Saturday, January 14, 2012

Scala, Ruby On Rails



Web

Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails: Download
Ruby on Rails Guides
Ruby on Rails - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ruby on Rails Documentation
Top 12 Ruby on Rails Tutorials
Ruby on rails: up and running - Google Books Result
Ruby on Rails Tutorials - Tutorialized
Dribbble: Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett | the Ruby on Rails Podcast
rails's rails at master - GitHub
Ruby on Rails Tutorial
Tutorial
Ruby on Rails Guides: Getting Started with Rails
Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example | by Michael Hartl
Ruby on Rails: the Ultimate Beginner's Tutorial
Ruby on Rails programming tutorials2 - Meshplex
Ruby on Rails Tutorial



Forums


Manning Forums Ruby for Rails
Rails Forum: Ruby on Rails Help and Discussion Forum
Ruby on Rails (Building an Online Forum)
Ruby on Rails Forum using Rails and Web Standards | SocialSEO.com
User Groups = Rails Wiki
Free Online Ruby Programming Classes
Building a Forum From Scratch with Ruby on Rails - Tutorialized
Exploring Rails 3 The Free Rails Online Conference - February 18th...
Ruby on Rails RoR Tutorials Install Windows Development Ajax...
Ruby On Rails
VipLoungeCasinoNew - Ruby on Rails Fórum

America And India: Parallels

English: india against corruptionImage via WikipediaIn India they had Anna Hazare. Well, they still have him. America has had the Occupy movement. Similar stuff. In India they are going after sites like - guess - Facebook and Google. First it was for disrespecting Sonia Gandhi. Now they are saying it is about porn and hate speech. In America you have SOPA.

The oldest and the largest democracies have more than one thing in common. My favorite would be Hollywood and Bollywood.
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Of Free Speech And Arranged Marriages

English: Indian National Congress Party Presid...Image via WikipediaTimes Of India: Government nod to prosecute Google, Facebook, Yahoo
Wall Street Journal: Google, Facebook Fight Indian Censorship Demands

The place I showed up in America was Kentucky, of all places. At that point I could not have told you the cultural differences between Kentucky and California. Within a year I was up to speed. Experiencing racist demonization can do that to you.

In Kentucky I found massive consternation about the idea of arranged marriages. There were people who thought it was flat out wrong. There were those who accepted it as a cultural difference. The idea made me uncomfortable even before I came to America, but it did not take me long to realize marriages in America are not that not arranged either. Like Time magazine once said, you might fall in love with the stranger you spotted across the room, but it is society that decides what room you were in. That part was fixed. It was arranged. Only a narrow band of people cross the racial, cultural lines in matters of romance. That is not in the individual domain, that is in the collective domain.

That is not a defense of arranged marriages. I hope the practice fades away over time. More and more people pick their own mates. And I hope interracial marriages end up the norm not the exception in America.

And so you have this free speech debate in India. Like Fred Wilson would say, I am a free speech bigot. Some people in power in India are saying free speech is okay as long as you don't disrespect Sonia Gandhi. I don't buy that. But I do happen to respect Sonia Gandhi.

Plenty Still Broken In The World

photo of Paul GrahamImage via WikipediaPaul Graham has a new blog post out. The guy has a beautiful writing style. And he tackles the most amazing topics.

Paul Graham: Schlep Blindness
Schlep was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. It means a tedious, unpleasant task. ....... Most hackers who start startups wish they could do it by just writing some clever software, putting it on a server somewhere, and watching the money roll in—without ever having to talk to users, or negotiate with other companies, or deal with other people's broken code. Maybe that's possible, but I haven't seen it. ...... schleps are not merely inevitable, but pretty much what business consists of. A company is defined by the schleps it will undertake. And schleps should be dealt with the same way you'd deal with a cold swimming pool: just jump in. ....... The most dangerous thing about our dislike of schleps is that much of it is unconscious. Your unconscious won't even let you see ideas that involve painful schleps. That's schlep blindness. ....... For over a decade, every hacker who'd ever had to process payments online knew how painful the experience was. .... Because schlep blindness prevented people from even considering the idea of fixing payments. ....... Though the idea of fixing payments was right there in plain sight, they never saw it, because their unconscious mind shrank from the complications involved. You'd have to make deals with banks. How do you do that? ...... That scariness makes ambitious ideas doubly valuable. In addition to their intrinsic value, they're like undervalued stocks in the sense that there's less demand for them among founders. If you pick an ambitious idea, you'll have less competition, because everyone else will have been frightened off by the challenges involved. (This is also true of starting a startup generally.) ...... there's plenty still broken in the world, if you know how to see it.
I have said a few times being an entrepreneur is like being gay. I have a suspicion people are born or not born an entrepreneur, because there are so few of them. And by some estimates 1% of the population is born gay. I think that is also the share of entrepreneurs in the broader population.

In this blog post Paul Graham establishes the 1% within that 1%. Most entrepreneurs stay away from the big ideas, the big problems that need to be tackled.

I read the blog post twice.

Google? Pirate?



So Barack Obama thinks SOPA is not worth the paper it is printed on, and Rupert Murdoch, @therealshitmydadsays, thinks Google is a pirate.

That's interesting thinking. Obviously Murdoch wants his newspapers to be online but behind paywalls and not accessible through search engines. If you are paying, you obviously know the name and the domain name. Show up and read. You found me when you paid for the subscription.

I don't know where to begin. I mean, a search engine is a good thing, right? Or am I missing something here? Do we want to go back to the good old days of the Yahoo directory?

Murdoch seems to think the internet was designed to save him the costs on paper. ("Why can't you just read the paper on your computer?") Everything else should remain the same.

SOPA Is So Going Down

South façade of the White House, the executive...Image via WikipediaAnd now the White House is against it. And looks like the bill is nowhere close to hitting the floor of the House. The authors and proponents of the bill have been caught flat-footed. They obviously did not see this coming. Ever since the advent of the internet I have not seen the tech honchos getting this political. Everyone and their competition is up in arms.

I mean, can you imagine Google and Facebook and Twitter all going offline, even if only for an hour, to protest this well-intentioned piece of legislation? That would end up the biggest media event globally.

The often told story is that the old media people who have the politicians in their back pockets got those mercenary politicians to bring forth this awful, awful bill. That is only part of the story. The real story is that the Internet stands to challenge the nation-state itself. Those politicians on Capitol Hill spend much time thinking they are the center of the universe. The Internet is barking at them saying the universe has no center. Everywhere you stand is the center of the universe. And so there is this major culture clash.

The Censorship Bill Is About The Nation State
Assange: An Information Bin Laden? I Think Not

The Internet will win. The nation state will fundamentally transform itself, or it will lose.

White House: Obama Administration Responds to We the People Petitions on SOPA and Online Piracy
Ars Technica: Obama administration joins the ranks of SOPA skeptics
TechDirt: SOPA Delayed; Cantor Promises It Won't Be Brought To The Floor Until ‘Issues Are Addressed’
GigaOm: Tim O'Reilly: Why I'm fighting SOPA
Ars Technica: Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA
CNet: Wikipedia considering joining SOPA blackout protest

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Twitter Should Open Up Its API ---- To Google



Twitter misunderstands real time.

Google Plus Plus Google Search

Real time is not just real time as it is happening right now. Real time is also real time as it happened in real time two years ago. But Twitter thinks only your 3,000 or so latest tweets are relevant. It does not destroy the old tweets, but it disallows access to them, which in my book is akin to destroying them.

My single biggest frustration with Twitter has been that I can not search through all of my own tweets. If I could, Twitter would be my Dropbox. But no, Twitter would not open up its API.

Twitter Is Seeing Rebirth
Twitter Asks
Being Able To Embed Tweets Is A Revolution
Twitter At Five: Not Spitting Out Well

Twitter opening up its API would mean Google being able to access all tweets without paying Twitter. Bad deal for Twitter? No. Like Jeff Jarvis says, do what you do best, link to the rest. Twitter does not do search right, if at all. My tweets belong to me, not to Twitter. At the least I should have access to them.

All tweets ever tweeted becoming fair game to Google Search would enhance the piece of real estate called the tweet tremendously. It is in Twitter's interests to open up. Lift the iron curtain. Mr. Dorsey, tear down this wall.

TechCrunch: Twitter Really, Really Hates Google’s New Google+ Integration

30-Storey Building Built In 15 Days



Via Ujwal Thapa

Social Media Week Is Upon Us


There is an email in my inbox this morning. It is from Social Media Week. February 13-17, used to be first week in February. Two years back I was trying to go to as many events as possible. Last years I said I would go to only two or three but ended up going to many more. This year I was thinking I will stick to a few. But now I am in a mood to not fight the urge. Just let it go. This year I might again attempt what I tried two years back: go to as many events as possible.

New Business Cards

You start by looking at the schedule and using the Save To Favorites feature. The only guiding light being Event Name.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Google Plus Plus Google Search

Google Plus Circles - Pros and ConsImage by Squidooer via FlickrMonths and months back, more than a year back I went on record hoping Facebook would do this, it would let me search through all my wall posts, and the wall posts of all people I might be connected to. I guess I was waiting for Google Plus the entire time.

Search, Plus Your World

Google just married social to search. I can't search through all my wall posts on Facebook, to my great consternation I can't search through all my tweets (They are all on your servers!). But now I can search through the walls of everyone I might be connected to on Google Plus. Tremendous value has been added.

Of all the features that have been added to Google Plus since its launch, this is the most exciting to date. I am digging it. Facebook had the option to get into search last year but instead it outsourced that to Microsoft. And Microsoft did not quite do it. I guess search is hard to do. Google has the secret sauce.

The Google search engine suddenly has become more valuable. This is not just about Google Plus. This is not even primarily about Google Plus. You smell a conspiracy. Google never meant to launch a social network like Facebook. It always meant to add the social layer to search itself. It was always about search. Google Plus perhaps is smoke and mirrors.