My challenge was to re-write the opening paragraph of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as it may have been penned by other writers. So without further ado…

The Metamorphosis by H.P. Lovecraft

My name is Gregor Samsa, and if the world discovers this manuscript, then perhaps it can save others from the fate that even now confounds my reason and leaves me gibbering at the edge of sanity. One morning not long ago I awoke from troubled dreams filled with the otherworldly ululations of strange voices and the insistent piping of flutes from the swirling chaos at the very center of the universe, and found myself in my bed, horribly changed– dare I say it?– into an unspeakable, sanity-blasting form. I lay on what seemed to be an armour-like back, and as I lifted my head a little I could just see the brown, non-Euclidean curve of my brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. My multitudinous legs, pitifully gaunt compared with the unnaturally bloated shape of the rest of my new and terrible form, waved about helplessly as I looked on in abject horror.

The Metamorphosis by Ernest Hemingway

It was morning. Gregor Samsa awoke. He had been transformed in his bed into a cockroach. He lay on his back. He could see his brown belly, domed and divided into stiff arches. The bedding barely covered it. His legs waved.

The Metamorphosis by Walt Whitman

I sing the body carapacious;
The sprawl and fullness of its shell,
Stiff domed arches engirth my belly, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off my back until I embrace them, accept them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.

The expression of the face defies description;
But the expression of a man made a bug appears not only in his antennae;
It is in his many legs also, it is in the joints of his carapace,
It is in his crawl, the carriage of his thorax, the flex of his abdomen–
The bedsheets do not cover it;
The strong, thin legs he has strike through the bedding;
To see him conveys as much as seeing a cockroach, maybe more;
You linger to see him on his back, waving his legs at you.

O my Body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of parts of you;
Head, neck, hair, ears, eyes, mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, nose, cheeks, forehead, chin;
And not head, thorax, abdomen, carapace, mandibles, antennae, compound eyes!

The Metamorphosis by E. Allen Poe

Mr. S___ was in one of his fits — how else shall I term them? — of enthusiasm. His brother Gregor had in his sleep transformed into an unknown bivalve, and, more than this, he had been hunted down and secured; he was now clearly visible as a scarabaeus which was believed to be totally new, but in respect to which S___ wished to have my opinion on the morrow.

“And why not to-night?” I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze, and wishing the whole tribe of scarabaei at the devil.

“Ah, if I had only known you were here!” said S___, “but it’s so long since I saw you; and how could I foresee that you would pay me a visit this very night of all others? As I was coming home I met Lieutenant Gentarme from the fort, and, very foolishly, I lent him the bug– that is to say, my brother; so it will be impossible for you to see him until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will send down for him at sunrise. He is become the loveliest thing in creation!”

The Metamorphosis by Kahlil Gibran

And a man said, “Speak to us of metamorphosis.”

And he answered saying:

You would know what it is like to awaken, transformed, from a troubled dream.

You would gaze with compound eyes on the naked curve of your brown belly.

You would touch with your antennae the slight bedding that barely hides your form.

You would kick with your many legs and free yourself from the prone position you find yourself in.

But let there be no helpless waving and fearful scurrying from the light.

For like the soul, the insect is a creature boundless and beautiful.

Say not, “I have metamorphosized into a bug,” but rather, “The bug has metamorphosized into me.”

For the soul walks upon all paths, whether on two legs or six.

I don’t remember what initially inspired this, but I’m pretty sure that a combination of alcohol and IRC were involved.

I am looking for professionals who developed their particular expertise by intense focus, discipline and self study. You didn’t necessarily learn what you know and what you’ve become good at (and known for) at college (although you could have learned the basics there.) You may not even have a degree.  Whatever it is you’ve accomplished, you did it “your way”–and it has worked. If this fits you or someone you know, please send me a BRIEF description of:

• what you do
• how and why you fit my description here–please be specific
• your name, city, company and if I can use your full name, city & company

I’ll follow up with questions via e-mail later today.

I promptly wrote up a bio and sent it off:

I think that I’m a great fit for your column regarding professionals who developed their expertise by self-study as opposed to traditional learning. Here’s a brief summary of my story so far.

I was a brilliant student through high school, graduating third in my class (with only a .5 point spread between the top three graduates). I attempted college but fell short in terms of finances and maturity– I was 17 and really not emotionally ready. I ended up dropping out and pursuing my technology interests on my own time. 

I had been programming computers since I was 7 years old, and continued working on technology projects that interested me into the early 90s. I got online in 1993 and immediately found the ideal new venue for my efforts. I built my first web site shortly thereafter, and by the time the rest of the world discovered the Internet– and particularly the web– I had quite a head start. 

I did freelancing for a while before taking my first corporate job working in web development in 1995. Over the next 13 years I worked directly for companies like National Instruments, Houghton Mifflin, and Leo Burnett, while always keeping my skills honed by exploring new technologies and pursuing side projects. In my career I’ve had the chance to work with clients and partners like JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories), NASA, Starbucks, Wieden+Kennedy, Morgan Stanley, Apple, Adobe, Thomson Learning, and the US Army.

Although I’ve had trouble getting past HR screenings with a lack of a degree, once I am in place in a company I’ve always excelled– rapidly rising to positions of management and leadership, from director-level to C-level executive.

In December of last year I struck out on my own again and co-founded a web development business called Hapax Labs, and we’re now in the process of being acquired by Mir Internet Marketing. I’ll be joining the Mir team as a part-owner and Chief Solutions Architect.

I like to think that I’m following in the footsteps of other passionate technologists who made their name without a degree hanging on their wall– Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Bill Gates, just to name a few.

You can find details of my career on my resume at http://www.idolhands.com/resume, or by checking out my LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyehmke

Although I never heard back from the journalist, my story must have been what she was looking for. Look what turned up yesterday: While degree still preferred, it’s certainly no requirement

I’m in the second paragraph under “Seizing Your Opportunity”. (I’m pretty sure that my comments about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were helpful in writing her article, as well.)

From the introduction:

When I was growing up, I spent hours listening to stories that my grandmother told about her childhood in Danzig, Poland. Her early years were idyllic and full of adventure, a stark contrast to the horror that World War II would bring to her corner of the world.

Like so many others in Europe, the war changed everything for her family. Almost overnight, their hardworking but happy lifestyle changed into a daily struggle for survival as the nations of the world fought at their very doorstep.

By the time the war was over, her remaining family had been scattered across the continent and had lost practically everything. Ever the fighter, my grandmother pulled herself out of the ruins of her stolen childhood and started a new life and a new family in America.

But although she made a good life for herself here, she has always been haunted by the memories of her home.

In celebration of her 85th birthday, and in thanks for everything that she has done for me, I took my grandmother back to Germany and Poland in 2007 to see the place that she came from one more time.

This is the story of our journey home.

You can preview the book online and even buy a copy if you’re so inclined. Thanks to Blurb.com for their free bookmaking software, bookstore, and on-demand press.

I’ve got what I call a “magic notebook”– several, to be precise– full of app ideas in various stages of ideation. So I decided to take on this challenge as well and see what I can do with one of them.

Like Mel, I’m taking on a project that meets one of my immediate needs and is well within my area of expertise. So I’ll be creating something that is useful to me and also has a broader market appeal.

One of my defining characteristics is the inability to do things halfway; unfortunately, this can sometimes manifest as “analysis paralysis”, overengineering, etc. Although Rails inherently short-circuits a lot of these tendencies (as does my business partner, for that matter!) the strict time limit I’m putting on myself makes this something of a competition between completion and perfection. At worst, I will move one of my unrealized applications one step closer to market, and hopefully learn something about my internal process along the way.

So what’s the big project going to be? Can’t talk about that yet, but if all goes according to plan there should be something public in within the next 30 days (48 hours / 2 hours per day = 24 days). I’ll also be posting notes about my progress as I go.

If you know me in the nondigital world, you also know that my family homeschools my daughter. I didn’t know much about homeschooling or the homeschooling community before we started this adventure a few years ago; my exposure had been limited to one cool-but-eccentric family where I grew up and an uber-religious boss in the 90’s. Homeschooling has been great for us, however, and my 11-year-old daughter is learning more history, geography, literature, and Latin than I ever did, even in high school.

One of the great things about my working from home (since leaving my corporate job back in December) is that not only do I get to spend more time with my family in general, but I’m also able to take on some responsibility for Lydia’s science education. For a few months now we’ve been learning the basics of electronics. Over at our homeschooling blog, www.WhatAboutSocialization.com, you can find the first of our video podcasts, entitled “Warning: Science in Progress!”

The first episode shows our first Arduino project. I’m working on the second and third installments now.

If you have the following in your model:

validates_file_format_of :image, :in => ["bmp", "gif", "jpg", "pdf", "png"]

And you upload a file with one of these extensions in a different case, for example “SAMPLE.JPG”, the file format validation fails.

Workaround (non-DRY): add case variations, like this:

validates_file_format_of :image, :in => ["bmp", "gif", "jpg", "pdf", "png", "BMP", "GIF", "JPG", "PDF", "PNG"]

Grr.

1) The Approach
We’re going to put each image into the document twice: once in a way that Internet Explorer will understand, and once in a way that standards-compliant browsers can understand. In both cases, we’re going to use an appropriately classed <div> element:


<div class="png_standard<img src="my_graphic.png" width="150" height="294"></div>

<div class=”png_ie” style=”width=150; height=294; filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src=’my_graphic.png’, sizingMethod=’scale’);”></div>

This results in one image and an empty <div> showing up for Firefox and Safari, and two images (the first without transparency) showing up in IE. Note that you must specify the height and width of the image in the style tag of the png_ie <div>!

2) The Following Line is True. The Preceding Line is False.
Now we’re going to use CSS selectors to only show the <div> that’s appropriate for the browser. It’s crucial that these CSS rules are included in your style sheet in the order presented!

We’re going to take advantage of a non-standard CSS selector that only IE recognizes: * html.


div.png_standard {display: block;}
div.png-ie {display: none;}
* html div.png_standard {display: none;}
* html div.png_ie {display: block;}


Read from top to bottom, these rules state:

• Display any <div> with class=”png_standard” in the normal way.
• Do not display any <div> with class=”png_ie”
• If you are IE and can read this, hide any <div> with class=”png_standard”
• If you are IE and can read this, show any <div> with class=”png_ie”

3) The Last Step
Actually, there is no last step That’s it! For standards-compliant browsers, the <div> containing the transparent PNG is displayed normally, and the <div> containing the ugly IE code is hidden away. For IE, the <div> that it does not understand remains hidden, and it renders the <div> that forces it to recognize PNG transparency.

Transparent PNG in Internet Explorer for Windows:

And in Safari for Mac OS X:

4) Sample Code
Assuming that you have a PNG named my_image.png, the following page will render appropriately in all browsers:


<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
div.png_standard {display: block;}
div.png-ie {display: none;}
* html div.png_standard {display: none;}
* html div.png_ie {display: block;}
body { background-color: #bdbdce; }
</style>
</head>
<body>

<div class="png_standard"><img src="my_graphic.png" width="150" height="294"></div>

<div class="png_ie" style="width=150; height=294; filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(
src='my_graphic.png', sizingMethod='scale');"></div>

</body>
</html>


-25 points if you don’t get the reference.

After some digging I finally realized that there was a conflict with restful_authentication. The resolution is simple, luckily. You just need to add the following to your user controller:

attr_accessible :captcha, :captcha_key

That did it for me! Hopefully this will help someone else as well.

Rails make life easy for us but– and it’s a big but– we don’t want it to look easy. acts_as_enterprisey is your friend. How does acts_as_enterprisey make webapp development look hard? Well, the only way your client can judge your app is by playing around with it. What better gives the feeling of heavy weights being lifted behind the scenes than slow response times? Exactly. That’s what acts_as_enterprisey does.

Simply insert acts_as_enterprisey in your ActiveRecord model [and set the delay to whatever value you want.] So while your client clicks, …waits…, and then gets the page, you can blather on heroically about wrestling with clustered indexes, cache expiration strategies, n log n seek times, etc ad nauseam.

Clients pay you to solve their technical problems. They want to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth. Especially after you start submitting enterprisey invoices.
So make their wishes come true: it’s only fair. Ethical, even. Crank the delay up as the deadline approaches, make them sweat, display fortitude and perseverance, etc. And when they can’t take it (the app’s sluggishness, your bills, whatever) any more, [remove] acts_as_enterprisey from your models and book the flights to Vegas.

This is akin to the infamous “make_it_go_faster” flag. Yay.