Matt O’ Rama

“I wish in the past I had tried more things ‘cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea.”

Merlin Mann: Scared Shitless

Sheesh, pretty much everything Merlin does blows me away in some way or another. Even without hearing the talk that goes along with these slides he succeeds in moving me in a very real way that few other writers do. You should listen to his podcast, follow his blog, and keep up with his tweets (which are more of an acquired taste but once you get on his wavelength frequently inspire me and/or make me laugh out loud (for real, not in a LOL sense)).

Career Thinking

Both of the Java Posse Roundups I’ve been to, I’ve made some fairly big decisions about my career. Now, I didn’t even really consider my career until fairly recently. I’d had some great jobs, a couple of not-so-great jobs, and I was finally working as a professional programmer. A couple of years ago though I started thinking about what I’d like to be doing as a programmer in the future, whether I’d want to be a manager at some point, all of that stuff. At the 2009 Roundup, I’d just been reading about managers and finally figuring out that all programmer managers aren’t just wastes of space with the help of some people who had been good managers or had good managers. I realized there that I shouldn’t just sit around and put up with the bad manager I had at the time, that it was time to move on and try to find a good manager who could actually help me grow. I got a couple of good job offers but for various reasons decided it would be worthwhile to stay put.

At the 2010 Roundup, I was once again faced with seeing people doing things with their career that I want to do. I want to be learning and growing as a programmer the way a lot of Roundup attendees are. I decided that once again I would reevaluate my job and try to figure out what the best thing would be. The difference is, this time I want to figure out what to do not to escape a bad situation but to go towards something good. I haven’t decided what to do yet but I have refocused my efforts toward learning and getting better rather than just sitting comfortably.

I’ve always learned on the job and I’ve found I’m very good at that. The problem with that kind of learning is it tends to leave gaps in your knowledge since you don’t learn as much that you don’t need right then. I’m rectifying that with a renewed course of study in the areas I feel I’m missing. I’m also focusing on the quality of the work I do and the code I write even more. I don’t work for a software company so I’m a little limited in the efforts I can put forth here but now that our boss has decided we’re to run our own projects I’m definitely pushing more quality into my work and I’m prouder than I’ve ever been with my code.

Like I say, I haven’t decided exactly what to do so this blog post doesn’t have some big conclusion. My new focus is a big deal to me though so I wanted to write it here and not forget. More to come!

Roundup Thoughts

This is a roundup of my thoughts about the Roundup, the Java Posse Roundup 2010 that is. If you don’t know, the Roundup is the yearly conference put on by the guys who do the Java Posse podcast and tech writer/speaker Bruce Eckel. If you’re a Java person, you should be listening to their podcast, no question. The conference is an unconference/open space conference/camp/etc. where it’s not about getting lectured to or watching slides but discussing topics with a group. There’s no speaker, just a bunch of smart people talking. This was my second Roundup and I very much hope it won’t be my last.

One of the best parts of the Roundup is seeing people I met and made friends with in person again. We drove up on Sunday and Bruce had a get-together for early attendees at his house that ended up being mostly returning folks catching up. It was great to see people again, even though I felt like I hadn’t spent any time away from some people thanks to Twitter.

The next day was Day 0 of the Roundup, the language dojo day. I had left last year’s Roundup with a great feeling about JavaFX and had done a little coding in it since then so I went to the JavaFX day Dick Wall of the Posse proposed. We spent the day writing a JavaFX version of OmmWriter (called ZenWriterFX) and fighting with git/github. If we hadn’t had so much trouble with git, we would have made it a lot farther but even so we made good progress. I helped a little generally and ended up doing the little bit that played the background sound for the app. Dick has since moved the project to Bitbucket so we can use Mercurial and I’m going to be participating in further development for sure. I already have some cool ideas I want to try out and I really like JavaFX.

I’ll go into the individual sessions at some later point when I can go over my notes but overall, the sessions were great again this year. I learned a lot, as always, and actually had something to say in more than a few. I do find that I like the sessions where I don’t talk as much more though. :) The Roundup attendees are all super smart people and it’s great to get everybody’s perspective and uses of things.

One of the best parts of the Roundup is the Lightning Talks. These are 5 minute talks people give on any subject that interests them, technical or not. This year there were talks about car engines, shaving, donating bone marrow, open mapping technology, and much more. The talks are recorded and will be on YouTube at some point. I even gave a talk this year! I did a short demo of the note taking system I use in my notebooks. Despite some technical difficulties (turns out Ubuntu does not like to be plugged into a projector while it’s coming back from sleep mode), I think my talk went well. I was super nervous so I rushed and forgot a couple things but people seemed to like it. I’ll have the video here when it’s up.

The Roundup is a very unique experience. If you’re expecting a regular conference or want to just blend in with a crowd it’s not for you. We don’t do technical stuff all the time (though of course if you want to, it’s up to you) and this year I did much less programming than last year. I spent my afternoons snow-shoeing and shooting a shotgun, watching the movie Vertigo, shopping, watching an impromptu demo of Scala, and lots else. It’s kind of a Geek Summer Camp, but in the blowing snow of Crested Butte, Colorado.

Like I said, I love going to the Roundup and hope to do it every year. I have a bunch of new friends because of it, I learned a lot, made some decisions about my career, and recharged my batteries to better attack the year to come.

Is The Digital Age Stamping Out Serendipity?

WE’VE gained so much in the digital age. We get more entertainment choices, and finding what we’re looking for is certainly fast. Best of all, much of it is free.

But we’ve lost something as well: the fortunate discovery of something we never knew we wanted to find. In other words, the digital age is stamping out serendipity.

via Ping – The Digital Age Is Stamping Out Serendipity – by Damon Darlin in NYTimes.com.

Sometimes I read something that’s so far out of my experience that I have a hard time processing it. This article is one of those times. I can’t decide if I’m misunderstanding the point of the article or if it’s really not a problem. The author of the article, Damon Darlin, is saying that the internet and ipods and in some weird way, Twitter, are taking the “randomness” out of finding new stuff. Balderdash, I say. :)

First, he says for some reason finding stuff on a friend’s bookshelf or album collection is “serendipitous” but finding new music on a blog or Twitter is “group-think”. Somehow if people online say something is cool it’s been “filtered and vetted” but finding the same thing via a friend isn’t. I don’t get it.

Not only does his argument not make sense, he’s looking at the problem through the wrong end of the telescope. It doesn’t matter where you found something new because it’s new to you. No matter if you find something through a friend or via a review linked on Twitter or on a Top 10 list, it’s new to you. It’s still serendipitous if you like it.

Every year when the Top X Of The Year music, book, and movie lists come out I go through some of them and see if there’s anything interesting looking. I usually download whatever looks halfway good in the Pitchfork top albums list, then delete anything I don’t like and buy what I do like from Amazon’s MP3 store. I’ve found an unbelievable amount of great music this way. (Seriously, try it.) I don’t pay attention to radio or music blogs or magazines so this is my way of finding new stuff. Is this worse than finding an album though a friend? I can’t see how it is. But it’s still filtered in the strongest way, being a Top 10 list or whatever. When I first saw The Knife as the #1 album on the Pitchfork list a few years ago I thought it was them being willfully weird until I listened to the album a few times, then a few more times, then a few dozen more times until it became one I still listen to regularly. I found my favorite band, The Hold Steady, completely randomly when somebody on a podcast recommended I listen to some teenage girl’s music podcast long ago and Your Little Hoodrat Friend was one of the songs she played. I was hooked from the first 30 seconds of that song and if that’s not serendipitous I don’t know what is.

I really can’t even see what the heck Mr. Darlin is talking about, even if you cut out the mostly pointless but seemingly required paragraphs about Twitter. The internet / digital age has brought so much serendipity to my life this just seems like he must be talking about something else. But like I said, I don’t really care (and I don’t think it matters) where something new came from as long as it’s new.

(During this post I mentioned 2 bands you really should try. There’s some serendipity for you. And if you listen to them, you’re welcome. :))

Rands on Reality

Reality is a constraint to be applied creatively.

via rands on Twitter

Rands is one of my favorite writers. His blog is great and he’s one of the highlights of my twitter stream. He’s consistently putting out really interesting, thought provoking stuff. I was in San Francisco during the last Apple conference and he was tweeting telling people to come hang out. To my eternal shame I chickened out of going and saying hi.

No is for wimps

No is for wimps. No is for pussies. No is to live small and embittered, cherishing the opportunities you missed because they might have sent the wrong message.

There is a point in one’s life when one cares about selling out and not selling out. One worries whether or not wearing a certain shirt means that they are behind the curve or ahead of it, or that having certain music in one’s collection means that they are impressive, or unimpressive.

Email interview with Dave Eggers

I have no memory of how I found this interview, really just an email to the author Dave Eggers and his replies from 2000, but it stuck in my mind and has probably ended up being one of the most personally important things I’ve ever read online. It’s religious to me in the way that Frank Llyod Wright’s buildings are religious to me; they inspire me and awe me and make me want to be better to live up to their standard.

I was recently in San Francisco and finally made it to 826 Valencia, a free tutoring center fronted by a pirate supply store, and I knew it wouldn’t happen but I was really hoping Mr. Eggers might be there so I can thank him for this interview. I’ve read his work and bought every issue of The Believer for a few years, but this is what I would thank him for. The message of saying Yes to things, to not give a shit what people think or how this or that might affect your rep really resonated with me.

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips’s new album is ravishing and I’ve listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it.

It’s long and some of the specific references are a little dated but the overall message, the way Eggers smacks down this pseudo-intellectual hipster prick whose asking him “what steps are you taking to keep shit real” with an honest and open soliloquy on saying yes to new things and no to fashion and what others will think, is something I re-read regularly and would memorize if I could. I really encourage you to read it as well, there’s something for everyone to take from it.

I try to live up to this, even though it’s hard for me. I’m incredibly shy and have a problem with new things sometimes but I try to remember “No is for pussies” and press on. When I feel like I’ve let myself down by giving in to my introverted nature I read the end of this interview and am renewed.

My new eyes

After close to 20 years wearing very heavy perscription glasses, I recently underwent a new-ish surgery called ICL and am now totally glasses free!

The ICL is an implantable lens (ICL used to stand for implantable contact lens but now it’s implantable collamer lens as that’s what it’s made of and it doesn’t sit on top of your eye) that they put into your eye in between the front of the eye and the lens. The result is fairly amazing.

I went to Dr. Bernitsky here in Albuquerque and everything went super smoothly. Everybody there is very helpful and professional and I would recommend them without reservation.

I went in on Thursday afternoon for the procedure and even right after they did my right eye, I could see better out of it. I went back and forth closing my eyes and looking at the vent in the ceiling and could really tell a difference. That afternoon my vision was fuzzy from all the drops and trauma my eyes had gone through but I could still pretty much watch TV even then. The next morning though, I could see at 20/15 (better than normal!) whereas before I was off the 20/X chart since that measurement requires that you can actually see some feet in front of you and I could only see 6 inches in front of my face.

For the first week I had to wear a pretty uncomfortable plastic eye mask to sleep to make sure nothing happened to my eyes. I’m also still putting 3 drops in my eyes 4 times a day which is kind of a pain but I’m fine with it if it means everything heals up okay.

The end result is that I can actually see better than with my glasses. I’m seeing things in a whole new light and noticing details I never saw before. Even though I’m going to be paying off the cost of the surgery for awhile, I wouldn’t give up my new vision for anything. If you can get it, I really recommend it. If you have questions about it for me, feel free to ask in the comments.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs unexpectedly announced he was taking a 6 month leave of absence from Apple today due to his ongoing medical problems. I very much hope Mr. Jobs is okay and he returns to the company he founded and rescued. Steve Wozniak, his co-founder in Apple, is one of my personal heroes and Steve Jobs has always held a special place in my heart because of his partnership with Woz and his central place in the history of computing. My family’s first computer was a used Apple IIe and even though I wasn’t always a Mac fan, I’ve really admired what Apple has done since Jobs’s return. He, Woz, and Bill Gates are at the top of the list of people who invented the personal computer and in very real ways the world we live in today, as well as the device and industry that has given my life focus and meaning since I can remember.

Get well soon Mr. Jobs.

Not Me

A Chevrolet van driven by Matthew Grommes, 24, was pulling out of the business’ lot and turned into the path of Watts’ motorcycle.

Motorcyclist Dies In Collision; Van Driver Ticketed

Wow, color me surprised. My Google alert for webpages where my name appears came up with this today. I’ve seen a few other Grommes’ (even one with my Dad’s name who writes computer books) but I’ve never seen a Matthew or Matt before.