Baby Style Wushu

By Evan — — Personal

Zheng came to speak with Master Wu one late afternoon. “Master, it is unfair that I keep getting matched up with Li Po during sparring practice,” said Zheng.

“Why is that?” asked Wu.

“It is impossible to defend against him,” replied Zheng, rubbing his bruised jaw. “Li Po is nearly twice my size.”

“Idiot!” snapped Wu. “You should be able to defend against him were he ten times your size! Now go home — you are late for dinner with your wife and son.”

At dinner, Zheng attempted to feed his ten-month-old son spoonfuls of pureed broccoli. It was then that Zheng became enlightened.

Ideal Writing Conditions

By Evan — — Writing

When I attended Viable Paradise, Cory Doctorow warned us all in no uncertain terms about ritualizing the writing process. His message was that you needed to be able to write under any conditions. You couldn’t fall into the trap of having to smoke a cigarette, or drink a drink, or sit at your very special writing desk on your very special Writing Day just to get anything done.

Well, I’m working on the YUI 3 Cookbook this afternoon, and:

  • Chores are done (enough).
  • The boy is napping.
  • TRON: Legacy Reconfigured is playing.
  • My wife just brought me a cold beer, unasked.

Not that I want to set myself up so that this becomes the prerequisite state for writing. All I’m saying is, conditions sure as heck could be worse.

“It was his third shot that actually made me shout in frightened terror.”

By Evan — — Culture

Whenever I visit the Yahoo! front page, the great pulsing Krell-like brains that power the “Today” module use their fancy “algorithms” and “data” to decide that for some reason, I’m the kind of guy who’ll be interested in some wacky sports highlight/meltdown story. “High school kid’s amazing super-fast pitch!” “Basketball game interrupted by horde of marmots!”

And you know what? The front page people are totally right. I love wacky sports stories. Thanks, Science!

Anyway, the following sports meltdown story is a classic, so it most likely won’t be appearing on the Yahoo! front page unless there’s a really slow news day. Yes, it’s a golf story, but you’ll want to watch it anyway. My coworker David describes it like so:

If you are going to watch one golf hole in your life, watch that one. Jean Van de Velde,
an unheard of journeyman pro, stood on the final hole with a 3 shot lead. I
watched this live and didn’t know what to think. It was like watching a guy
get in a car accident, get up, find a new car, get in another accident, over
and over. It was his third shot that actually made me shout in frightened
terror.

The YUI 3 Cookbook is Underway

By Evan — — Web

It’s already been announced on yuiblog, so it’s probably high time it got mentioned here. On March 1, I started writing the YUI 3 Cookbook, due from O’Reilly Press early next year.

This is all on top of my regular job, so taking on this project has unfortunately meant some… lifestyle cutbacks. For instance, there’s a guy at work who has decorated his cube and the adjacent hallway with posters and paraphernalia from every newly released computer game known to man. This means I have to steel my nerves and walk past a Dragon Age II poster every day. Every day, people!

Those sacrifices aside, I’m thrilled that YUI team asked me to work on this project, and my wife and young son have been enormously supportive about the whole thing. At least, I think my son is supportive. Whenever I ask him about it, he says “Hey!” and tries to chew on my finger, which I’m pretty sure means, “Go Dad!” Either that, or he’s saving up his grievances for later.

Some info about the YUI 3 Cookbook, in order of priority:

  • No, I do not know which animal is going to be on the cover.
  • The material will focus exclusively on YUI 3.
  • The cookbook will contain over 200 recipes. Each recipe has the form “Problem”, “Solution”, and “Discussion”, much like other cookbooks released by O’Reilly.
  • The total length will be on the order of 500 pages, including TOC and index.
  • In the YUI Library forums, I’ve created a thread with links to a strawman TOC and a sample PDF. The material is completely unedited, not technically reviewed, and riddled with red TODOs. But it should give you an idea of the scope and style.

Much more to come.