Peter Christensen

Launched “Lisp Companies” Page

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After (too many) hours of combing the internet and my memory, web browsing, summarizing, and editing text in WordPress, I finally have my “Lisp Companies” page published. I got tired of hearing “Nobody uses Lisp” and “Yes they do, Lisp is awesome!” without actually seeing facts. So I decided to get to the bottom of it and see what’s out there. Here it is:

Lisp Companies

The initial list includes:

  • 13 companies from single founder startups to several hundred people
  • Lots of Common Lisp, but Scheme was definitely present
  • 3 continents (North America, Europe, and Asia) and 5 countries

It’s a work in progress so please give comments and help fill it out!

Startup Launched! (not really)

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As I’ve mentioned in a couple of my posts, I’m working on a startup. This wasn’t technically true until this week. Before, I had an idea for something to do but I hadn’t even done anything resembling working on it. Now, I’ve at least done something resembling work! So far I have:

  • setup the virtual server on my shared hosting account
  • setup a couple email addresses
  • setup a gmail address that those addresses forward to (I have no interest in running a mail server)
  • picked a name (will be discussed later on the startup blog)
  • registered the domain
  • setup WordPress to blog
  • wrote a welcome post on the site

So, I know at this point, the suspense is killing you, right? Right!?! Ok, here goes. The statup is called SmallPunch and it’s the motto is:

“SmallPunch is a job search tool that Doesn\’t Suck.”

Why did I start with these tasks? Why am I messing around with blogging when “wrote the code” and “got feedback from users” are conspicuously absent from my list above?

I’m a single founder (who’s married), so that’s two strikes for time. I also have a day job, a commute, and a baby, so I have 1-2 hours a day to work, max. That means about 10-15 hours a week, as opposed to the 100+ that a pair of hackers working full time have. Since I have to deal with a 10x disadvantage in working time, I need to leverage my time as much as possible. That means that I need to build assets that work for me.

So what does announcing SmallPunch on this blog do? I mean, I only have 4 or so readers. But, those 4 readers are the GoogleBot, the YahooBot, the AskBot, and the MicrosoftLiveBot. That means that by writing in advance, I can have some established links and organic search results sprinkled in when it comes time to launch. Look for the SmallPunch blog for details about the startup, and here for more about the process used to create it.

In then next post, I’ll announce some of my plans and schedule for SmallPunch as a startup.

Life is Good

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Snow Angels

For the first time, I got to play in the snow with my daughter. Sometimes the simple pleasures are the most fulfilling.

Filed Under: Fun

I Speak, Yale Listens!

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No sooner do I post my review of some of the shortcomings of MIT’s OpenCourseWare program, and today I see an article that Yale is providing full video courses online! No, I’m not nearly as powerful as I sound. They are starting out with 7 of their most popular classes and expanding to 30 over the next couple years. From the article:

“Diana E. E. Kleiner, Dunham Professor of the History of Art and Classics and the director of the project, noted that the full content of all the courses is now readily available online and may be accessed at the users\’ convenience. ‘We wanted everyone to be able to see and hear each lecture as if they were sitting in the classroom … We hope this ongoing project will benefit countless people around the world.'”

The 7 courses they will start with are:

  • Astronomy 160: Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, with Professor Charles Bailyn
  • English 310: Modern Poetry, with Professor Langdon Hammer
  • Philosophy 176: Death, with Professor Shelly Kagan
  • Physics 200: Fundamentals of Physics, with Professor Ramamurti Shankar
  • Political Science 114: Introduction to Political Philosophy, with Professor Steven Smith
  • Psychology 110: Introduction to Psychology, with Professor Paul Bloom
  • Religious Studies 145: Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), with Professor Christine Hayes

You can debate whether these schools are doing this ot of educational philanthropy or to increase brand awareness among the international and the socially conscious, but either way, it’s a great resource for everyone!

MIT’s OpenCourseWare: Caveats

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I was giddy with excitement when I first read about MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative. All of MIT’s classes online, world class knowledge free for the taking, a “Good Will Hunting” starter kit? This was right about the time that I embarked on my current quest of saw-sharpening, professional development, and re-geekification, so I thought it would consume my life for the entire foreseeable future. Well, it’s about a year later and I’ve taken my first good look at one of the courses and I’ve got a couple warnings for anyone interested in doing an OCW course themself:

[Read more…]

Starting up Startup A Startup

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As a sort of reference to me/resource to others, I started a page on this site to chronicle the research and recommendations I find while working on my own startup. Hopefully anyone that finds this can work faster by taking advantage of the research and work I’ve done. Having said that, I haven’t even searched The Google to see how many of these are out there. I’m meticulous enough that I’d want to do my own research and find my own opinions anyway, and now matter how thorough I try to be, not everything I learn will make it onto the page anyway.

This will be primarily a guide to setting up a work, development, and deployment environment for your product. I’ll probably put in some stuff about how to figure out what to make, but my guess is there are more people with ideas than people with IT infrastructure experience but no ideas. This is an attempt to reduce the transactional friction involved, and to help people get working on their own projects sooner. Let them focus on where they’re going to create value.

So without further ado, I am officially unveiling my gift to the startup world,

Startup A Startup

The first section is up and it’s about Source Control. Enjoy!

P.S. I just realized that this is also a progress report for me, so by making it available, I have pressure to continually show progress. Now that I’m on the hook, I wish I had thought this through a little more earlier!

Building A House From The Ground Up Part 13

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Here are pictures from the walkthrough. Most of them weren’t great pictures to look at, for 3 main reasons:

  1. They were too close because I was trying to get a detailed record of something
  2. The blank white walls didn’t give and sense of scale and tended to fade away in pictures of a whole room
  3. There was always someone in the way!

The best pictures are the ones with the oak railing:

Up to loft, 7-31

And the loft:

Loft, 7-31

The energy efficient, fold-out windows:

Foldout Windows, 7-31

The kitchen (minus fridge):

Kitchen, 7-31

And, last but not least, the awesome view from the upstairs balcony!

View, 7-31

This is one of the biggest things to sell me on this house and this lot, and this was the first time I got to see it!

We’ve been living here for three months now, and the house is very lived-in. If it ever gets clean enough to photograph, I’ll put pictures of the finished product. I think our Christmas decorations might be the occasion.

Building A House From The Ground Up Part 11

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Here are more from mid-July, starting with a view from the street:

Street View, 7-4

A view of the garage door, light, and utilities:

Garage and Utilities, 7-13

And three interior shots of the stairs (now with the oak railing up):

Stairs, 7-13

Installed fireplace:

Fireplace, 7-13

And kitchen, now with counter and cabinets:

Kitchen, 7-13

Building A House From The Ground Up Part 10

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Egads, it’s been a long time since I put pictures up! Here are some pictures from the next phase, in late June. Here’s a view from the front, with the siding partway up:

Front View, 6-28

Here’s the back view of the house, including our tree, the tallest on the block!

Tree, 6-28

Here’s a diagonal view, showing how the siding really is only on the front:

Partial Siding, 6-28

Here are some interior views, including the stairs:

Stairs, 6-28

And the living room:

Living Room, 6-24

Rapid fire posts to come with the rest of the pictures, up to our final walkthrough.