December 2010
1 post
Tumblr Staff: Downtime →
This takes guts:
staff:
Yesterday afternoon, during planned maintenance that was not intended to interrupt service, an issue arose that took down a critical database cluster. This brought down our entire network while our engineers worked feverishly to restore these databases and bring your blogs back online.
While you…
November 2010
1 post
Human intelligence combined with computer...
Kasparov talked about ‘freestyle’ chess tournaments, including his own, where humans were allowed to partner with computers in any combination. In one 2005 tournament where the player’s and team’s identities were concealed until the end, the winner was revealed to be not a chess grandmaster teamed up with a Deep Blue, but a pair of average players with a few ordinary home PCs. What, then, was...
October 2010
2 posts
Why Network Neutrality Makes Sense
[these opinions are my own and are not here on the behalf of any current or former employer]
One of my roommates is moving out, and we took this time to figure out which internet provider is best for all of us. In comparing the plans, we came up with an interesting heuristic for what we want from our upload capacity: no one’s torrenting should slow down anyone’s YouTube video. We all...
That's why Mint won!
I just tried to use mint and their servers were down. You wouldn’t be able to tell it from reading their ad copy, though. No, not until you log in do you get a 404. Not just a 404, but a 404 disguised as an ad.
There’s some serious UX genius behind there somewhere.
August 2010
6 posts
Web as a platform, or Twitter: a public shell
Recently, I’ve started tweeting “some band - some song #goodsong” when I like something I hear. It seems a convenient way of telling people I like a song without taking up their time if they’re busy (that’s the kind of banter the twitter protocol seems to be best for). I’d like to make an application that aggregates those songs, and maybe lets me upload...
Explain this to someone 100 years ago (or,...
Tijoe, a guy I knew in college, liked a video I shared, but my wifi gave out before facebook would load which one it was. Now I have to connect to Echo Base, my neighbors’ wifi, so that I can find out this meaningless little bit of information. I don’t really want to know which video appealed to an old friend, I need to know.
“While they get paid twice as much, they are not twice as expensive. In fact,...”
– TangLikeAnAstronaut
Art & Copy
I just finished watching Art & Copy and can’t think of a movie I’d rather recommend to someone interested in serious things.
It shows a sense in advertising that we are usually blind to, except in some very rare moments. Advertising, whatever we think of it, shapes our world. Good advertising shapes it for the better. It makes us taste things the way we do, it makes us hear...
21st Century Product Placement
Is Pixar’s WALL-E’s character of EVE, in reality, a product placement for Apple? It seems hard to deny she…
1. looks like an iPod,
2. is, by definition of her character in the plot, the height of futuristic technology, and
3. is created by Pixar, which is, like Apple, founded by Steve Jobs?
How many aspects of our minds, exactly, are shaped by Steve?
July 2010
11 posts
Badass JavaScript: location.hash is dead. Long... →
For a long time, location.hash was a way for AJAX applications to get back button and bookmarking support, and libraries like jQuery BBQ from Ben Alman made dealing with it cross browser a cinch. Now, with HTML5 coming of age, there is a new feature that aims to replace the use of ...
“A man fell into a river and was obviously struggling to stay afloat. Another man...”
– Yaxin (on internal mailing list, quoted with permission)
An interesting story
In the near future, America and China are on the brink of war. In the middle of the propaganda battles, the daughter of the American President and a powerful Chinese tycoon fall in love. For a long time they struggle to meet whenever they can: at diplomatic talks in Paris, on vacation in Dubai.
Finally, when the daughter fearfully opens up to her father, he sees it as an opportunity to bring...
This Is Not A Blog
It is simply a collection of ideas, which, as they cross my mind, seem worthy of posterity. I pick them out, and force them out. They go splat onto the page.
First Solid Thought Re: Working at Google
It’s been a couple of weeks, so I might as well voice a strong opinion:
Google reminded me what being around smart people is like. The kind where you walk away from lunch with two papers (given with a similar pride as with which Avi, my college dorm mate, would present his problem sets), or a discussion more informative than any lecture, or a book of 200 pages, explaining the details of...
From the "Since When Are People Nice?" department.
A guy caught a cab today, about a quarter of a long block up-traffic from me, then told the driver to pick me up, instead, since I’d been waiting on the street first. This, in NYC. Weird, huh?
Brilliant packaging
Tying together bundles of pasta with little bows inside of the box. It gives them such a high-class feel, it’s unbelievable.
“I won’t listen to you putting down drugged out psychotic bitches. Slutty...”
– “A White Knight is Born”, by Booster21
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man...”
– Teddy
JavaScript needs macros
JavaScript needs modules? No.
JavaScript needs a macro compiler companion to extend the language with new statements:
defs export(VarDecleration v) {
this.{{v.varName}} = {{v.initValue}};
}
defs module(VarName n, Block b) {
var {{n}} = new function () {{b}};
}
defs import(VarName module, Period p, VarName vName) {
var {{vName}} =...
friends
Rob: Now that you work at Google, can you get access to [so and so data set]? I really need it.
Me: Probably, but I’d rather not get fired just to give it to you.
(expected): Oh, just find me someone who can give me access to it properly.
Rob: Surely, there’s a number I can say that will settle such concerns.
Me (laughing hard): This is why I love you, Rob.
Rob: I still hate...
June 2010
17 posts
Sometimes...
…a friend reminds me of why I’m forever grateful to have them in your life. Just now:
Me: “I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be in a mental institution. Maybe there’s a world in more interesting than ours on the outside?”
J: “Wow, I’ve always wondered that, too.”
Me: “Really? Why?”
J: “Well, my parents met...
The beauty of the "new" HN sorting system
Previously [the algorithm for ranking comments] was the same as the one for ranking frontpage stories. Now it also considers among other things the average comment score of the submitter. (source)
I wish Paul Graham advertised this more, because it would lead to better HN-citizenship: the best way to get a high average comment score is to post rarely, and only when certain you’re going...
Epistemology Revisited
Two thousand years ago, Aristotle came up with a theory of physics which involved a metaphor between a falling rock (made of Earth) would be attracted down to Earth because of an allegiance just like man was drawn to his Nation. In other words, Gravity = Nationalism. A bit later, he postulated that therefore, heavy things fall faster than light things (false). He never thought to test it, though....
This will legitimize WikiLeaks
The best is yet to come.
This needs to be spread: why has nobody asked Obama about why he broke the promise to close Guantanamo Bay? Why is he continuing extraordinary renditions?
Will this finally lead to Europe’s seeing the US in the authoritarian light? Interesting times, indeed…
Visualizations executed at 90%
This is such a cool idea, but they’re so painfully missing that last 10%: make the slider continuous. It takes a little bit of calculus and statistics, sure. But that’s no reason not to do it!
Apple's Socialism
You know, Steve gets a lot of shit in the “public’s eye” for being an authoritarian dictator. But when you ask people about what exactly bothers them about Apple’s actions, it seems to me that Apple is a lot more democratic or even socialistic. For example, removing 64-bit Carbon was a huge deal for developers who were supporting Carbon apps. But overall, there’s...
“Many successful and “respected” companies start out with a big...”
– delackner
Twitter, Facebook, and the Beginning of Privacy
Sometimes things are not what they seem, and sometimes, the further they are from what they seem, the harder it is to comprehend their true nature. Facebook and privacy might well be a classical example of this: the common wisdom that the “Facebook Generation” is giving up their private lives. For me, personally, it has done the opposite. (aside: I’m using “facebook”...
“When I was growing up we had a small glass end table. The glass was round and...”
– random reddit comment
Measuring Apple's advantage
There is a spectrum of technical ability out there, and by applying a predicate test, we can partition that spectrum into two: those who know how to you use bittorent to share video, and those who don’t.
Let’s consider those who do, and “poll” them on what their outlook is on the tech world. That way, we’ve got this subset of the tech world, and we can test what...
Cooking Pasta is Kind of like the Holocaust
They’re all squirming in there, going “nooo, we’re boiling!”, and you have to mix them around and look for two huddled closely together to push back that inevitable fate of preparation for their demise, just an inch, just an second, just a little more. No, you must tear them apart, for they will cook faster and more evenly when each one is all alone. The mental pressure of...
Recursion
Just replaced a ton of stuff like this:
function topOffset(obj) {
var curtop = 0;
if (obj.offsetParent) {
do {
curtop += obj.offsetTop;
} while (obj = obj.offsetParent);
return curtop;
}
return 0;
}
With this:
function topOffset(obj) {
return obj ? obj.offsetTop + topOffset(obj.offsetParent) : 0;
}
Feels good.
Here’s a bit more of a mind-cruncher if...
On Fighting
Today, somebody found it new that “Steve Jobs took the whole [Gizmodo] thing very personally”.
I don’t understand this about American culture: we refuse to understand fighters. Of course Steve took it very personally. Apple products are his babies, the Purpose of his life. He is Willy Wonka, and someone stole a secret from his factory. You’re surprised he’s...
Neven Mrgan's tumbl: The Walled Garden →
This photo shows a walled garden*: It is the Portland Japanese Garden, a city landmark that should be on any visitor’s shortlist. It’s beautiful, peaceful, clean, and well visited. Some consider it the most authentic Japanese garden worldwide (outside of Japan). The garden is also…
May 2010
8 posts
Google's weakness is a strength
There’s yet another post on HN today lamenting Google, in part, for non-existent personal customer service. But how can you give personal customer service for a free tool used by hundreds of millions? Even if everyone calls in once a year for 5 minutes, GMail’s 176 million users would need 176m/365/8/12 ~ 5,000 phone reps working full time to talk to these people, increasing linearly...
Running
There are many forms of running, of hiding from the soulless fabric of civilization, the pain of duty and engagement, the obligation to the stage, to your reciprocating audience. Do it for your fans. No, don’t. They’ll be fine without you. Fuck your fans. Reclusion and travel are just two such forms. There will always be more fans, and a better play.
Hell is other people, and the...
“I’m very afraid of a world in which we are all Steve Jobs’ slaves,” Graham said....”
– source
I don’t know about you, but I’d go with the “freedom” where I have “opportunities”, not the one arbitrarily defined by people who think a software platform should be always structured in one way or another.
Anomalous motion illusions
One,
two,
three, and
four.
A thought on the Weak and the Strong
Don’t fear the strong. Those genuinely strong have no reason to hurt you, for their strength is hard earned - through honesty, hard work, and playing by the rules. They’ll always be willing to help, for help is usually a great investment. The strong will walk away from an insult, for their ego is in their strength, not in your words.
But fear the weak, for they will lie and cheat and...
“I have always thought Hans Christian Andersen should have written a companion...”
– Steven Fry (link)
April 2010
8 posts
1 tag
JS Macros
Something I’d love to see written on top of JavaScript:
macro let(Var v, Equals, Exp e, Block body) {
(function (<v>) {
<body>
})(<e>);
}
macro aif(Exp test, Block body) {
let it = <test> {
<body>
}
}
Python's Original Sin
I once said that Python is Dead because of the Language Moratorium but Jesse Noller convinced me an embargo on syntax innovation is the practical thing for the language. Reading about Perl 6 reminds me why this is a symptom of a more fundamental issue.
In Perl 6, the standard grammar is in a form executable by Perl 6. Like LISP, the language uses itself for parsing and compilation. Also like...
Another case against Gizmodo
Gruber describes a legal case against Gizmodo on the basis of theft, but I think there’s a lot more imagination the legal team at Apple will be employing. Here’s another possible case against Gizmodo:
Apple holds copyright to the shape and form of their devices
pictures of Apple’s phones are a derivative works of that design
usually, reproducing such a derivative work leads...
Two points about the iPhone prototype leak
Now that it turns out the iPhone prototype “found at a bar” is real, two points come to mind:
I’m not Steve Jobs, but if I were, I would cancel this iPhone launch and jump to working on the next one. I’m a perfectionist, and the unveiling is a huge part of the product ritual Apple is in the business of selling. Without it, the Apple experience just won’t be right.
...