Once upon a time I used to play poker. I even wrote a poker blog. I guess I am the Co-President of the MBA Card Club here at the University of Texas. But still, it’s been a slow death for what used to be a really big (and fun) part of my life. Will we see a Micky Rourke-like ressurection from Carter Rabasa in 2009? Will the MBA Poker Championship in January re-ignite my passion for getting pots shipped my way?
Write it down: I am going to dominate the BBT 4. Can’t wait!
So it was the passing game, not Portis, not the secondary, not the pass rush. My theory is that they threw too few interceptions early in the year. That’s not a typo. I think head coach Jim Zorn or quarterback Jason Campbell became captive to the idea that they were winning because they weren’t throwing interceptions. While a lack of turnovers certainly helps win games, if it becomes a passer’s primary goal it could be harmful.
It relies on Twitter usernames to match FriendFeed nicknames in order to locate un-subscribed FF’ers
It makes a ton of real-time API calls, which can slow performance or kill the app (if Google slaps my wrist)
So, I implemented some simple Datastore routines to cache some data. Nothing personally identifying, just information I use when rendering results (like usernames, profile photo urls, etc). Here are the class definitions:
class TwitterUser(db.Model):
username = db.StringProperty(required=True)
name = db.StringProperty()
image_url = db.StringProperty()
date = db.DateTimeProperty(auto_now_add=True)
class FFUser(db.Model):
nickname = db.StringProperty(required=True)
name = db.StringProperty()
twitter_user = db.ReferenceProperty(TwitterUser)
date = db.DateTimeProperty(auto_now_add=True)
You’ll notice that I link Twitter records to FF records with a ReferenceProperty in the FFUser model. These links can occur (without the need for matching usernames) when a user is ALREADY subscribed to the same person on both services and the FF profile data provides an explicit link-back to the Twitter account. As more and more people use Twitter2FF, more information is cached in the database, and this results in a faster experience for everyone (presuming there is a reasonable amount of overlap between friend lists).
A wonderful side-effect of this process is to discover information about T-FF links, which can then benefit other Twitter2FF users. I’ll give you an illustrative example:
User A: Follows dalmaer and subscribes to dion. When he syncs his contact with Twitter2FF, the relationship between these two accounts is persisted.
User B: Follows dalmaer, but doesn’t know he’s on FF. When he goes to sync his contacts, the relationship is pulled from the database (thanks to User A), and he is presented with the option of subscribing to dion!
So, the more people who use Twitter2FF, the more information there is to better match Twitter and FriendFeed accounts. Still not a “perfect” sync, but a step in the right direction!
description: Coded in Javascript/Python and deployed on Google’s AppEngine, this application allows you to retrieve you Twitter and FriendFeed contacts, match them up, and locate people who you are not subscribed to or not following.
Will: I went to visit Akhil last night, parked on the street in front of his place
driving my old car, that I had given to my brother, but had taken back since he moved to france
so a stick
go inside the house, hang with Akhil for maybe an hour
me: oh shit
did it roll away?
Will: Jen comes home, asks if we know anyhting about the red Ford in the ditch across the street
yep, I forgot to set the handbrake!
me:HAHAHAHAHA
oh man, that’s priceless
Will: it was actually pretty funny, and we totally should have taken a picture, the scene was ridiculous
the car (luckily) had hit a curb on the other side of the street, front left wheel popped over, front right hit the curb
me: did you get it out of the ditch?
Will: and the left side frame of the car rested on the curb (there was no sidewalk)
yeah we got it out
used two giant dudes from the church next door
me: nice
Will: but you gotta understand, the front of the car is pointing down the hill
the middle of the car, left side, is resting on the curb
and the back of the car is three feet in the air!
me: haha, yeah
i can’t believe you didn’t take a picture
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