March 2010
47 posts
The Cost of Consumption →
jingc:
Consider again the finding that a half century of escalating consumption has not brought Americans increased satisfaction. This is a disturbing fact, and certainly one that seems pertinent to discussions of economic policy.
But let’s imagine, for a moment, that we had enjoyed ourselves for the past fifty years. Surely, trashing the planet is just as wrong if people take pleasure in the...
The Skull of Regret →
jingc:
A little funny, a little bittersweet, an unexpected reminder to not lose sight of the important things in life.
Engineer Thinking →
But a problem arises when you allow precision-based design principles to hinder user experience. All too often, when faced with a decision about how to implement certain functionality, engineers take the extreme position that:
A feature must be exactly what 100% of users want.
If the above isn’t true (and it almost never is), the feature must be configurable.
This binary approach is gravely...
The Opposite of Fitts' Law →
I can think of a half-dozen applications I regularly use where the ejector seat button is inexplicably placed right next to the cabin lights button. Let’s take a look at our old friend GMail, for example:
I can tell what you’re thinking. Did he click Send or Save Now? Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement of composing that angry email, I kind of lost track myself....
“Wondering what time it was, I looked at the upper right hand corner of the...”
– Me, unfortunately
David Mamet's Master Class Memo to the Writers of... →
If you excuse the caps, this is a great memo. Here’s an excerpt. (via DF)
THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH, YOUARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.
HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT ATHIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.
ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING...
“The force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the default of...”
– John Ruskin, Unto This Last
Coffee →
I’ll dawdle for a minute, add a little water to one of the mugs I’ve collected from local coffee shops then nuke it for a minute to heat it up. Her main concern is that the coffee is strong but temperature is my obsession so I preheat every vessel. The timer alarms its noisy electronic interruption. I empty the warmed carafe, plunge the press and transfer the fresh brew. I pour her a cup, no...
“Happiness equals results minus expectations”
– Niniane’s Blog: singing lessons
Niniane's Blog: instant gratification →
Yesterday I had dinner at Google with my friend Rose. We ran into a couple who I haven’t seen for a while. I really like this couple. They both have great personalities and are fun to be around. Plus the girl is a few years older than the guy, a social trend which I support: After a few pleasantries: Me: “So, you guys have been together for a while now.” The Guy:...
Nominee for 404 Page of the Year →
Didn’t think 404s could be so beautiful. (via DF)
“The phrase ‘I don’t have time for’ should never be said. We all get the same...”
– Scott Berkun: The cult of busy (via marco)
Engineer Thinking →
Our art is in making the abilities of our software accessible to those who do not know how it works.
Your chance to demonstrate skill and professionalism and genius is by effectively hiding all the circuitry and wiring and batteries and screws behind one big shiny “Get the Job Done” button, whose apparent function is almost magical.
A Whirlwind Tutorial on Creating Really Teensy ELF... →
What a fascinating read!
If you’re a programmer who’s become fed up with software bloat, then may you find herein the perfect antidote.
This document explores methods for squeezing excess bytes out of simple programs. (Of course, the more practical purpose of this document is to describe a few of the inner workings of the ELF file format and the Linux operating system. But...
“In the introduction to the Dragonball graphic novels, creator Akira Toriyama...”
– Kamehameha I - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nuggets of information
merlin:
You a big fan of aggressive IP enforcement? Like to think a well-litigated market is a healthy market? Hate those little entrepreneurial nuisances like “competition from emerging media?”
Well, then, you would have loved the early 20th century.
Because you had to get Thomas Edison’s permission to make any movie. Then you had to pay him.
Pretty sweet, huh?
Read More
“If the iPhone didn’t exist, I would have the Nexus One in my pocket right...”
– Jason Snell: iPhone lessons from Google’s Nexus One (via marco)
Watch
What an excellent data analysis tool!
Gary Flake: is Pivot a turning point for web exploration?
Simple Desktops →
hdwallpaper:
hunsonisgroovy:
Simple Desktops is a collection of desktop wallpapers curated by Tom Watson designed to make your computer beautiful without distraction.
“You know that Doritos has MSG, right?”
Metagames and Containers – Sleepover →
Steal this idea: using cookies, it’d be trivial to sort content into read and unread. This could aid both the reader who has returned to find a post they’ve read, and the reader who wants something new.
Mimeo and the Kleptopus King →
I like this:
Before I get to Mimeo, I want to address my love of pixels. The aesthetics of Mimeo (and Horror Vacui before it) are not born solely from nostalgia. Good pixel art strikes the perfect balance between appreciable craftsmanship and the gestalt. A single pixel out of place, one too few or too many, ruins the illusion. There’s an unmuddied, economy of expression, the thankless result of...
Book titles Tom Clancy bookmarked for future use...
mrgan:
Load Balancer
The Edge Case
Denial of Service
The End User
Greater or Less Than Zero
The Concrete Superclass
The Spaghetti Code (released under a pseudonym in 2004, to harsh reviews)
Slab Allocator
Greedy Algorithm
The Cardinal of the Kremlin (due to a misunderstanding)
Colonel Panic (also misheard)
Haha. Colonel Panic.
The Internet? Bah! →
jingc:
This Newsweek article from 1995 ended up in my inbox, to my amusement:
We’re promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month?...