Projects – Craig Perler

1,247 Recipes and Nothing to Eat

Warm illustration of a vintage slot machine sitting on a family kitchen counter, its marquee reading "Tonight's Dinner — Place Your Bets." The three reels show a bowl of chicken soup, a plate of spaghetti bolognese, and a glowing AI sparkle symbol. A plaque below the reels adds "No refunds. Everyone's hungry." A man's arm in a rolled-up dress shirt reaches for the lever. On the counter: a coffee mug printed "Coffee. Data. Discipline. Repeat." and a grocery list with chicken, carrots, and onions checked off — and "sanity?" unchecked. Children's drawings hang on the fridge behind.

I hate figuring out what’s for dinner. I’m rarely in tune with what I want to eat, which isn’t helped by my household constraints: a picky 9-year-old who only eats certain things, a 12-year-old who has suddenly gotten the ick about chicken, my wife’s universal veto authority, whoever’s actually around for dinner that night, whateverContinue reading “1,247 Recipes and Nothing to Eat”

Deploying a Dockerized Django Application to Production

Deployment architecture showing a Dockerized Django application with PostgreSQL and Nginx being deployed to a production server.

Discover how to efficiently deploy a Django web application using Docker, Gunicorn, and Nginx on DigitalOcean. Follow this comprehensive guide to set up your environment, configure your application, and ensure your web app is scalable and production-ready.

How to Set up Django with Docker, PostgreSQL and React

Architecture diagram showing Django, Docker, PostgreSQL, and React working together in a containerized web application stack.

This article provides a comprehensive guide for setting up a Python web project using Django with Docker, PostgreSQL, and React. It outlines an iterative approach, starting from Django project setup and gradually introducing Docker and PostgreSQL integration, before concluding with React implementation. This ensures a streamlined and consistent development process.

ProjectSHERPA: a startup retrospective

Over several years, the founders of ProjectSHERPA developed a tech recruiting platform to improve the hiring process for entry-level talent. Despite innovative features and multiple pivots, including an applicant tracking system and a concierge service, they ultimately ceased operations in 2015 due to a lack of user traction and effective marketing strategies.

Can Yelp Reviews Predict Real Estate Prices?

The MBA group project focused on analyzing NYC real estate prices using various data sources, including Yelp and Trulia. Initially aiming to identify unexpected deal locations, the team shifted to exploring how Yelp reviews might predict listing prices. Ultimately, they concluded that current prices serve as the best predictor for future trends.

A Side Project

Over the past two years, the author struggled to post regularly but aims to share more insights. They volunteered for Portfolios with Purpose, aiding in stock-picking competitions, where participants invest and donate to charity. The author resolved complex market data challenges, addressing symbology issues across different exchanges to ensure accuracy in stock trading.

The Last 5 Years & Earlier Stuff

The Last 5 Years, a musical by Jason Robert Brown, was performed at Dartmouth in 2004, featuring a talented cast and challenging music. The author cherishes the score for its complexity and uniqueness. Recently, they’ve been digitizing and uploading old performances, enjoying the nostalgia and discovery of past productions.

Saintly Music

The author reflects on digitizing old audio and video tapes, discovering a live performance of their first original composition for string quartet and piano, inspired by the Love Theme from the movie The Saint. They express their fondness for the film despite its poor ratings and critique its soundtrack.

Unpacking Kozmo Jones

I’ve been holding onto this since 2006: a children’s poem about two of my now-gone dogs, Kozmo Jones and Angel. I sent this to several publishers back then, but no one wanted it – responses were mostly that it wasn’t the right fit. It feels weird to post it here, but better leave it hereContinue reading “Unpacking Kozmo Jones”

GeoDate

The idea for GeoDate emerged when location-based matching applications were nonexistent on mobile platforms. The app allowed users to create profiles and track their location to find nearby potential matches. Despite technical challenges, the concept was innovative, preemptively addressing a gap in the market before similar apps became common.