A Single Article

Bars on a train

Before I left Palo Alto to finally, well, move out to Palo Alto, my boss told me to get a Sprint Mobile Broadband card for all of us to share. I have to say these things are very cool:

I think it gets reception the whole way from Lorton VA to Sanford FL. Oh, if I didn’t already tell you, I’m on the Autotrain. It’s the only one of its kind in the states, as far as I know. Your car goes in one car, and you ride in coach. Dinner and breakfast are provided in the dining car. Movies & nice tables for the laptop folk are in the lounge car, and there are power outlets everywhere. This beats flying & driving, regardless of how long it takes, and if you have both seats in your row to yourself, you can really get a good night’s sleep. My view, let me show you it:

So let’s summarize my past couple months of work, for all of you who have been wondering. I wrote my first API, which uses JSON for responses. I wrote my first application in Python, but I’m not sure how many more I will write since my coworkers know PHP and they can’t help me in a language they don’t know. I’ve worked on a number of Facebook games, including Fight Club, Jetman, World Conquest, and Herd a Word. I’ve also begun working on applications for MySpace and Bebo, though that will take some time. Most importantly, I’ve learned a lot about high-load, high-availability web development; I’ve learned about caching, database optimization, and other tricks of the trade. Before this job, I had never worked on a web application that required more than one server; now it’s all I ever do. If the pay & benefits & quality of work life weren’t a factor, the amount of stuff I’m learning would still be enough to convince me to take this job. The opportunity to meet really cool people in the industry helps too.

So what’s new? Well, SGN finally has a designer, and he’s really good at this stuff. Between him and one of the original Jetman developers, we now have cool things like JetDelegate:

The way JetDelegate works is this: players pick the candidate they would like to play as from Obama, McCain, and Clinton, and the score they get is added to that candidate’s total. I’d say it’s a social experiment through gaming. It’s not an accurate survey of voter interest, but it will be interesting to see where the numbers go. Also worth checking out is JetHost, where Conan has a Manatee for a jetpack. Mad props to those who understand the reference.