Monday 17 June 2013

Life, Death and Education. A couple of inspiring/thought provoking podcasts.

I don't only listen to technical podcasts. In fact there are 3 podcasts in particular that i listen to a lot; Radiolab, LES (London school of economics), and freakonomics radio. I usually post technical things on my blog but this time i thought id blog about a couple of episodes that i have listened to lately, thought provoking, inspirational, amazing, emotional.

How doctors want to die (hint: its very different from the general public)

Radiolab: The bitter end - http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2013/jan/15/bitter-end/
Thought provoking. A difficult subject, death, but one that i think that everyone should talk about. This is a really good episode about how doctors would like to die, and contrasting that with the general public and the expectations that the 2 groups have. i would encourage everyone to listen to this and to get their loved ones to as well, its great for sparking that difficult conversation.
Extract: We turn to doctors to save our lives -- to heal us, repair us, and keep us healthy. But when it comes to the critical question of what to do when death is at hand, there seems to be a gap between what we want doctors to do for us, and what doctors want done for themselves.

Khan Academy - Reimagining Education

LES podcasts: Khan Academy - Reimagining Education - http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2013/04/20130410t1830vOT.aspx
Inspirational. Remember school? You either loved it or hated it. This podcast contains a great discussion on education of the future, some really good thinking on mastery and how education could be better in the future. I've got a little girl now and so we are thinking about her education, i hope the schools she goes to are as forward looking as these guys. I agree 100 % that the progression to mastery is definitely the way rather than the old skool approach of a set pace for all.
Extract: Salman Khan tells the inspiring story of how the Khan Academy came to be and shares his thoughts on what education could (should?) be like in the future.

When does life begin? when does it end?

Radiolab: 23 weeks 6 days - http://www.radiolab.org/2013/apr/30/
Emotional. A difficult podcast to listen to as it not only talks about life and death but relates it back to real people and in particular the story of one family, and one very premature baby. As I've said I've got a little girl now and so I related to this story in a big way. It did make me cry! very moving. But it does have a happy ending.
Extract: When Kelley Benham and her husband Tom French finally got pregnant, after many attempts and a good deal of technological help, everything was perfect. Until it wasn't. Their story raises questions that, until recently, no parent had to face… and that are still nearly impossible to answer.

Friday 7 June 2013

Quick multi cursor support in sublime text 2

In a previous post i listed out all the podcasts i listen to. Whilst creating that list i had to do a little bit of text manipulation, i used some of the powerful multi cursor support from sublime text to do it.
I wanted all my links to be hyperlinks instead of just text.

Below is the screen cast of how i went from a long list of web addresses:
<h2>.net</h2>
http://www.hm.com/
http://www.dnr.com/
http://c9.msdn.com/
...

to a long list of hyper links:
<h2>.net</h2>
<a href="http://www.hm.com/">http://www.hm.com/</a>
<a href="http://www.dnr.com/">http://www.dnr.com/</a>
<a href="http://c9.msdn.com/">http://c9.msdn.com/</a>
...

The process

First do an incremental find (Ctrl+i)
Then select all matched (Alt+Enter)
Copy all selections into clipboard (Ctrl+c)
End
Type the end tag
Home Type the start tag
Paste the links again
Close the start tag

Sublime text 2, get to know it.

Sublime is really powerful, this is just a really simple demo of a simple real world use. ive used it to process hundreds of thousands of lines pulled from databases whilst selecting complex regular expression matches then using sort lines and unique lines to get a really good feel of the data.

I used APowersoft screen recorder to record the screen cast and Key Jedi to display the key strokes as i went.

Thursday 6 June 2013

My Collection Of Podcasts For Developers

[update "2015-11-03"]I've just posted a new version of this list to developer-podcasts-v2[update]

I'm always on the lookout for more development focused podcasts and thought id better share my current crop as i know others are also looking for more podcasts to accompany them on their daily commute.

My interests

Some background on me: Primarily a .net developer with an interest in agile, javascript, ruby, design and devops. So this list derives from these interests.

.Net

http://www.hanselminutes.com/
http://www.dotnetrocks.com/
http://deepfriedbytes.com/
http://channel9.msdn.com/

General Development

http://www.se-radio.net/
http://herdingcode.com/
http://techcast.chariotsolutions.com/
http://devnology.nl/en/podcast
http://thisdeveloperslife.com/

Javascript

http://nodeup.com/

Ruby

http://ruby5.envylabs.com/

DevOps and IT

http://www.runasradio.com/
http://foodfight.libsyn.com/
http://devopscafe.org/

Business

http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/

Design and Development

I found this resource last month that contains lots of other great podcasts on design and development http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/04/19/podcasts-for-designers-developers/?utm_source=feedly