web-goddess

Month: January 2019

  • This is the face of someone who finally tricked the Snook into buying her a selfie stick. šŸ˜‰šŸ“ø

    Selfie Stick

  • Web-Goddess Oscar Contest 2019

    A month or so ago, Christopher commented on Facebook how much he missed my annual sock monkey Oscar Contest. I admitted that I’d thought of reviving it, but I hadn’t had any inspiration for a good monkey… and then it hit me! FREDDIE MONKCURY.

    Freddie Monkcury at Live Aid
    Freddie Monkcury at Live Aid

    I had a monkey mostly put together from a few years ago, so he took shape fairly quickly. I found a very basic pattern for doll pants in the right size and used material from an old pair of jeans. His “I Want to Break Free” outfit was a little harder. The “leather” for his skirt is actually polyurethane from a $5 bag I found at Kmart. His bouffant wig started out as sculptural felt that I then handsewed black chenille pipe cleaners onto. (I also fashioned a very basic vacuum cleaner too!)

    Application Architecture

    For the first 11 years, the Contest consisted of a custom PHP and MySQL application that I’d built. For this year, I decided to challenge myself to completely rebuild it on Amazon Web Services (which is where I work!). Here’s how the architecture ended up:

     

    Oscar Contest Application Architecture
    Oscar Contest application architecture

    As a starting point, I worked through this Web Application serverless workshop. I was already using Route53 to serve krishoward.org from S3, so I decided to put the Contest files there. Upon finishing the workshop, I had a working web app using Amazon Cognito for user authentication and a serverless backend consisting of an API Gateway-fronted Lambda function that writes data to DynamoDB.

    The next step was to customise it! After I changed the images and CSS to my own branding, the next thing to change was the data saved to the database – I changed it to a form with all the Oscar categories and nominees. Next, I wanted users to be able to review and update their votes, so I added another Lambda function that retrieves a logged-in user’s votes so the form can be populated correctly. I then added a third Lambda function that scans the complete database, processes the votes, and publishes an aggregate JSON file to S3. (This is triggered whenever the DynamoDB table is updated.) For actually displaying the prediction graphs, I used ChartJS.

    I think that covers everything! Many thanks to the Snook (my rubber duck and eternal programming mentor) as well as David, Jody, and Amy for their help with testing.

    I’m stupidly proud of this promo image.

  • Shared today on Twitter

    @unixbigot There are folks working on the tech part. @indigitek is one group I know that is making a difference!

    @minxdragon Camping on the sidewalk for tickets to the London previews, 1998. I’m third from the left. ā¤ļø https://t.co/YgztW8dsBf

    RT @awscloud: New #AWSLaunches!
    šŸš€New in AWS Deep Learning AMIs: Updated Amazon Elastic Inference for TensorFlow, TensorBoard 1.12.1 & MMS 1ā€¦

    I can say with no hesitation this also applies to all @SydTechLeaders events. Don’t believe me? Ask @darthted. No patience for this shit. https://t.co/1cxwltx3sM

    “Damn, it really feels like my eyesight has gotten worse in recent years. I wonder why that is.”

    *returns to sewing black pipe cleaners to black felt*

    Sophie Lee is the best part of any film she appears in. ā€œBulimiaā€™s not cheap, you know!ā€ https://t.co/EgLuNx4uQK

    @mattdelves JELLY.

    It’s time to unveil the triumphant return of the w-g Oscar Contest. If you predict the most winners correctly, you could win your very own FREDDIE MONKCURY! https://t.co/rjtUxBbQqR šŸµ https://t.co/dMt3vOg9xS

    Entries for the contest are pouring in! Today’s goal is to provide a real time view of the current predictions. Don’t miss your chance to win your very own Freddie Monkcury sock monkey… šŸµ https://t.co/2yOSLY333X

    ā€œDid you see the long Reddit rant about the fabric cutting counter?ā€ My husband gets me. https://t.co/VHKxMVrhem

    RT @wesbuc: suck it plato https://t.co/exO6kXB5uQ

  • Shared today on Facebook

    It’s time to unveil the triumphant return of the w-g Oscar Contest. If you predict the most winners correctly, you could win your very own FREDDIE MONKCURY!

    https://krishoward.org/oscars.html

  • Shared today on Twitter

    This makes me very happy. PLEASE let Sam Elliott be involved, whatever it is. https://t.co/4dszynmWV1

    RT @DavidTennantPod: Iā€™m just going to leave this here… https://t.co/JxJLXQ7YEw

    RT @MichelePlayfair: #yow is excited to present the Passionate Product Ownership Workshop with @jeffpatton in Sydney 28 Feb – 1 March 2019!ā€¦

    Ooh. The second Brosnan Bond brings us digital boobs. This oneā€™s going to be about the Internet, isnā€™t it? https://t.co/mKwzF7Lhhr

    ā€œRelease the software. Itā€™s full of bugs, so people will have to upgrade FOR YEARS.ā€ šŸ˜‚ https://t.co/29HAbJRJ4B

    @mmastertheone I argued for it, but Roddā€™s a purist and says itā€™s not canon.

    @mmastertheone The David Niven one? We didnā€™t include that one either.

    ā€œWhat is this? WHAT IS THIS?! This is so f**king bad.ā€ Turns out the Snook isnā€™t a big fan of this film. https://t.co/MDUSisnNZV

    This – except I was 19. ā¤ļø

    https://t.co/FengYBJLcd https://t.co/Z2Nj2AbtDJ

  • Shared today on Facebook

    This – except I was 19. ā¤ļø

    “You will grow out of the things you cherish when you are almost 13, in the middle of 1996: the clothes and the haircut (thank God), the music and the movies, the showtunes you surreptitiously listened to on your headphones. But Rent will live on somehow, even though Bohemia has died many times over, and its cultural ubiquity will both feel conventional and straight. You may even see it as a sign that things do change, little by little, and every generation will get to experience Rentā€”and hopefully find their own new versions that will continue to challenge the status quo of the mainstream. ”

  • Shared today on Twitter

    RT @MWatsonSYD1: What a start to the year for @MSFTReactor Sydney hosting the @SydTechLeaders for their 1st Meetup of the Year. Looking forā€¦

    RT @mobywhale: . @AllSchuckUp asked the audience ā€œWho here works in a distributed teamā€ and quite a few people put their hands up! More thaā€¦

    RT @SydTechLeaders: Groaning as @AllSchuckUp shares some common frustrations with remote working – waiting overnight for code reviews, collā€¦

    RT @SydTechLeaders: Language matters. ā€œDistributed officeā€ is a more inclusive term than ā€œremote office.ā€ @AllSchuckUp #sydtechleaders httpā€¦

    RT @SydTechLeaders: OMG!! šŸ˜± https://t.co/IaHbl6HGAY

    Oh god. ā€œProviding way too much context when asking for help.ā€ This is a thing that has been increasingly annoying me. JUST SPIT IT OUT. WHAT IS THE REQUEST. #sydtechleaders https://t.co/aSJgGwR3Ob

    THATā€™S RIGHT – able to run the microphone around for Q&A and do the social media at. the. same. time. šŸƒā€ā™€ļø #sydtechleaders

    @melindafentonsm @SydTechLeaders Admittedly never as well as Iā€™d like.

    RT @rachaelcarson: What is necessary for distributed teams is good for colocated teams. Share information by default, use proactive writtenā€¦

    Our SCOBY is floating! Itā€™s finally doing something! https://t.co/XoY3HwC5XT https://t.co/Iw3wjHr3Yk

    @gilmae Sometimes I like to lean into the stereotype.

    RT @BugHunterSam: @SydTechLeaders @AllSchuckUp @canva Shout out to @InsightTimer, Australia’s contender for the meditation app space

  • Shared today on Facebook

    Our SCOBY is floating! Itā€™s finally doing something!

  • Our SCOBY is floating! Itā€™s finally doing something!

    Scoby

  • Shared today on Twitter

    @darthted @diversionary @mobywhale @hannahyanfield @SydTechLeaders https://t.co/1qghEJpsBa