Brogramming 101: What Is It and Why Should You Care?

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Oh brogramming! What a beautify made up word. It is a combination of two words I hold near and dear to my heart. BRO + PROGRAMMING = BROGRAMMING. Yes, the meaning matches your current mental picture – a sickass dude programming a computer.

What does this involve? It is up to interpretation, but it definitely involves wearing your sunglasses indoors while using the computer. Lifting weights is important – and don’t forget your protein shakes. Drinking alcohol while programming is encouraged. The more caffeine consumed the better.

You may be absolutely puzzled right now. How the heck did these two worlds collide? Well, in the land of software, the Silicon Valley, pretty much the coolest thing you can do is code. And to show how sweet you are, instead of pictures on your desk of your loved ones, people here decorate their desks by displaying the largest and most intense energy drinks you can find. Yes, it is a unique place.

Starter Kit

Now that I have you excited, how do you join the team? Copy this desk setup:

You must be concerned about health – at least to an extent. Eat healthy food and be sure to pair it with a workout regiment that focuses on the beach muscles. Bicep curls, bench press, calf raises, repeat. Next, (this may seem in direct conflict with the previous point, but just go with it) drinking a ton is cool. Beer, vodka, or Jager. You can drink while at your computer, or alternatively you can return to coding after a wild night in the club. Be sure to have powerful energy drinks within arm reach to stave off the inevitable crash when it arrives.

Congrats, you have passed Brogramming 101 are now a brogrammer! This answer on Quora provides some addition reading material for those of you that want to advance to 201 next semester. Let me give a sneak peak for the Pedantic Post readers that don’t click on links…

Here is a flow chart to study before next semester (programming logic is similar to the logic of flow charts so they are useful for communicating how a program should behave):

If you are ready to start writing code, here is a pretty solid example. Do the same for the song Lip Gloss or any Little Wayne jam and email it to me for extra credit:

 

Why should you care?

Nerdy and cool are colliding whether you like it or not. Need evidence? Chess-boxing is the fastest growing sport in America (I always thought it was hilarious how many sports claimed to the fastest growing in America, so what’s one more claim?):

This collision is great news for everyone. If you are a nerd, you get the opportunity to battle the jocks that made fun of you in high school. If you are a hella chill dude, you get the opportunity to compete with people way smarter than you on a slightly more even playing field. What a great opportunity!

Faithful readers, what bro-sports and dude-tivities can we invent? The top idea gets to challenge me for slammers and/or pink slips.
 

 
Everyone is trying to hire programming talent these days. But the smart start-ups are trying to hire brogramming talent.

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Pedantic Posts Was Hacked!!!

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Yes, it is true – after a series of posts alerting the world to the methods of hackers and how to protect yourself, I was hacked. Here is what happened.

On Thursday I received an email from GoDaddy, my hosting provider for this site, alerting me that I had two hours to remove several phishing attempt pages that I had up. If I didn’t remove them within two hours they would shut down my site. Needless to say, this was news to me!

For those of you that don’t know, a phishing is when a fake site tries to steal a user’s login information or credit card number. Most of the time this is done by sending you an email with a link. Let’s take Bank of America for example. If a hacker were able to obtain the login and password for a Bank of America account, they could steal money by transferring it to another bank account. So the hacker would send you an email that looked like it was from Bank of America, telling you to check your account urgently. But the link in the email wouldn’t go to the Bank of America website, it would go to a nearly identical web page the hacker created to collect your login info (a phishing page).

Why the hell were there phishing pages up on Pedantic Posts? I can assure you I did not place them there, which means I was hacked and someone else did it. You see, a hacker doesn’t want to use his own domain name to host these pages. The site would quickly get reported and shut down. Instead they hack a site and put the page up there.

Realistically, the phishers don’t go out and hack a site. They probably pay a tiny amount of money for the username and password to a site that someone else hacked. Either way, they gained access to my site and put up a number of pages including several phishing attempts and porn advertisements.

It turns out that I had a pretty weak password setup for my site. 8 characters, only 1 capital, 1 number, no special characters. You better believe I have fixed this. Lesson learned. What was the damage? The site was down for 2 days due to my slow response time, but it could have been much worse!

New Look to Pedantic Posts

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Some of the more astute readers have noticed the new look to Pedantic Posts over the last week. I am pleased to announce that the redesign is complete – welcome to the new and improved Pedantic Posts!

Previously I wasn’t happy with the way Pedantic Posts looked – in the past I took a couple WordPress themes and only made slight tweaks to them. But most free WordPress themes aren’t that impressive or way too busy looking. I’m still using the Bueno theme, but have made so many changes you might not even recognize it anymore.

The most obvious change is the amazing new logo. My sister Lara used her art skills to put together a great logo that features my trademark long hair and glasses. She is also spreading the good word of Pedantic Posts by displaying it on her online portfolio. You should hire her for your next logo!

As Matthew pointed out yesterday, the site looks bad on the iPhone. It’s because of the very limited number of fonts that are supported. I’ll be looking into fixing it eventually…

I should also point out that I have short hair now, and soon will no longer have glasses. I’m getting LASIK! Don’t worry, we’ll keep the logo as is.

Photo: Nattu

Everyone Hates Traffic, But What is Being Done About it?

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Cars as far as the eye can see, you roll forward 10 feet and stop right on the car’s bumper in front of you. As you approach 15 minutes straight with various degrees of pressure on your brakes, you finally snap – “F@RT!” We have all been there. No one likes traffic, some people just deal with it better than others – for the 58% of Americans that live in large cities, it is a real problem. In my lifetime it seems like not much has been done to fix it – maybe make a new lane here, add a stoplight there, but nothing game changing. Is this all we can do?

Back in high school my friend Tony and I sat in traffic a lot as we had over an hour drive to the other side of LA for our club volleyball practice. He pondered “what if everyone who is sitting in traffic only thought about ways to solve traffic? Would we find a solution?” I’m not sure, but I do know it is a problem worth solving – millions of productive person-hours are wasted in cities across the world by needlessly sitting in cars that aren’t moving.

The hillbillies will say “how about you just move out of the city? If we just make smaller cities we don’t have this problem.” Bad solution – cities lower pollution, raise production, result in higher pay, have more culture, and encourage ambition. So back to the drawing board. Keep reading…

My Latest Project – The Save Our Balls Pocket Shield

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I don’t think everyone is aware of the huge problem facing mankind. No, not global warming. This one isn’t talked about for some reason, but soon it could be an even bigger problem than global warming. I’m talking about infertility, specifically male infertility.

Children of Men is an excellent movie about the world in 2027, 18 years after the last human was born. That’s right, the human race became sterile – the scary thing is that this scenario is not as ridiculous as you would think. In the movie it is due to a genetic defect in women, but in real life it is more likely to be men that are the downfall.

Sperm counts are dropping like middle school girls running hurdles. It’s bad. In the last 50 years it is estimated that sperm counts have halved. Even worse, they show no signs of stopping – every year sperm counts around the world are dropping 1 to 2 percent. Do I need sources for this? No. I don’t care what the exact numbers are – there is so obviously a correlation, it doesn’t matter if it is only half as bad as I just said. The fact remains, we are doing some real damage.

So what is happening? Unfortunately there isn’t one answer, there are numerous environmental factors that contribute to this decline. Things like plastics, pesticides, soy products, obesity, sitting in an office all day, and more. Pretty much everything in our lives …

There is one that has come up in the last 15 years that should be more publicized – leaving a cell phone on in your pocket! Even a limited exposure of an hour a day has been shown to immensely kill sperm and lower testosterone. Luckily, this is an easy problem to fix. Enter the Save Our Balls Pocket Shield. This is a simple product I am producing that will protect your cojones – simply clip the shield to your pocket before putting on your pants and it will block the radiation from hitting your boys. Perfect!
Keep reading…

The Ratios That Matter Most

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Nerds like numbers. But what really matters is how one number relates to another – the ratio. Here are a few that I pay attention to in various aspects of my life.

Scrabble

The points scored to the time of making the play ratio – also known as points per minute.

Facebook

The poke to friend ratio – can you get over 50% of your friends to poke you?

Dogs

The leg length to weight ratio – the shortest legs on the fattest dog is ideal.

What ratios do you enjoy?

 

Images: Bethan and Lance Nishihira

Richard Branson vs. the Pilots Union

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Richard Branson is the man (not quite all that is man, but he may make the cut someday). Earlier this week he wrote a letter to all the Virgin Atlantic pilots that are threatening to go on strike. The reason for the strike? The union isn’t happy with a 4% pay raise after a 3 year pay freeze. Richard isn’t the CEO or even involved in running the business anymore, but he is stepping in to try to save his baby.

First, he took an objective look at the company to see if the offer is fair:

In the last week I have spent a lot of time trying to understand whether the management team at the airline has treated everyone fairly and whether the company can afford to go further with its pay offer.

Then he offers to share the information with them that led him to believe it is a fair offer and the best that can be extended:

The management have told me they are happy to share up to date corporate accounts with your union so they can understand the financial context from where the offer has been made. As shareholders we’ve also got to ensure the airline is strong enough to withstand the many challenges it faces in this constantly changing market.

Keep reading …

I Lost Another Word from my Vocabulary this Week

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My recent post about removing the words “tired” and “busy” from my vocabulary generated a lot of discussion. Some people thought it was a terrific idea. Some were worried that they might not make the cut and would be subject to a blunt reason why I didn’t want to hang out, rather than being “busy”. And my roommates just wanted to trick me into saying one of the words. Well today I want to remove another word from my vocabulary, as well as a general theme from my conversations.

A story

Once again we are going to start with a story. On Wednesday I was sitting at my desk at work and had to listen to the same conversation several times. Usually when this happens to me it is because a very good friend has a hilarious story that has to be shared every time we hang out with someone new. That I don’t mind, but the story repetitively told at work was not something I wanted to hear while attempting to focus.

What was the conversation?

One of my colleagues started doing Crossfit, the daily total body workouts posted on the internet. It really gave him something to talk about with the other people in the office who do Crossfit. Unfortunately he talked to them one at a time and I had to listen each time. Once distracted from my work, my mind began to wander …

Removing the word “sore”

I realized something that day – no one really cares to hear about how sore you are because of the awesome workout you did. That is not exciting and should never come out of your mouth. There are two possible reasons you could be using that word: either as an excuse or to show how hardcore you are. Neither is a good reason.

No longer talking about workouts?

My friend Preston is jacked. He heads to the gym at an ungodly hour every morning to lift heavy weights with insane intensity. But he rarely talks about his workouts – he is more likely to talk about the yogalaties class going on at the same time. If he doesn’t talk about those impressive workouts, I have no reason to talk about whatever light weights I’m lifting.

Conclusion

You get value out of working out by feeling better, looking better, and living longer. You don’t need any social validation that you are indeed working hard and a badass. People that need social validation are weak – are you weak?
 

 
To explain going to bed early or taking a nap, I have used “underslept” rather than “tired”. This works well because it is a fact rather than feeling.

Photo: Greg Westfall

The Lofty Goal of Eradicating Polio

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Almost a year ago I wrote a post titled The Concept of Infectious Disease Eradication. It was all about how the everyone has come together to fight to rid the world of certain diseases forever. The only time this has been accomplished was with smallpox from 1950 to 1979, but we are getting very close to doing it again with polio.

Armies of volunteers are mounting a heroic effort to get rid of polio forever. We haven’t had polio in the United States for many decades, so you may not even be aware that it is even still around. But it is a terrifying disease that leaves many paralyzed and is still hanging on in the poorest areas of the world. The picture above is of four people in an iron lung to allow them to breath.

There are millions of volunteers delivering the 30 cent treatment to every child in the most remote and destitute communities. Highly recommended and inspirational video:


 

 
On a completely separate note, my good buddies Tom, Kyle, and Rainer are launching their premium short shorts business, Chubbies. It’s going to be huge. Follow them on Twitter and definitely sign up for their email list for fun launch events coming this summer.

Google +1 Button For the Masses! But How Many Are the Masses?

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Google today announced on their blog that any site can embed a +1 button on their site. This button will bring a certain amount of socialness to search results. Just head on over to this site to grab the code to drop onto your webpage.

After I put the +1 button on one of my websites (no link, official announcement coming soon) and noticed it on another site I was on, I became curious how many sites already have the +1 button setup? Is there a way that I can search for the javascript code that is used to insert the button?

I have learned a little bit about search engine optimization (SEO) because I’m nerdy like that. The fact that Google, the most popular search engine, is starting to offer a “recommend” button throws a wrench in everything. How will they account for the +1 score in search results? Does this immediately become more important than any other SEO tactics? Let’s see what the SEO gurus have to say in a couple months … (or check out this Quora answer for insight)

This quiet announcement without any fanfare is very sly of Google. This is a big deal, but they decided to downplay it. Why?

This question was posted to Quora. I’ll let you know if I receive a good answer.