JeffreyBarke.net

I was excited to run into Joe Milutis at Conflux today. Joe is an old friend of mine from Milwaukee who left the city a long time ago. Since then, we haven't kept in contact, and I don't think I've talked to him in at least five years. It was a total surprise to run into him here, today.

Joe does a lot of cool things, which you can check out at his site, but I especially wanted to plug his book, Ether: The Nothing That Connects Everything. Joe was working on this book when I knew him in Milwaukee, and I was excited to learn that is has finally been published. While I haven't read it (yet!), I'm certain it's great, and I'm going to get a copy tomorrow.

I was quoted in today's amNewYork in "Conflux to open this weekend, then to close for good" by David Freedlander:

"You live in this city and after a while you get into a habitual routine and you don't pay attention," said Jeffrey Barke, who moved to the city after attending Conflux in 2003. "Conflux opens up the city again as a source of creativity and play. That's something you risk losing as you get older and Conflux helps you reawaken it."

Read the entire article and check out Conflux!

Rapping about CERN's Large Hadron Collider!

Source: YouTube

Starting next week, I'll be posting three MP3s to this blog every Friday. Music posted will include chiptune and experimental electronic, among other things.

Just received my Ping.fm beta code!

One of my lifelong goals is to become a robot, and this post is a celebration of some depictions of the robot/cyborg in pop culture.

Obviously, such a celebration wouldn't be complete without mentioning Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

As a robot, I intend to follow Asimov's laws fastidiously. However, Park Chan Wook's incredibly beautiful, affecting and entertaining film I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK, features a young female cyborg with seven laws (evils) of her own:

And, finally, the lyrics to I, Robot by the incomparable Screeching Weasel:

I am a robot
I might be paranoid
But I'm a living
breathing humanoid
I am a rhombus
I plod around like dough
And I'm secure in
everything I know
Am I American
Blue metal under skin
No I'm not human
I am a robot
I never have a doubt
I live inside a circle
and I can't get out
I am mechanical
I don't question anything
My TV logic solves all
my problems for me
Am I American
Am I a Gilligan
No I’m not human

Google I/O '08 Keynote by Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer has been with Google for nine years, helping to build Google into one of the world's most popular web services. As the VP of Search and User Experience, her team is behind some of Google's most popular and successful products including core web search, images, news, books, maps, iGoogle, toolbar, desktop and health. This talk is a glimpse from inside the trenches of how Google builds products (including practical insights on how to build the best products), how to prioritize your efforts especially under resource constraints and how to think about strategy.

Source: YouTube

I created a tutorial that will step one through how to create a density map with Prototype, the Google Maps API and the HeatMapAPI. The final product, a density map of liquor licenses in Milwaukee, WI, is below. While this map is based on real data, one limitation of the free HeatMapAPI is that only 100 data points can be submitted per call. Since there are approximately 1,300 liquor licenses in Milwaukee, this map isn't even close to accurate!

Creating a map like this takes four simple steps:

1. Getting everything ready
2. Create the Google map
3. Add the data
4. Create the density map

To step one!

omg—a good tutorial for a thankless position: 36 steps to success as technical lead.

The "tech lead" role can be treacherous at times. While the name implies "leadership," most of the times it doesn't come with implied authority like a manager role for example. It often happens that this role is in a no-man's-land where it brings a lot of responsibility but not enough formal authority. In order to successfully help a project from this position one has to navigate through narrow and convoluted straits.

Please, god, never let me be technical lead again!