schema.tc by Donnie D'Amato

Grappling Hook Belt

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

I've had this idea for awhile but haven't done much research on it up until a few days ago. The problem with researching novel ideas, especially with a search engine designed to assume that humans make mistakes and otherwise aren't sure what they are looking for, is that instead of giving you exactly what you are asking for Google will more often suggest things that are simply more popular. Searching with the terms that this post is titled render results of traditional grappling hooks and attachments for belts or even worse, Batman fandom. The best of modern grappling hook designs is more recent but is made more to be portable than hidden (although it's size make me question practicality). Instead, I'd like to develop my idea of allowing the grappling hook to be concealed as a belt.

NextUp: Under the Hood

Saturday, September 20, 2014

For the past two months I've been working on a project that aims to assist people interested in competition but frustrated with people who lack attention. As technology becomes more social, attention becomes more valuable. More specifically, when organizing a competitive setting like a tournament, trying to find the people who are battle each other can be difficult when multiple people are involved. When you begin to allow multiple matches for one tournament and then further multiple this over several tournaments, handling it all can seem daunting. This was the reason I developed NextUp. You can read about what it does at the website but here I'll explain how it does what it does.

Blogger Mobile App Data Overage

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

I've been a Google fanboy for a number of years and I get excited to use new Google products and hold onto ones that I enjoy. I used Google Buzz essentially as Twitter until it was discontinued. Blogger is another service that I generally enjoy using. I've put a lot of time into understanding how to customize the template using conditionals and other CSS tricks. Granted Wordpress is the way of the world now and most people aren't using Blogger for more than just a blog. Even so, I still like Blogger because it's easy and integrated with Google. Most people have a Google account, so instead of remembering yet another login, you can sign in with your Google account and go to town. It even let's me admin a site I designed without needing the owner's password; a feature I didn't realize until recently. All that being said, there's one thing it needs to fix; it's mobile app.

Reverse Discrimination

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

This is a heavy topic so before we dive into this I'd like to state that I'm not biased against race, gender or religion. I've worked with and for many different types of people, with many different backgrounds. The quality of work is what is important, not the cultural background of the person. However, in a world where we press for equality many forget what it means to be equal. The following opinion stems from two personal experiences, one working as management for a big brown delivery company and the other from a recent conference I attended that claims to focus on ideas worth spreading.

Is it Live?

Thursday, February 13, 2014

YouTube has the ability to create live events now where you can stream your encoded video out to an audience. The URL for these events looks just like a regular YouTube URL, with the 11 character video ID at the end. One of the projects I've been working on called for the ability to recognize when a channel is showing a live stream. The Ustream platform is pretty good at this, especially in terms of embedding. When you use the Ustream embed code from their platform, if you are live it will embed the live stream, when you aren't live you can show a playlist of videos within your account. Paid accounts give the ability to upload non-Ustream recorded videos but you can only have one playlist. I felt if I could just find a way to determine when a YouTube account goes live, then I could embed any playlists I want. Turns out, there is a way.

Chinese Food & Functional Fixedness

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

A few years ago today, I was called into work because a door alarm was triggered in the middle of the night. It was more than likely due to a late night employee not knowing how to exit the building since normally open exits were locked. The staff at the building were not able to close the door or reset the alarm, so I had to take a trip back to the city to resolve the problem early Christmas morning. It sort of ruined the day for the rest of the family looking for me to stay but I also realized since it was Christmas, I wouldn't have much in a selection of places to eat since most places were closed. As a bachelor in his own apartment, I believe my fridge could have been compared to the status of Santa's bag of presents when he returns to the North Pole; empty. Fortunately, there was one type of place I could depend on to receive nourishment; the local Chinese takeout restaurant.

New York Times Harassment

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

About a year ago, I was required to buy a subscription to the New York Times in order to report current events. After the class, I canceled the subscription but continued to the receive notification e-mails to return as a home delivery subscriber. On the surface, you'd think that unsubscribing from an e-mail list would be as simple as clicking the link at the bottom of the e-mail. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case.