Hackers and Musicians Rock “Music Hack Day”

While most of America was home watching the Grammys, hundreds of sleep-deprived hackers, musicians, record label execs, and members of the press from around the globe were packed into the main room of GeneralAssemb.ly where teams were presenting 48-hour hacks that clicked, beeped, tweeted, and screamed at Music Hack Day NYC.

This, the 12th incarnation of Music Hack Day (brainchild of SoundCloud’s Dave Haynes) featured over 70 teams hacking around the clock on more than 20 APIs offered by a flock of cutting-edge startups (including my own beloved Hunch API, presented via Emacs).

Audible Commit Messages with CommitBot

I enjoy a good commit message as much as the next coder. (For the non-nerds in the audience, a commit message is a short description of the changes you made to the source code). At Hunch we found that greping through commit logs was a bit of a pain and instead wrote CommitBot, a script for audibly broadcasting commit messages. You can see it in action here:

Hunch Census Widget

Hunch is great for making decisions, but did you know it can also be a tool for learning about others? We’ve created a widget for bloggers (or anyone with a website) to understand more about their readers. Visitors can use the widget to see how they compare to other readers, and then there is a game at the end where Hunch tries to guess answers to additional questions. Give it a try:

Stranger in a strange land

This February, aside from being Black History and Library Lovers month, marks my entrance into NYC and a new career. After working as a consultant for the recommendations startup hunch.com for a few years, I have finally joined the superstar team as a full-time code ninja. If you have not used the site before I suggest you give it a try.