Thoughts on Chicago

CHIRP Radio in Chicago is looking for someone to help us build a custom Android application so that our listeners can have a better experience on their Android phone. There are already a few Android apps for radio but they are clunky. Also, we have some plans to better engage listeners on phone apps with currently playing tracks, click-to-request-a-song, and other ideas like that. We already have a pretty slick iPhone application created by volunteer John Carlin and after only a few months it already has 1,000+ downloads...

I really like PyCon. It's been said many times but is worth repeating: the hallway track is what makes PyCon such a fun unconference. With that said, here are some happenings: I'll be talking Friday after lunch about some fun I've been having trying to test Ajax web appli...

I went to my first Chicago JavaScript meetup on Thursday (the 4th meetup they've had so far) and it looks like a promising group. The topics were pretty basic but the speakers seemed very deep into JavaScript so I'm looking forward to future meetings. By raise of hands we decided to split into two groups, an advanced and a beginner, which was an excellent idea. The turnout was incredible — about 60 (or more?) people showed up. The original venue that got canceled only held 40 so some of those people were actually on a waiting list ...

Now that it's -5 F in Chicago with a windchill of -25 F I thought it was an appropriate time to share one of the secrets to surviving a Chicago winter: Glögg! If you live in the old Swedish neighborhood (Andersonville) like I do then you can sip Glögg at most local bars but with weather like this, why even leave your house? Here's my recipe...

As the US economy spins into a death spiral I unfortunately now know some highly skilled web developers (Python, Ruby, JavaScript, etc) in the Chicago area who are looking for work. And I mean highly skilled people whose ninja like qualities will be sorely missed. Most hiri...

Today was Chicago's Google App Engine Hack-A-Thon and I managed to get some good work done. Well, I had planned to make packages more ephemeral on the PyPi mirror since it quickly hit the 500MB limit as is. But instead I decided to add Datastore support to the fixture m...

Big thanks to everyone who attended my talk at PyCon today, Unicode In Python, Completely Demystified. It was an ambitious title; I highly doubt I "demystified" everything, but I was happy with how it went. There were a ton of great questions — even some I c...

Leapfrog Online is looking to hire several Python developers to work on a Django site. If you know Python but not Django, this is an excellent opportunity to learn. If you know Django but want to learn how to use Python in other contexts, you'll get to do that, too. You'll...

I freaking love this town. Who's up for a sprint at the Billy Goat Tavern?? Pycon 2008 site

I'm picky about art because most of it is boring (the nature of experimentation, I guess) but someone showed me this site for an art group in Chicago, The Industry of the Ordinary, and their projects are great. The site itself looks really nice too (I like the smokiness). ...

I'm going to try my first Tech Coffee—early morning coder's meetup—this Thursday to work on the fixture module somewhere other than the purple line to and from work. When Tech Coffee first started it was on Mondays. That was the worst idea, ever. The last thing ...

It's that time again to vote on the new Chicago City Sticker. Well, voting is now over unfortunately but I am really impressed by the contestants this year (each done by high school students interested in design). I can't decide which one I like best. Wow. And ...