I just found out about head.js, but it definitely seems like something I’m going to have to play with really soon. Fortunately, somebody has already made a WordPress plugin that leverages it — so I guess that I don’t really have much of an excuse for not looking into it now, do I? [via]
Blog
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Plimpton & Hemingway
He keeps track of his daily progress—“so as not to kid myself”—on a large chart made out of the side of a cardboard packing case and set up against the wall under the nose of a mounted gazelle head. The numbers on the chart showing the daily output of words differ from 450, 575, 462, 1250, back to 512, the higher figures on days Hemingway puts in extra work so he won’t feel guilty spending the following day fishing on the Gulf Stream.
Reading these bits about Hemingway’s process from George Plimpton’s interview in the Spring 1958 edition of The Paris Review are fascinating. I mean, homeboy had a standing desk!
A working habit he has had from the beginning, Hemingway stands when he writes. He stands in a pair of his oversized loafers on the worn skin of a lesser kudu—the typewriter and the reading board chest-high opposite him.
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WTF by the Numbers
Mitchell Scherr has done a statistical breakdown of what Marc Maron calls his listeners during the intro for WTF over the past 50 episodes. I’ve always really enjoyed hearing “What the fuckstables.” so any time I can see that in print, I’m happy…
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Peel Slowly & See
Does anybody want to buy a lightly used, month and a half old Peel? It’s a pretty great little device — and its complimentary iOS app is fantastic — but we’re just not using it as much as I thought we would.
What can I say? Sarah is too damn fast with the normal remote for me to even compete. The show discovery functionality is top notch tho, and that’s what I’ve been using the most.
They normally go for $99 (and they’re on sale for $79 right now) but I’d be willing to part with mine for $60. Dive into the comments and make me an offer if you’re interested.
Update: Seriously? No takers? Even if I say that I’ll take $50 for it? Am I going to have to try to sell this thing on eBay?
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Cleaning Up Unicode Cruft in WordPress
While helping someone with WordPress move earlier this week, I noticed a bunch of weird Unicode cruft (like ’ and –) in their posts and comments. Apparently, MySQL databases don’t like it when you switch their default character encoding. But different web hosts have different ways of doing things — so default character encodings can (and sometimes do) change while you’re moving a site around.
Anyhow, after a bit of digging, I found a really handy set of MySQL commands that fixed things up. But I like to save time, so I made myself a Gist for future use and decided to share it with y’all…
Hopefully someone else out there finds this useful! I know I’ll probably use it at least once or twice a week now that I’m doing a lot more work with MySQL imports.
Good luck!
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CMD + Conquer
When I started over at WP Engine earlier this week, a brand new MacBook Air came into my possession. It’s very pretty and lightweight and I kind of love it more than any other computer I’ve ever owned. So much so that I made the decision to break with my normal tradition and keep this hot little number sticker free.
That declaration only lasted about a day and a half tho…
Why? Well, I just came across the Command Bamboo Back from Grove. And I really want it. Like in a bad way.
It’s not a traditional sticker tho. It’s made out of real bamboo. And the shape carved into it actually changes that (somewhat ubiquitous) glowing Apple logo into something that I love so much that I put it on me forever.
Anyhow, they’ve got a bunch of clever and novel designs over there. If you’re looking for something a bit different, do yourself a favor and browse around their shop.
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Peeling a Whole Head of Garlic, Very Quickly
How To Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds
At first, I saw this and I was like:
But then I did some Googling and saw that Real Simple suggested the same method and I was like:
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Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Hey. How’s it going?
I’ve got some pretty major news that I’ve been sitting on for a while now, but the time has come where I can finally share it.
Ready? Okay. Here we go…
After October 26th, I will no longer work with the very amazing and inspiring people at DreamHost. Considering that I’ve been loyal to them for well over 5 years now — and I thought I’d be here for much longer — that’s kind of a big deal for me.
But that’s nothing compared to what’s next…
Just under three weeks from now, I’ll be hopping on a plane to Austin to start working with the wicked smart crew over at WP Engine. If you don’t know about them yet, they’re a startup that focuses solely on highly optimized WordPress hosting.
No mail. No one-click installer full of other stuff. No Rails or Django. Just pure, unadulterated WordPress.
Now this new job doesn’t mean that Sarah and I are going to be moving to Texas or anything. In fact, I still get to live and work in Los Angeles. I’m mostly just heading out there to get familiar with the team and soak up as much barbecue as stupid Weight Watchers will let me.
Anyhow, it’s really exciting (not to mention a bit scary) to go from an established company to a startup. But I really believe in what WP Engine is trying to do. It’s a fantastic space and a great idea and I’m ready to help make an impact.
Wish me luck!
