Life & Research Notes

1. Innocence. Create a cute, simple little ajax application with Luis. Make it work decently with most browsers. Make it easy. Allow people to do something that they normally wouldn’t think to do, but that they may find fun.
2. Satisfaction. Tell your advisor about your app. Make a screencast. Wake up to see that your advisor has blogged your app. Maybe some people will use it! A few new icons begin to show up. How nice.
3. Happiness. Notice that your app is in the del.icio.us popular feed. How wonderful you think. Post your own app to digg, since maybe the people there will appreciate it. Go to bed with only one other person having digg’d it.
4. Sleepiness. You just woke up and had some nice tea. Go to computer. Look at digg feed and notice your app in there. Feel surprised and happy. Look at the site. It is very slow, like you.
5. Smugness. Something you made is getting digg’d. People love it, and by extension you. Love yourself, and all those around you. Consider staying for a PhD.
6. Stress. Something you made is totally getting digg’d. It is getting very slow. Worry about the hopelessly unscalabale UI, not to mention the new server that you can only hope you set up properly. Make changes to try to make it faster. Wonder why you are worrying so much about something that started out as a fun project. Worry about the worrying. Also wonder why you are working hard just so all these strangers can draw small genitals and swastikas. Tail -f the server log while you work. Notice that it is generating hundreds of icons per hour. Briefly consider that icons per hour is a very new metric.
7. Relief. It isn’t the biggest story on digg. It is slacking off. The app made it. You made it. Go home and watch the latest netflix with your girlfriend.

respond / trackback