Dennis Beatty

Sir Alex: An Open Source Group Management Platform

As part of my work at Podium, I get to use Elixir on a daily basis. We host a twice monthly Elixir Lunch where other developers come to learn with us. Meetup Currently one of our engineers manages a page on Meetup. It’s great for several reasons: Discovery — Many developers already have accounts on the site. RSVPs — The site tells us how many developers will attend so we know how much food to order.

My Goals for 2017

In 2015, I set some great goals that helped me to focus my life a bit more, and I did a pretty good job of accomplishing them. For 2016 I decided to just wing it instead of focusing on goals that I set. It went okay, but it wasn’t great. This year I’ve decided to make a return to a goal-oriented lifestyle. Now that I have a year-round full-time job, my life should be more predictable.

My Life in 2016

I think 2016 has been a roller coaster of a year for everyone. We were reminded that people get old and die no matter how important they may seem to us. We realized that literally anyone can become President of the United States. But I wanted to analyze my accomplishments this year, and not just everything that happened in the world. In 2015, I set some pretty ambitious but reachable goals.

AirBnB for Movies

While I was driving home from Thanksgiving in southern Utah, I listened to the story of Grooveshark on the Startup podcast. It was really kind of intriguing. I never really used Grooveshark much, but apparently what the product did is let people resell their music to other people online. There is a company that is quite popular here in Utah called VidAngel. The idea behind their product is that they buy several copies of popular films, and then you can buy the film from them and then filter it for profanity or whatever, and then stream it.

Bradley Lake - Grand Teton National Park

I took this photo at Bradley Lake in Grand Teton National Park. The original is a 118 Megapixel panorama. I’ve included a link to download the full size original below this if you want to print it or use it as a background for multiple monitors. Download the full-size version

Document All the Things

Haven’t posted anything in a while. Just got back from a month in Europe last weekend, and just started my last semester of college today. While I was in Europe I really didn’t take many photos. It’s funny: everyone assumes that since I have a fancy camera and love taking photos of beautiful things and places that I will take a ton of photos when I travel. Well… I didn’t. I think I took about 30 photos, plus some ephemeral Snapchats that are already floating in the void of nothingness that all snaps face after the 24 hours runs out.