October 2011
1 post
3 tags
I haven’t seen any tech blogs say this, thought it seems pretty obvious. I think we’re looking at the iPhone release cycle wrong.
What we see as a one-year release cycle that alternates between 4-style and 4S-style updates really isn’t. It’s two different two-year release cycles: one for the early adopter who likes the new form factor, and one for the person who values...
September 2011
1 post
March 2011
1 post
1 tag
I want an iPhone dock that:
Accommodates a case
Connects to an outlet for charging and USB for syncing simultaneously
Connects to speakers (with a normal headphone jack)
Has a remote for play/pause
Am I dreaming? Is there a dock that does any of the above?
February 2011
1 post
If you can correctly pronounce every word in this...
jwisser:
crimsun:
Read More
I am convinced that Jacquelynn reblogged this entirely because the author of the poem—quite incorrectly—rhymed “very” with “bury”. Mind you, they also rhymed “aunt” with “grant”, and many of the lines scan terribly.
Still, an interesting exercise.
An aunt is a relative. An ant is an insect.
January 2011
1 post
2 tags
December 2010
2 posts
In the climax of what was probably the worst beginning to winter break in my life yesterday, I lost my iPod touch. I’m not too worried about the data on it—it’s locked, and if someone gets through that, it’ll wipe itself as soon as it’s connected to the Internet.
No, what really annoys me is that now I don’t have an iPod. I’ve been thinking about replacing it with the same model once I can...
5 tags
Five to the What Now?
Say you have the problem 5⁶⁻⁴ⁿ=3125. If you want to find the same bases, and don’t happen to remember that 3125 is 5⁵, you can use your graphing calculator to help (in a way other than entering 5ⁱ⁺¹ over and over).
Go to y=, and enter 5^X. Go to table (that’s 2ɴᴅ+ɢʀᴀᴘʜ, but you knew that), and voilà! In the Y column, you should be able to find 3125. The X column shows the exponent.
November 2010
1 post
3 tags
Target _blank
Often lately I’ve been coming across pages with links which I want to open in new windows. Rather than wearing out my ⌘ key, I decided to make a bookmarklet to make all links target="_blank".
javascript:var...
October 2010
3 posts
2 tags
Do
Today, for no particular reason, I was stressed. I felt like something was looming over my head, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
I started feeling a lot better when I stopped discarding anything that popped into my head because it wasn’t the “big thing” I was stressed about, but started doing them. Even though I didn’t get that “big thing” done, I...
How to Develop Nerd-Like Confidence →
nerdgap:
Nothing is beyond me and, given sufficient time and effort, I can understand anything understood by another human being. Period.
I hadn’t thought of this that way, but it makes complete sense.
September 2010
1 post
“Text and email are polite invitations to a conversation. They happen at the...”
– Scott Adams: Phone (via marco)
August 2010
1 post
Sneak: Fixing the background 'bleed' →
I recently came up against an issue in Safari where the background colour of an element seemed to ‘bleed’ through the edge of the corners when applying both borders and a border-radius (see the image above). After seeing David Cole tweet about the same issue I resolved to find a solution,…
This has bothered me since I started working with CSS3.
July 2010
3 posts
6 tags
Sync App Data with Dropbox - Beta →
I wrote a mini-application to facilitate setting up applications to sync their preferences and data files using DropBox. It uses symbolic links to store the data in DropBox, and have a pointer to it in the places the application is expecting to find it. Lengthier description and download at http://drp.ly/1qUC76
4 tags
Web development
My web development process:
Write HTML
Write layout CSS
Write JavaScript from example
JavaScript doesn’t work
Try another Javascript technique
Repeat from step 3
Give up, copy code from JavaScript example
JavaScript doesn’t work
Give up, copy HTML & CSS from JavaScript example
Gradually change HTML from example’s to yours, testing frequently
Tweak JavaScript to...
5 tags
No, Seriously, Listen to "Singularity" →
If you need no other reason, then do it because it’s free. (The author, Bill DeSmedt, released it as a “podiobook”—an audiobook released in podcast form. That version is free, and there is a hardcover book for purchase.) But you have many, many more reasons than the price.
The author’s grasp of his subject matter is astounding. DeSmedt either knows everything he’s...
June 2010
4 posts
3 tags
Calling All Pedants
I’ve always been in favor of using ‘ and ’ more. It doesn’t seem fair to relegate them to the not-very-common quotes-within-quotes. (Apostrophes are a different beast—they even have a different name.)
So, I made up my own usage. I use traditional “ and ” double quotes for direct quotes, as per normal, and single quotes to quote quotes containing quotations. But, that’s all I do with them.
With...
-troverts
I think I stumbled across a simple definition for introverts and extroverts:
An introvert would rather do nothing at his/her house, an extrovert would rather do nothing at yours.
5 tags
Reading — iPad and the Internet
Yes, the topic of “Is the iPad the perfect reading device?” has been just about explored to death since the iPad’s release. I just can’t not share my experience with it.
I spent the majority of today without a laptop. While pondering what I would do, I remembered the iPad sitting on the kitchen counter — the one that belongs not to me, but to my dad’s office,...
5 tags
Using XPath to get tweets excluding replies
While it’s not that common (so far I’ve only seen (Symphony)[http://symphony-cms.com/] use it), an XML/XSL/XPath system is extremely powerful and flexible.
Since Twitter provides a list of your tweets as an RSS feed, which is just a specialized XML file, you can apply this flexibility to that (within Symphony, at least).
The one thing that most annoys me about embedding my last...
April 2010
5 posts
3 tags
Ads
Somebody links me to your site
I see a full-page ad
I close the tab
You make less money
You think somebody would figure this out by now.
3 tags
Apostrophes
…or…
Without them, the world can be cold, wet, and surprisingly muffling.
5 tags
Crash Mitigation Technique
When I know something is about to crash, and I’ve been working on it a while without saving, I take a screenshot. Then I can force quit the app (if it’s hanging), yet hopefully not lose all my unsaved data. Depending how much was visible onscreen, I then know at least some of what I need to reproduce.
3 tags
Reporting
Now Twitter Can Make Links Short And Twee.tt
The headline says, “Twitter sets up a URL shortener with the twee.tt domain.”
The story says, “Twitter buys twee.tt domain, could be for URL shortening.”
I’m with Bart Busschots on this one. It’s just linkbait, and it’s disgraceful.
3 tags
March 2010
2 posts
Marco.org: News flash →
News flash
A popular blog truncated its RSS feeds to boost site pageviews. It’s like last week, when The Atlantic changed to partial-content RSS feeds. And that was like every other week, when some publisher did something that some readers didn’t like to make a few more cents.
…
One reaction I’ve never had is to think that I deserve anything from these publishers.
…
We don’t deserve anything....
Tasks vs. Rhythms →
How Daily Deeds led the Creativityist to realize an interesting distinction between things you want to do and things you want to be doing.
February 2010
1 post
4 tags
I have discovered I like music, if it’s playing in the background while I’m doing something. The problem is, if I’m doing something I don’t really want to be (say, writing an English essay) I end up listening to the words.
Solution: Listen to instrumental music, by which I mean no intelligible words, and not the actual definition, if that is different. Problem two: I don’t really have much of...
January 2010
8 posts
Why I Don’t Check Voicemail Anymore →
I don’t hate Windows. I hate slowness, awkward design, and unfamiliarity. It just so happens that every Windows computer I use regularly fits into those categories.
Metagames and Containers – Sleepover →
A must-read for someone interested in writing or reading on the web.
I encourage—nay, I dare—someone to implement the idea in the rightmost box three from the bottom* in a publicly available form like a Wordpress plugin.
* You’ll get it when you read the article.
Native Southern Californians are all in a state of shock right now, because we had 5 straight days of pretty heavy rain this week. You can tell who’s lived here all their lives because they’re the ones who were inside today looking out the window at the cloudless blue sky and going, “But what if it starts raining again?”
I don’t _get_ all-nighters cramming for exams. Isn’t that just going to make you do worse because you’re tired?
Ahhh.
Good night’s sleep: Check [Finally]
Caught up on email: Check
Scanned RSS feeds: Check
Up-to-date on social networks: Check
Sorely needed reboot: Check
It’s times like these that really make me glad that I have the kind of brain that doesn’t need to do more than look over the topics to effectively study for exams.
Great Space Photos →
“Stellar work: Our dazzling galaxy at night captured from around the world by photographer in 16-year mission” –Mail Online
December 2009
7 posts
Excellent article, especially that text never sits flat on top of something. http://flyosity.com/tutorial/crafting-subtle-realistic-user-interfaces.php
iTunes troubleshooting process
Movie rental takes too long to download?
Watch it later.
Don’t have time to watch it for 28.6 days?
Watch it now.
Movie file gone missing?
Look in the trash.
Not in the trash?
Check Time Machine.
Not in Time Machine, because it apparently decided one day to back up 200GB of unchanged files, and so had to apparently delete all copies of the movie?
Get annoyed, and bang some things...
It’s taken me a while to be able to tell people. To those who do know, thanks for your support. To those who don’t, I’m sorry. It feels like I’ve been keeping a secret, but in reality it’s just been too hard to tell people. I hope I’ve done it justice here.
iwillsite.com/beiju
I wish there was something like Bowtie but that would work with not only iTunes, but also other players including PandoraBoy, FStream, and maybe even Ecoute.
“There’s TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO CHILDREN in this country! Leave them ALONE!...”
– George Carlin (via marco)
New social networking rule
nikf:
No one, under any circumstances, for any reason, is ever obligated to defend his or her “following” list to anybody.*
*Especially people who aren’t on it.
Amen to that. (via Neven Mrgan)
Today
I forgot half my homework.
I learned about a new book I had to start reading, that not one of the five people I asked about what happened told me about, including the teacher.
My bike chain came off. AGAIN.
I have a big history test tomorrow that I need to study for.
The chemistry test today would have required about two more hours than we got to finish, and I forgot a step in one kind of...
Rands In Repose: Up to Nothing →
November 2009
10 posts
Higgs Boson Self-Uncreation
This whole Higgs boson self-uncreation theory sounds like a great plot for a space-y sci-fi novel. “We need to stop the creation of this particle whose very existence is so abhorrent to nature it will…” but replace “send a ripple back through time preventing itself from being created” with “bring about the explosion, implosion, or otherwise certain annihilation of the...
Words That We, As An Internet, Have Overused And...
marco:
media
brand
trend (as a verb, incl. “trending”)
invite (as a noun, thanks — “invitation” is permitted)
This is why we can’t have nice things.
4 tags
Correct your Tweets
I wish Twitter apps (more specifically, the ones I use) had the ability to correct tweets after I send them by deleting and reposting, but make it seem to me as if I’m just correcting a blog post.
3 tags
WatchStill not worth it just to get Windows 7.