Author: Joey deVilla

Here’s HackTO’s official greeter. She’ll let you in if you pet her and give her an ear rub.

Hack-what? See this article for an explanation.

I like the way this guy thinks. I would’ve have thrown booze into the mix, but I assume it’s implied. (I draw this from the Catholic sacrament of confession, in which there are two assumptions: you have sinned, and the priest is drunk.)

I wonder if he has any connection to the vicar in Sheffield who had to explain to the emergency room why there was a potato up his cornhole.

In case you were wondering, the title for this post comes from a Simpsons quote.

As I write this, there are about a hundred people gathered in a warehouse space — Freshbooks‘ new offices — in Toronto’s west end who’ve been there since 8:30 a.m. or so, and I am among them. They’re setting up laptops, connecting to wifi and firing up their software development tools.

They’re here for HackTO, a “hackfest” in which developers from Toronto and parts surrounding are challenged to write an app in a day. The apps they write are required to integrate with at least one of the services provided by the sponsors:

• Shopify (whom I’m representing, along with my coworker David Underwood)
• Atomic Reach
• Context.IO
• FreshBooks
• Idée
• SoundCloud
• TinEye
• Trendspottr
• Twilio
• YellowAPI

David and I just finished giving the attendees an overview of Shopify and the sort of apps you can write using the Shopify platform, and all the other sponsors will do the same during the opening presentations. Once these are done, the hackers will form teams and work on building their apps until the 5:00 p.m. deadline. The esteemed panel of judges will then award prizes based on what they believe are the best apps created today, and David and I will award a $500 Apple Store girt card to the app that makes the best use of Shopify.

It may seem odd to spend a Saturday afternoon working, but for many of us programming is more than just a way to pay the mortgage — it’s a calling and a passion.

I greatly doubt that people sell insurance or do people’s taxes as a hobby on the weekends, but like cooking, carpentry and a number of creative lines of work, programming is something that people do as both work and a hobby. I’ve spent many a happy weekend afternoon learning a new programming language, cobbling together multimedia programs for desktop computers or web apps or Xbox games or (more recently) iPhone/iPad apps in the same way some other hobbyist might build model airplanes or sketch buildings or try out a new recipe. That’s what these people are doing today, and as a bonus, their hobby may pay off in all sorts of ways, from learning something new to winning a prize to making some new contacts to getting hired.

Good luck, hackers: I salute you with a filet mignon on a flaming sword!

I’m going to be in Ottawa all next week, from the late morning on Monday, April 16th through to the early evening of Friday, April 20th. I’m there to touch base with the folks at Shopify HQ, and if you’d like to catch up, drop me a line!

In response to former child star Kirk Cameron’s (he played Mike Seaver on the eighties sitcom Growing Pains) recent statement on Piers Morgan Tonight that “homosexuality is unnatural, detrimental and ultimately destructive to foundations of civilization”, other former child stars from the same era have banded together to form Child Celebrities Opposing Kirk Cameron, or CCOKC (pronounced “cock”, natch) for short. It probably won’t convince Kirk that he’s dead wrong, but at the very least, it does a high-larious job of explaining why that’s the case. In light of the creepy social conservative backlash that’s happening everywhere as part of the Republican bid to win the presidency this November, we need more messages like this. Watch, enjoy and share with your friends!

The videos a bit racy and some of the audio might not be suitable for your workplace. I’d suggest you switch jobs, or failing that, don’t watch it at work.

If you’ve got $3,100 burning a hole in your pocket and love the old Super NES game console, you might want to get your paws on this: a coffee table that’s not only done up like a wooden Super NES controller, but also functions as one.

Here’s a high-larious but not-safe-for-work public service message for all boys, no matter what their sexual orientation: It Gets Bigger.

Found via Laughing Squid.