I just got through watching Season 2, and for the most part I am pretty stoked about this show.

This is the first Transformers cartoon that I have been excited about since Beast Wars/Beast Machines. This is by no means of the same caliber of the aforementioned shows, but given the large amount of drek that has come out of late, I'm not going to complain. Much.

I am not sure why, but the "vastly outnumbered" angle of this show gets on my nerves. The autobots have been outnumbered before, but not to this degree, and not without something to even the playing field, like Metroplex.

Additionally it really, really irks me that Megatron routinely wipes the floor with Optimus Prime. This is something that was in the recent movies as well, and it burns my biscuits as they say. 

Megatron and Prime are evenly matched in the intelligence and strength department, and always have been. Megatron's edge comes from his willingness to do anything, sacrifice anything, to accomplish his goals.

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It's one of those days. Random thoughts, hair brained schemes and half-baked plans. Basically awesomeness in a bottle.

What does a brother need to do to get @AliciaKeys, @TheRoots and @JohnLegend to form a super group with the horn section from Chicago? Why would I want this you might ask?

Well friend it's simple. I want a tribute album of @EarthWindFire standards, re-envisioned by the above artists. Want isn't the right word. Need is more appropriate. Why would I want something like this? Well obviously cause I love all the artists listed, and you know World Peace.

What? How would this bring us World Peace? Well, that's pretty simple really. I see it going something like this.

  1. The aforementioned artists assemble! Making the greatest music of their illustrious careers. 
  2. The album is released and redefines what it means to funk. Listeners are blown away by the musicality and raw, unfiltered majesty of the writing. When they look into where this awesomeness came from, they find Earth, Wind & Fire. Minds are blown, lives are changed.

It is a scientifically proven fact that it is impossible to wage war while also listening to "Boogie Wonderland". Impossible I tell you.

So, what songs would I see each of the major players mentiomed above showcasing on? Oh, that is simple.

Ah, I guess a boy can dream.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Or the one where we make the mobile web first, for realz this time, and the game is changed. At least for us.

At the day job , we are furiously working, in our very, very spare free time on a new app that firmly sits at the crossroads of mobile, food and the human desire to critique things. We are having a blast building everything out, and when it came time to build the prototype, I started on the normal scenario.

I fired up Xcode, created a new iOS project and started slinging ObjC around the place. After about 30 minutes into my first coding session, building, running loading in the simulator, crashing, debugging... you get the idea, I began lamenting once again the lack of "instant gratification" that non web-development has.

So I thought, could I build this prototype as a web app? The list of features are pretty limited:

  • Find a nearby food establishment
  • Checkin
  • Do stuff I can't really get into right now, okay?

The goal here isn't to make some ugly afterthought like Foursquare's  mobile web app, but a gorgeous, fully realized app. 

So for the sake of argument I started hammering on a prototype that targeted the webkit rendering engine, and within an hour I had a usable framework to build on that looked sexy on my iPhone.

I am about 10 hours away from having a prototype app that I can get into the hands of testers, anywhere in the world, that will function so closely to the native apps we will be building, as to be indistinguishable.

The amazing fringe benefit to this approach, is that when all is said and done, we will have a first class web version of our app, that functions and resembles its native counterparts. I want everyone, everywhere to get on this app and get hooked. 

With the approach we are taking, the initial cost of development and prototyping becomes almost nothing, while our pool of testers becomes global.

Updates for critical bugs found are instantaneous, new features to be tested and vetted are available with a single CLI push command. Once all the testing is done, and we have our feature set, UI and behaviors, creating the native apps becomes simple and more cost effective.

Angels sing, unicorns frolic on rainbows of awesomeness... ponies for everyone!

Thoughts in the comments, and as always, be respectful!

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Not too long ago, my friend and co-hort in Habari things, Morydd asked me how I was using Siri on my iPhone.

You see, not too long ago I tweeted poetic about siri thusly:

And I stand by my statement. Both my wife and I have quickly integrated Siri into our everyday lives, and it is wonderful.

I have found myself using Siri mostly for two things:

  1. Reminders & Appointments
  2. Searches

I am out and about quite a lot, running errands, going to meetings, etc. I am no where near my computer or one of my iPads, but my phone is always with me. I can easily invoke Siri and in the span of a few seconds create meeting reminders, set appointments, etc.

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10 years, that's a long time, I find it hard to wrap my head around this little slice of cyberheaven having existed that long. A decade. Groovy.

On May 20th, 2002 the current incarnation of Sillyness went live. It wasn't my first blog, but it is the one that stuck. In 18 days Sillyness will turn 10 years old.

What is that in internet years, like a bazillion? Looking back over the last ten years Sillyness has gone through periods of almost manic activity, as well as large stretches of silence. One can imagine the digital tumbleweeds blowing across the screens of the six people who still stop by to check on me.

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Man, it has been a crazy year. I went from working for myself, to working with some other guys, and now I am back on my own again.

Life is nothing if not interesting.

With all that being said, I think I will be returning to my site here, and writing more. I love to write, and haven't been afforded much of an opportunity lately. I am still working on my new WordPress book, but progress has slowed as I have shifted what little writing time I have to my first novel.

That's right internets, I am writing a novel.

This month is NaNoWriMo, which I have been doing, on and off, since its inaugural year. I have been absent for a while now, but this year felt like the right one to come back. I am working on the first book in a trilogy, that currently has no name.

Book One of the "Unnamed Trilogy" is Hinterlands. In a nutshell it is a supernatural thriller that I have been working on, plot-wise, for the last 10 years or so. It deals with Vamps, Weres and Ireland.

How can you go wrong with that formula? I will be posting more about it soon, and since I am planning on publishing it, there will be a site, with art from the always amazing Anton Peck, living there. Anton has graciously agreed to create the cover art for the book.

This thing just got real up in here.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Once again I was asked to give the Homily (aka sermon) at church today. I thought I would post it for those of you who are religiously inclined.

The Scripture reading was Luke 5:1 - 11. The homily follows.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is so much truth and beauty contained in these few sentences, that to try and talk about all of them today would be impossible. So instead I am going to pull out three threads from this reading, and really focus in on them.

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After many false starts, soul searching and general laziness, I have finally launched WordPress By The Numbers.

The first chapter covers the initial buildout of a plugin that Integrates your instagr.am feed into your WordPress site. I will be releasing one chapter a month for the next 9 months.

Each chapter comes in PDF and eBook format, with a full code download.

As some of you may recall I conceived of this idea many, many months ago and immediately started working on it. Unfortunately life got in the way and it sat abandoned. Well lucky for you I found some time to dust it off and revamp it.

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This is Sillyness Spelled Wrong Intentionally. Going strong for 10 years, 11 months and 4 weeks