Hello, I'm Rasheq
I reason, record, and re-imagine here.
Introducing WikiIdea
Today I’m excited to announce my most ambitious project to date: WikiIdea. WikiIdea is a social venture focused on accelerating progress by bringing useful ideas out into the open so that they can be dissected, debated, and developed with the goal that the very best ideas might become products, services and policies that will have significant impact on the world.
New Post Command
An explanation of my custom new_post nanoc command.
The National Museum of the American Indian
Over Veterans Day Weekend we were getting a little stir crazy at home with the kids so we dared to venture into DC in search of a place where the kids could roam free and my wife and I could take in some culture. Museums offer such a respite especially when its cold out. My wife had heard that the National Museum of the American Indian is renowned for its food. Having been to Smithsonian museums as a child, I had horrible visions of overcooked hamburgers and stale fries at exhorbitant prices so I was skeptical. However, I needed some air so I agreed to chauffer the family into town.
Wedding Wire CEO
This morning, I attended a Founder Corps event in Ballston where Jonathan Aberman interviewed Timothy Chin. Co-Founder/CEO of local startup, Wedding Wire. One thing that intrigued me about Wedding Wire is their focus on building a marketplace for vendors and adding value by handling back office functions such as finance, marketing (they integrate heavily with Facebook, Constant contact, etc.). The site also creates a powerful network effect by encouraging vendors to refer each other on the site. So instead of selling leads directly, they add value to vendors by creating communities of practice (photographers, cake decorators, etc.) where vendors can get to know each other and recreate offline networks online. This is particularly helpful for those getting into the business for the first time who may be talented but not well-connected. I think there are other consumer-facing business that rely on referals and trust that could benefit from such a business model.
A book a day keeps the crying at bay!
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Superman: Man of Steel
Watched “Superman: Man of Steel” last night and my first reaction is that its probably the best rendition of Superman since Christopher Reeve played the eponymous character in 1978.
Asia Nine
Jurassic Park
Amorini Panini
Popped in this morning for a quick sandwich at Amorini Panini on F Street in Downtown. I had passed by the place many times and was drawn in by the breakfast special which promised a “breakfast panini and coffee” for $5. Seemed like a great deal on a cold DC day. However, when my wife and I stepped in, we decided we weren’t in the mood for eggs in our panini so we decided to split a Mediterranean panini instead. (We tacked on a regular mango smoothie as well pushing our total over $10). The Mediterannean panini (Pepper Jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, pepperoncini, red peppers, cucumbers with freshly made Basil Pesto Mayo) turned out to be a great choice and the Mango smoothie was refreshingly fresh!
The Quest
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SEI
Had lunch a few weeks back with my wife at SEI. Upon entering the first thing you notice is that it feels like a swank mid-range place in New York, complete with an Asian maitre’d with an earring and spiky colored hair. The ambience is youthful and beautiful with plush white seats packed tight for intimate conversation.
Tachibana Japanese Restaurant
I’ve eaten here three times in the past year and after my third experience, I’ve vowed never to pay to eat here again. In short, its expensive, mediocre food that only survives because of its location in an rich suburb of DC.
Joe's Noodle House
Last week, a few friends of mine took me to Joe’s Noodle House in Rockville. Now i should say up front that I am far from a connoisseur of Chinese food and about as adventurous in the domain as the average American (i.e. my favorite dish is usually fried rice and General Tso’s chicken). Nonetheless, my friends had urged me to go for several months and given that we had made plans to watch a movie nearby, I was game.
The Strip House
As a birthday treat this year, my wife, Ruhana, asked around and booked a table at the Strip House, one of New York’s most popular (and some would argue finest) steak houses. I’m a steak fan though once every couple of months is enough for me and when I asked a couple of steak afficandos at work, they said you couldn’t go wrong with the Strip House. I read a few reviews online which were very positive (especially about the desserts) so I was psyched when the evening came around and I brought a huge appetite. My only real concern was that the staff was known to be a bit snooty and could ruin the evening.
Cafe Origins
My wife and I were out in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania this weekend and because it was Christmas Eve few of the restaurants and shops in the historic district were open. The winter sun was setting in the late afternoon so we went in search of a cup of hot tea and some local desserts. Jim Thorpe has no town bakery but we heard good things about a new vegetarian restaurant called Cafe Origins where we were told that some deserts and hot drinks might be available.We peeked at the menu outside and saw that some fresh baked pies and crumbles were on offer so we thought we’d give it a try. We were the only ones in the restaurant and were enthusiastically greeted by Denise O’Connell, the chef/owner. When we mentioned that we were interested in some warm deserts, Denise immediately rattled off a list of pies, cookies and crumbles that she had baked that afternoon.
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Orchids of Singapore
I visited my brother in Singapore over winter break from Yale. I had some time to kill one day so I hoped the metro to the Singapore Botanic Garden. While strolling through the garden I came across the National Orchid Garden which has over 400 species and 2,000 hybrid species of orchids. It was a photographer’s dream and I got some great shots of amazing flowers.
Mansueto Library
I visited my alma mater after almost 7 years. Upon arriving on campus, I had a strange urge to see the library where I spent most of my finals and many a night with friends with the intention of studying but more often just hanging out. (Yeah, I know the U of C is that kind of place.) Well I was pleasantly surprised to see that there is a new wing of the main Regenstein library called the Joe and Rika Mansueto LIbrary. The wing’s spaceship-like design is absolutely stunning especially on a beautiful day like the day I visited. If we were fortunate to have such a space when I was a student I’m sure I would have gotten a lot less done :)
The Museum of Islamic Art (Doha, Qatar)
On my way back from Dhaka in June 2009, I had a stop-over in Doha. After disembarking, I headed over to the Museum of Islamic Art. The museum is an architects dream. It was designed by legendary architect I.M. Pei and is an oasis not only from the heat of the desert but the commercial nature of Doha. The art collection is obviously the best in the Islamic world and well organized by country and theme. Worth a visit even for a few hours if you are flying Qatar to the Middle East or beyond!
Bangladesh Trip 2009
Prior to business school, I spent six weeks in Dhaka (May - June 2009). This was my first time leaving the capital city of Dhaka to explore the north of the country. Accompanied by in-laws, I travelled to Capthai, Rangamati, and Cox’s Bazaar by train and bus. It was a fascinating journey!
Yale SOM Energy Club
The mission of the Yale School of Management Energy Club is to keep its members abreast of economic, policy, technology and societal issues in the energy sector. The club introduces Yale students to careers in the energy sector and provides networking opportunities for students and alumni.
International Energy Efficiency Network
The International Energy Efficiency Network provides an enabling platform where cities and metropolitan regions, leading universities, and corporations can share best practices and innovative solutions drawn from practical energy efficiency project implementations in cities. The network leverages the power of online networks to connect academics, city officials, and business leaders in a global dialog about energy efficiency. The network began as an exchange of ideas between groups in the United States and Europe but is actively expanding to encompass other regions of the world.
Ruby script: Retrieve multiple LinkedIn profiles
Over the weekend, a friend of mine and I were discussing learning how to program and I mentioned that I had tried a few Javascript modules on CodeAcademy. Well a few days ago, I received an email from CodeAcademy that they were starting Ruby classes. I’ve been playing around with Ruby on Rails but never really took the time to learn core Ruby. Anyways I had enjoyed other classes at CodeAcademy and decided to try the Ruby track. I got so engrossed in it that I ended up finishing the whole course in about 48 hours, earning a two day points streak in the process.
Blogging from Textmate
Just came across a website that mentioned you could blog from Textmate. I’ve been using Textmate for almost a year now to code in Ruby and PHP but never thought about writing my blog from here. Since starting with Wordpress almost seven years ago, I’ve exclusively used the only WYSIWYG editor. However, this editor has too many bells whistles and is too tempermental to have to deal with when one is only writing a few words. Using textmate allows me to write offline and then hit a button and post. Very cool!
Learning Ruby
Some seven years ago, I began life as a web programmer by learning PHP to build my first Wordpress blog. Over the past twenty four hours I’ve embarked on my first project using a “new-to-me” programming language called Ruby on Rails. While I’ve been working my way through Michael Hartl’s Ruby on Rails Tutorial Book an upcoming presentation to a potential partner led me to just jump in and start buidling a prototype. Here’s a couple of things I’ve learned:
New Year, New Theme
Today, I relaunched my blog design. As regular readers of this blog will note, I probably spend more time writing about reprogramming my blog than actually writing it. I’m hoping to change that in 2012 but allow me for a minute to discuss the story behind the latest incarnation of RasheqRahman.com.
Ipodder Opml Class
This is the script that resulted out of my first ever open-source, pro-bono PHP project for Tod Maffin. Read all about the experience here.
The author speaks
I wrote a few weeks ago about learning php. Well today I got stumped by a php problem so I took the brave step of contacting the author of my php book, Jason Gilmore, to see if he could shed some light on my problem. I was surprised to see an answer from him by the time I had finished dinner and he even dropped a nice comment on my blog.
Scuttle
I’ve been using del.icio.us for the past few months and I’ve been really pleased with how easy it is to maintain and access my bookmarks anywhere. However, I’ve often wished that there was a privacy feature in del.icio.us so that I could make some links publicly viewable and the rest would be private. Well this morning I was reading a few blogs and came across a link to Scuttle as an personalized version of del.icio.us. I played around with the test site a little and realized this is exactly what I was looking for. Marcus Campbell, the creator of scuttle has recreated del.icio.us in PHP and MYSQL allowing anyone with a webserver to store their bookmarks on their localhost. He’s also done a great job of using css to make the links easy to read. Best of all he’s tweaked the category creation logic so that you can have a category link “Cool Links” instead of having to smash it together with underscore characters (i.e. Cool_Links). I’ll let you install Scuttle to figure out how he accomplishes this.
Learning PHP
Now that I have my own domain and access to a server, I’ve been poking around with some cool open source apps. One of the first applications I installed was Wikka (formerly known as Wakka). Wikka is an Wiki written in PHP with some great features: