked out. It’s amazing to see him apply his party promotion skills to promoting Charity:water.

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rss feed <~~~~ feed me, om nom nom
Posted by Karen at 7:13 pm Tagged with: , ,

Any interest in Baconcamp?

food, geek 6 Responses »
Jan 222009



I am on a Diet Series~, originally uploaded by elsakawai™.

Inspired by Arial Waldman‘s cupcakecamp (which was in turn, inspired by barcamp), I’m thinking of hosting baconcamp. I recently attended Baconfest, which was SO MUCH AWESOME. It would be fun to bring this celebration of all things bacony to this geek community. However, I’m not sure if there would be enough interest in it, so I made this little poll.

Technically, it’s 2 polls. A 2 question poll is considered a “survey” to polldaddy, and you can’t embed those things on a blog. They are popus. *shudder*

What you can do to make baconcamp a reality:
– pass this poll (these polls?) around. The more interest in it, the more likely I will execute.
– email me at karen[at]karenism[dot]com if you want to help organize

BTW, the above photo by Elsa is one of my favorite bacon photos ever.

Posted by Karen at 7:02 pm Tagged with: ,

A little macworld update

apple, computer, geek, video 5 Responses »
Jan 092009

Youtube booth at Macworld

Macworld has been pretty fun, even though there weren’t many big announcements. I didn’t find anything that really excited me at the event. The little youtube booth had a computer and a soft light on the ceiling so I played a little song in the booth.

Turner (one of the guys from Smule) taught me a few notes.
Mr. Smule and me rocking out

Gonna make you work work, make you work!

I got to meet Lisa. She’s Canadian. I love Canadians, and their ketchup chips.

While hanging out with Justine I didn’t take too many photos. She had that lovely Nikon D90 that took such puuuurdy photos. It makes me want to get a dslr.

Posted by Karen at 7:35 am Tagged with:

Women in games, who cares?

geek No Responses »
Aug 212008

Grace hopper in 1952
I was quite amused by this article

Every few months, I am reminded that I am a woman. Not just any woman, mind you, but a woman in games
…
As a woman and, yes, a woman in games, I don’t think about my gender any more than you probably do yours, unless someone brings it to my attention.

When I was in college a professor once spoke to me about his concern about the segregation of female students in our department (I was a representative of a geek club otherwise I don’t think anyone would have talked to me…). He wanted the women to mingle more both socially and on projects and stressed the importance of equal treatment for all students because IRL the boys and girls will need to learn to deal with each other. Fortunately, it turns out that this is hardly an issue.

I’ve never had any interest in joining any Women in Tech social clubs (what’s the point? Hey, lets get together and talk about how boys are smelly…), but I’d love to join Awesomeness in Tech, if anyone wants to invite me. :)

Posted by Karen at 12:16 am Tagged with: ,
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