This is a story about a problem that took a long time to solve. As in, no one noticed it was a problem for a couple years then it took another year to solve. It involves using the time series database Cassandra, some bad assumptions made by the initial programmers who were more used to relational databases, and a reliance on unit tests that test for a short period of time but miss long term problems. And there is a bonus, somewhat related story at the end.
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Python and Kivy for an Android app
For my make-up hack week I had a small number of short projects I wanted to try out and get some creative juices flowing. One project was to FINALLY write an Android app (using Python and Kivy) and get to the point where I felt I had a development pipeline for apps I might want to create.
Short version – I got some 3 year old Kivy code into an .apk and got it installed on my old Galaxy S4, and it works!
Skip to the end if you want some tips on what kivy/buildozer configuration worked for me.
Worst 3D Printer Ever – Prologue
This all started as a joke. One day I was chatting with a coworker who owns a 3D extrusion printer (a Makerbot I think). I mentioned what a bad idea it would be to use a stack of paper and just cut out each layer to make a 3D “print”. We laughed about it, but then I got to thinking.
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