May 2010
4 posts
Untidy beds may keep us healthy - BBC →
Failing to make your bed in the morning may actually help keep you healthy, scientists believe.
Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies.
Dunning–Kruger Effect →
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.” The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast, the highly skilled underrate their...
How to convert email addresses into name, age,... →
Save your email list as a CSV file (just comma separate those email addresses). Upload this file to your facebook account as if you wanted to add them as friends. Voila, facebook will give you all the profiles of all those users (in my test, about 80% of my email lists have facebook profiles). Now, click through each profile, and because of the new default facebook settings, which makes all...
Install Wordpress in SVN using svn:externals
Note: This post requires working knowledge of SVN
Goals
Keep a complete Wordpress install in your SVN
Have the Wordpress core files checked out from their SVN
Have as many plugins as possible checked out from their SVN
Still provide versioning of your custom themes/plugins
Other Methods
Copying/exporting the Wordpress files into your SVN
Upgrading requires manually copying all the files...
April 2010
4 posts
XAuth
StakeVentures has a good article on the new XAuth stardard/service
The problem that this aims to fix is really a UI one, not a security one. If you know the user already uses Google accounts and Meebo, there is no need to over clutter your user interface with login buttons to 40 different social networks.
The article includes some sample code for both parties, and a key criticism:
I...
HTML5 presentation →
Demo of upcoming HTML5/CSS3 features written with HTML5. Best viewed in Chrome.
Snacksquare: A Foursquare Directory Of Deals And... →
Select a city and it shows you all the venues currently offering deals on a Google map, as well as by badge.
March 2010
7 posts
“Simplifying the interface of the terminal would not be accepted by most users because, as ethnographic studies show, they take pride on manipulating Bloomberg’s current “complex” interface. The pain inflicted by blatant UI flaws such as black background color and yellow and orange text is strangely transformed into the rewarding experience of feeling and looking like a hard-core professional.” —...
WhenIsGood →
An easy way to find out when everyone is free for your next meeting or event. Click the grid for all the times that are good for you - you get a link to email to your invitees. They see your proposed times and click on when they are free. You visit your results page and see when everyone can do.
Canon to begin acquisition of the ".canon"... →
Jenga Interview
Where I work, we do our best to weed out the unhappy and cynical employees before they even get hired. Coworkers who are constantly cynical and unhappy are absolutely terrible for morale, and we do whatever we can to avoid it both before and after hiring.
After each candidate goes through his/her well-rehearsed and pre-meditated interviews with HR and management, the entire engineering...
The FCC Wants You to Test Your Broadband Speeds →
WatchBoba Fett. Playing Zelda music. In the subway. On an accordion. (via reddit)
February 2010
8 posts
WatchInteresting talk about why games like FarmVille, Guitar Hero, and Wii Fit are taking off. All of them are based in reality, which will be the next big phase in gaming. The last 10 minutes provide an interesting look at what life would be like if things like Foursquare or other achievement points were extended across our entire life.
“
Try this: Open a terminal. Type “sleep 3 && killall...”
– via Reddit
January 2010
1 post
Intriguing question with brilliant answer →
itsnotatumor: If I dropped a lightsaber with its blade facing downwards, would it fall to the center of the earth?
sophren: I’m pretty sure the segments will just fold into the handle.
December 2009
11 posts
The Data-Crunching Powerhouse Behind ‘Avatar’ →
Thirty four racks comprise the computing core, made of 32 machines each with 40,000 processors and 104 terabytes of memory.
For the last month or more of production those 40,000 processors were handling 7 or 8 gigabytes of data per second, running 24 hours a day. A final copy of Avatar equated to 17.28 gigabytes per minute of storage.
The AI Systems of Left 4 Dead →
A semi-technical look at the AI systems behind L4D.
Star Wars Weather Forecast →
Compare your cities weather to the climate of various Star Wars Planets
ack: better than grep, a power search tool for... →
Which would you rather type?
$ grep pattern $(find . -type f | grep -v '\.svn')
$ ack pattern
$ grep pattern $(find . -name '*.pl' -or -name '*.pm'
-or -name '*.pod' | grep -v .svn)
$ ack --perl pattern
Google Integrates 'Page Speed' Into Webmaster... →
Google Site Performance, now available as part of Webmaster Tools Labs, analyzes your website and provides data on the average load time, graphs out how your site has improved or slowed down over time, generates reports on specific pages, and most of all, offers suggestions for speeding up your website.
Part of the new Site Performance area of the Webmaster Tools is a list of suggestions...
July 2009
2 posts
iPhone 3GS Tech Demo: 40 Cars on Screen →
Real Racing has up to six cars on the track at any one time. Since the game uses a high fidelity physics engine, adding cars is a good test for pushing the hardware. We started our tech demo with 8 cars on the track, then 10, 12, 16 and 20, and the 3GS still didn’t break a sweat. We finally stopped when we got to 40 cars on the track at the same time, still with no perceptible drop in...
Pingdom Adds Free Website Monitoring →
Now, for the first time ever, you can use Pingdom for free. We’re not talking about a free trial, but a completely free account that you can use for as long as you like, no strings attached. In other words, you are getting a professional uptime monitoring service for free. With the Pingdom service, you’ll be the first to know when your site goes down.
You can sign up here. Just signed up for...
June 2009
6 posts
Readable Feeds →
Readable Feeds can filter out ads and other junk from your feeds so that you can concentrate on the content. It can even repair crippled feeds that only show small excerpts instead of the full content, saving you the time and hassle of leaving your feed reader.
Interesting app, although some publishers probably wouldn’t like it.
Normalize MP3's On OSX →
MacMP3Gain is an AppleScript Studio application which brings an Aqua GUI to the command line version of mp3gain, a utility that performs statistical analysis to determine how loud the MP3 file actually sounds to the human ear and performs lossless volume adjustments. MacMP3Gain is free and open source.
YouTube Mobile Uploads Up 400% Since 3GS Launch →
In the last six months, we’ve seen uploads from mobile phones to YouTube jump 1700%; just since last Friday, when the iPhone 3GS came out, uploads increased by 400% a day.
Looks like Apple is on the way to dominate YouTube, just like they do with Flickr
GameBone Pro - The First iPhone 3.0 Gaming... →
Australian company 22Moo announced today the development of “the world’s first” iPhone OS 3.0 compatible game controller which will feature an 8-way D-pad with 6 buttons, incorporate a 2000mAh battery and support both Bluetooth and 30-pin dock connector connectivity.
Over 1 Million iPhone 3GS Devices Sold →
In a news release, however, Apple claims … that sales actually exceeded 1 million units. In addition, the company says six million customers have downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software in the first five days since its release.
April 2009
2 posts
Short URL Auto-Discovery →
Some websites already have the functionality to shorten their URLs. For example on snaplog.com a URL can be accessed 2 ways. Content html pages would programatically describe the shortened URL by embeding a attribute in the page.
<link rel="short_url" href="http://snaplog.com/:E7d" />
Interesting idea. Rather than forcing users to use external shortening services, websites should...
February 2009
1 post
Give Up and Use Tables →
We’ve scientifically determined the maximum amount of time that you should need to make a layout work in CSS: it’s 47 minutes. When your time is up, we’ll even give you the table code you need. Take three minutes to build a table. And ten minutes to get a donut. Bill the client for an hour. Done.
January 2009
6 posts
Eight oddball Twitter utilities →
1 tag
Sandbox Your Apps With Sandboxie
I recently found Sandboxie, a Windows app that creates a sandbox where programs can run without touching your actual OS. When the apps try to write data to your harddrive, it is written to a cache and kept seperate from your real data. This prevents any malware from being installed in your Windows directory, or hijacking any other files. When you’re done using the sandbox, you can choose to...
TechCrunch Tablet Update: Prototype B →
The idea is to get a new type of device into people’s hands for as cheap as possible (we were aiming for $200, it looks like $299 is more realistic). It fits perfectly on your lap while you are sitting in front of the TV, so you can look up stuff on Wikipedia or IMDB as you channel surf. It plays Flash video flawlessly so you can watch movies and TV shows on Hulu or Joost or wherever. Or listen...
1 tag
Turn Your Domain Into An OpenID
If you’re using OpenID, there’s an easy way to use your domain as your OpenID without running any extra scripts/software. With a couple of lines of code you can set your personal domain to redirect to your OpenID (known as OpenID delegation). Then instead of logging in with you.myopenid.com you can use yourdomain.com. According to MyOpenID.com add the following in your <head>...