Tuesday, December 30, 2008
A few people on Twitter asked me for the itinerary of The Wire tour I did last week with a friend who's a fan of the show who had come in from out of town. Here's a quick and dirty version. Mild spoiler alert!
- Start at Penn Station. This is where Marlo Stanfield intentionally gets himself arrested (I think in season 4), thus confirming the wiretap that Prop Joe warned him about.
- Drive south to City Hall. Several scenes throughout the series take place outside of City Hall, including a brief sequence in the opening. Across from City Hall, you'll see the veteran's memorial steps where Stringer Bell and Prop Joe convene so Joe can warn Stringer about police surveillance (after Cheese gets detained after the dogfight).
- Drive south to the Inner Harbor. This is where Omar meets Stringer Bell at the end of season 1, trying to get Stringer Bell to talk about the Barksdale organization on tape.
- Head east to the Broadway Market, where McNulty's kids follow Stringer Bell.
- Head north on Broadway to see The Ritz, which in season one is Orlando's strip bar.
- Head east to Canton Waterfront Park, home of the Baltimore Police Marine unit, where McNulty "rides the boat" in season 2.
- Head east on Boston Street to see the Port of Baltimore, the focus of season 2.
- Head northwest to Patterson Park, where Prop Joe meets with members of The Greek's organizaton.
- Head east to Collington Square Park, and commence following the City Paper's Wire Tour, which covers several awesome sites from seasons 1-4, including Hamsterdam. My favorite stop is #5, Marlo's outdoor meeting spot, but seeing the rim store where Marlo hangs out is pretty awesome also.
- After leaving stop #7 on the City Paper tour, also visit Greenmount Cemetery, site of numerous meetups and interesting scenes.
This tour is very light on west-side locations. If anyone wants to expand this itinerary, I would look at these sites:
Labels: Wire Baltimore
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
A few weeks ago I presented an updated version of my
SproutCore demo at
DCRUG. Below is a video of it. Since you can't see the slides too well, so I also posted an
updated copy of the slides on slideshare.
I borrow a lot from Charles Jolley's writings on the
SproutCore blog for the introductory material about the uncanny valley etc.
Labels: SproutCore JavaScript
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The random_data gem provides methods for generating random test data including names, mailing addresses, dates, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and text. v1.5 includes a primitive Markov text generator and an array "roulette" function.
Thanks to Hugh Sasse for contributing code for the new features!
Labels: random_data, ruby
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
SocialDevCampEast #2, held in Baltimore on November 1st, was another great tech event in Baltimore. The biggest value for me was making and reenforcing
weak ties by connecting with people I don't directly work with or socialize with on a daily basis (especially people I only converse with via social media). For example, I got a chance to meet
Adam Boalt and hear him talk about the success of
RushMyPassport.com, which is the exact kind of business I'm interested in building in the future (something with online and offline components, and something that is not considered 'sexy' by most of the cognoscenti).
As far as presentations went, I gave a short version of my SproutCore demo and also led a session about cloud infrastructure (and what's not so great about it). The best sessions I attended were:
Jimmy Gardner posted
some great photos that convey the feeling of the event. Congratulations to Dave Troy and Ann Bernard for another success!
Labels: baltimore, SocialDevCampEast
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Bryan Liles took a great (but long)
video of my recent presentation on SproutCore at
B'More on Rails. A lot of my introductory material is adapted from the
SproutCore blog especially
this post from Charles Jolley.
This is a great technology that I'm having a lot of fun learning. Standby for more blog posts about it!
Labels: sproutcore
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Two really cool events are going down in the next couple of weeks here in Baltimore that everyone should check out.
Ignite Baltimore is an event I'm helping to organize where 16 people each get five minutes on stage to talk about something they are passionate about. We've got hackers, bloggers, painters, reverends, entrepreneurs, green builders, and so on all coming together to share what they know. The event debuts Thursday, October 16th at 6 pm at The Windup Space (12 W. North Ave).
The second
SocialDevCampEast conference, taking place on November 1st, is a great gathering of the smartest tech innovators on the East coast. As
Dave Troy writes:
SocialDevCamp is a real user-powered unconference with no commercial agenda -- the entire purpose is to CONNECT the leaders who will shape the next wave of tech innovation on the east coast. Come see how dynamic a truly user-powered conference can be!
I'm really interested in these events because they are a great way to connect with others interested in technology and digital culture, and learn new things while I'm doing it. See you there!
Labels: conferences, Ignite, SocialDevCampEast
Friday, September 19, 2008
Now that OtherInbox has launched we can publicly talk about what we're doing and why, and what technologies we use and why. I was honored to be
interviewed for the FiveRuns "Take Five" feature.
Labels: rails
