The now famous picture of the Obama administration waiting for news on Operation Geronimo.
One year ago today, under the cover of darkness, a Navy SEAL team stormed a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, with intelligence that the man responsible for the September 11th attacks was inside. Less than an hour later, their mission was accomplished: Osama bin Laden was dead. In the days and weeks after, it was revealed that the operation wasn’t an easy one; in fact, there was great risk. As more and more details revealed the mission was more and more treacherous, Americans everywhere expressed gratitude and admiration primarily towards the SEALs who carried out the mission.
President Obama also got some of the credit and some of the gratitude, in the form of an approval ratings boost and a solid (to say the least) foreign policy credential to use in his reelection campaign. But even though the killing of Osama bin Laden was easily his best political victory in over a year, President Obama made sure to raise his voice over the celebrating crowds to caution that “we don’t need to spike the football.”
Which is why I was surprised to find him doing just that for cheap political points.
The Indians offense got rolling this weekend in Kansas City. Credit: AP/Charlie Riedel
Since it’s been almost two months since I last blogged, I thought I’d take a few minutes on this Jackie Robinson Day to talk about the Indians after eight games.
The Parks and Recreation department, shoved into a hybrid hatchback.
On April 9, 2009, after an episode of The Office, what was billed by the press as a spin-off show called Parks and Recreation launched.
Parks and Recreation didn’t start as humbly as The Office, which was in the middle of its best arc of its fifth season, and one of the best arcs in the entire show. Earlier that year, The Office was featured by NBC after the Super Bowl, and was really as strong as it had ever been. And on April 9, an episode of The Office called “The Michael Scott Paper Company” provided as strong a lead-in as NBC could provide. Unlike The Office, the cast and crew weren’t all no-names: not only was the show co-created by Greg Daniels, the creator and longtime showrunner of The Office, but the cast also featured SNL alumna Amy Poehler and Office alumna Rashida Jones. And at 9:30 PM, after The Office ended, Parks and Recreation debuted…in a sandbox.
It’s been all uphill from there.
Developing asychronously
Why it works for Github, but maybe not for the rest of us
These days, it’s not hard to find a Silicon Valley startup that claims, not so modestly, that it’s changing the world. And while it’s true that some startups are doing just that, the not-well-kept secret is that most of them aren’t doing anything productive, much less profitable, but still somehow find ways to get funding. But one startup, Github, is unique: not only is it changing the world, but it’s changing the way startups change the world. Github’s about page claims it hosts over two million repositories, which include the likes of the Facebook SDKs, the popular JavaScript framework jQuery, and the open-source release of Doom 3. It was even the primary home to arguably the most important open-source project ever, the Linux kernel, when its usual home was compromised earlier this summer.
And while Github is making a huge difference in how people write, store and track their source code, it’s also starting to affect how people develop software. This is an important distinction, and failing to optimize the processes and philosophies that you and your team take while developing software can lead to productivity losses just as severe as bad developers or bad bugs.
We recently finished up the latest major version of a project at work, a web application that allows our clients to view Facebook Page analytics that we generate and empower them to craft their future social media strategy. The project has seen a couple iterations, but for this one, in an effort to make the whole thing simpler, we reworked most of it from the ground up, including a brand new user interface.
But while CSS is a very powerful tool, this web app was going to require a lot of it, using features from every version of CSS. And while “graceful degradation” was our methodology to some degree, the last version of this product didn’t support any browser except Chrome (because of time constraints) and it was made clear that this time, we would need to support all major browsers. This would mean hundreds of rules, nested rules, exceptions to rules, and fixes for The Browser That Shall Not Be Named.
So in an effort to simplify our CSS develop/test/deploy cycle, we decided to employ LESS, an extended CSS with support for nesting, variables, imports, and expressions.
Change from the change you can believe in
An overview of the 2012 Republican Presidential candidates
The 2012 Republican presidential race started, for all intents and purposes, on November 5, 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected. Since then, a lot of partisan bickering, speculation and rumor-mongering, and nearly three years later, we have what looks to be the final Republican field before primary season begins. The field isn’t demographically diverse: only Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain break the trend of white males. But the diverse backgrounds, ideas and viewpoints among the candidates leave something for just about everyone; everyone, that is, who doesn’t plan on voting for President Obama. My overview of the candidates, after the break.
Nobody expected the Cleveland Indians to do much in 2011. Before the beginning of the season, I think most Indians fans were cautiously optimistic about the offense, assuming the offense stayed healthy, Travis Hafner produced more, Grady Sizemore came back at 100% from his microfracture, and a hitting fairy paid a visit to Matt LaPorta (or really, any right-handed batter in the Indians organization). I think Indians fans were cautiously optimistic about the bullpen, assuming everyone stayed healthy, Chris Perez continued his strong showing as Indians closer, and a couple of veterans like Joe Smith were able to guide the young Indians ‘pen. But I think Indians fans were decidedly lukewarm about the Indians starting pitching, even if everyone stayed healthy, Fausto Carmona kept his mind, and Justin Masterson grew some hair.
In short, there were a lot of things that could have gone wrong. As Indians fans, we’re accustomed to everything that can go wrong going wrong, so no one predicted the Indians riding a 9-game winning streak and a 14-game home winning streak to a 30-15 start. No one predicted them hanging on to first place for much of the summer, and then staying competitive until early September. The Indians fell short of the postseason this year, but there’s no doubt there was tremendous improvement. My year-end grades for the Indians, plus playoff predictions, after the break.
Last weekend, I flew up to Minneapolis, Minnesota to meet up with two college roommates and friends and take in some baseball. As it happened, the Indians were in town, so it turned into an opportunity for me to see them in person for the only time this year. As it further happened, when we planned the trip and bought the tickets in July, Jim Thome was playing for the Twins, but by the time we arrived in Minneapolis on September 16, he was a Cleveland Indian again. This was also the first time I’ve visited a stadium that wasn’t Progressive Field more than once, so I was able to get a great look at Target Field, the newest stadium in baseball until next April. My review of Target Field, after the break.
Three thousand, nine hundred eighty-one days ago, on October 17, 2000, a small water craft slammed into the side of the USS Cole, killing seventeen American sailors and injuring thirty-nine. While Americans mourned the loss of their sailors, there’s no way we knew – there’s no way we could have known – that the attack on the Cole was an ominous harbinger of a far more deadly attack to come. Nearly eleven months later, on September 11, 2001, four airliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and a remote field in Shanksville, PA. Ten years later, as the country continues the long healing process, seems an appropriate time to reflect. I’m not really sure why I’m writing this: around this time last year I decided I’d try to write it, but I’m not sure anyone else but me will find it useful. Maybe it’ll offer closure. Or maybe it’s so I don’t forget.
Last night, Jim Thome clubbed his 600th career home run into the bullpen at Comerica Park. As he rounded first base, the man who has almost 100 more home runs with the Indians than any other Indian, the man who is tied for the all-time lead in walk off home runs, the owner of the 17th- and 34th-best career OPS and OBP, respectively, and the man with the eighth most home runs in baseball history, Jim Thome simply pumped his fist in the air and ran around the bases. As he got to home plate, it was tough to tell who was happier: his teammates or his family. Thome smiled too, but it was one of his trademark, humble smiles that really embodied his chase towards 600 home runs: just a great guy who happened to be a great hitter that stuck around for a while.
