Frustrations (Update) 3 hours ago

we naturally want to apply a lot of optimizations to source code and catch bugs as early as possible. Both of these goals are directly facilitated by Java’s static type system and the existence of great Java IDEs. That is why we, dispassionately, chose to center GWT on Java technologies. That’s it — no fodder for language wars here.

// Lots of stuff about JSNI, which lets you put raw Javascript into your GWT Java code…

UM OMG ok I'm just going to go back to bed now 5 days ago

Radiohead just released a new video for its song “House of Cards” from the album “In Rainbows”.

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

This Is Just To Say, I Used An Anti-Pattern 1 week ago

In software engineering, an anti-pattern (or antipattern) is a design pattern that appears obvious but is ineffective or far from optimal in practice.

The term was coined in 1995 by Andrew Koenig, inspired by Gang of Four’s book Design Patterns, which developed the concept of design patterns in the software field. The term was widely popularized three years later by the book AntiPatterns, which extended the use of the term beyond the field of software design and into general social interaction.

QotD & MotD 1 week ago

I might have Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. Or I might not get along with heat waves.

Everything romantic happens in the Fall. Nothing romantic, and I mean romantic, happens any other time.

My car won’t start. That is because God is fed the fuck up.

Self-righteousness is the breakfast food I am addicted to. Every morning, without fail, even sometimes at night.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. 1 week ago

You can’t destroy or diminish Deep Ellum. It was here long before all of the shiny shopping malls, the overpriced corporate live music venues and trendy “red velvet rope” clubs with their snooty bottle service. As was referenced time and time again last night, the area is the cradle of this city’s creative sensibility.

If you’re content to live in a vacuous, benign existence with little sense of purpose or meaning, then stay at home and jerk off your X-Box.

If you wanna break out of a routine that offers little or no spiritual or creative inspiration, then know you will be embraced and made to feel part of this very eclectic creative community.

…There’s nothing to be afraid of.

• Sociopolitically. Let’s face it, thinking about this category will send you into the fetal position. We don’t need to be reminded.
• Economically
• Technologically
• Generationally. Generation Xers are no longer the taste makers. And FIIK what the youngins are into these days

We rail against suburbia, but it is not the enemy: it is only our version of the enemy.

Real Snail Mail 3 weeks ago

Our snails are equipped with a miniaturised electronic circuit and antenna that enables them to be assigned messages from hardware located within their enclosure. The moment you click ‘send’ your message will travel at the speed of light to our snail server where it will await collection by a snail agent.

Once associated with the tiny electronic chip on the snails shell your message will be carried around until the snail chances by the drop off point. Hardware located at this point collects the message from the snail and forwards it to its final destination.

Amy Hoy: Technique or skill? 1 month ago

Writing headlines that get dugg vs Writing headlines that get remembered

Mastery of video game controllers vs Mastery of video game / problem-solving concepts

Convincing people to pay for your stuff vs Creating stuff people can’t live without

Google ability vs Research ability

Being able to survive in a given business vs Being able to survive in any situation

Knowing how to blog vs Knowing how to write

Knowing how to prepare a lesson plan vs Knowing how to educate

Knowing how to speak properly vs Knowing how to weave a compelling 45-minute narrative

Being a CSS ninja vs Being good at learning multifaceted rule sets

Writing good Java code vs Understanding programming theory

Making pretty with Photoshop vs Analyzing the world to come up with impactful new things

More Twitter Crossposting 1 month ago

Twitter is unreliable, even as a service to humans. It’s been all over the internet for the last month or two, as their site has gone down as much as it’s been up recently, due to higher use. In terms of application development using Twitter as a platform, they recently throttled the API limit form 70 to 30 calls an hour, and apparently (I haven’t had a chance to get caught up on it, but am hoping to today), changed a bunch of the API calls themselves.

All of this is fine if one understands that Twitter is a young service built by people with no sense on how to make their offering scale. “Send updates through Twitter” already has different expectations attached to it than “Send updates from your cell phone”…

I’m still really interested in Twitter and developing Twitter apps, but I’m in it from a higher level. I’m not worried about business requirements just yet.

Still, if one wants a quick-and-dirty mobile interface to their application, it still can’t be beat…

Beautiful And Original Product Designs 1 month ago

Successful product design manages to reveal useful functionality beyond its appealing form. No matter how excellent a design looks like, most customers aren’t likely to spend money on something they won’t be able to use. On the other hand, most people are likely to buy something useful despite the design it has.

Yet the key to a truly successful product design lies in designer’s ability to combine both beautiful design and functionality making it obvious to the customers how the product can be used and which benefits it delivers. However, one can combine the beauty of design with the utility it is supposed to provide.

Most products fail to pass this test and never reach the production stage; some products do manage to get to the stores. In the overview below you’ll find an overview of some beautiful and original product designs which will hopefully make the cut and will be available in the next years. Some of them are already available today.

favrd 2 months ago

So I spent the last few days knocking this together. It works on three principles: first, that anyone who wants to can have their vote counted; second, that things people find interesting are more important than people who find things interesting; and third, that by any means necessary, web-strategy, social-media, online-marketing webcocks – unaware as they are of how toxic their presence is in the arenas they cannot shut up about – must and shall be filtered out of view.

There’s some fancy albeit inchoate weighting logic going on under the surface, and I’ve got a few vaguely neato features in the works, though it is as they say very beta. It will I hope grow, and, as more people are added to the voting ranks, be a reliable source for funny, weird, obnoxious, entertaining, inspiring, webcock-less, tiny little fragments of life.

Twitter as Tribal 2 months ago

The act of one human being choosing to follow another is a big deal. As long as nefarious intent is not in play, the connection creates what the social science nerds like to call an affinity map; by drawing a line between you and me, we can infer that we’re somehow connected. How are we connected? Who knows? Maybe you like nerd culture? How about gel pens? We’re not really going to know until we test that link by asking a question.

…I’m eagerly watching Twitter evolve and organize itself. I’m dazzled as third parties are giving Twitter memory and context. But what I care about, and what has value to me, is the tribe of people in my ecosystem. Twitter is the best social network out there;, it’s a great social search engine;, and it’s a short strategic hop from being a terrific next generation address book.

My tribe is not your tribe because you’re not using Twitter how I do. You wrote an Academy Award winning screenplay, only follow a few people, but have thousands following you. You sell shoes and follow each of the thousands of people who follow you. You are a major airline, but sound surprisingly human.

Twitter’s value has nothing to do with the technology.

Breaking news, Twitter style 2 months ago

News of a possible explosion rippled through the popular online service Twitter on Tuesday, in a preview of what’s to come in the realm of breaking news and citizen journalism. Twitter is a so-called microblogging site that allows users to send and receive short messages.

At about 1:37 pm, software developer Dave Winer asked the Twitterverse: “Explosion in Falls Church, VA?”

My Map 2 months ago

Email became an integral part of my life in 1998. Like many people, I have archived all of my email with the hope of someday revisiting my past. I am interested in revealing the innumerable relationships between me, my schoolmates, work-mates, friends and family. This could not readily be accomplished by reading each of my 60,000 emails one-by-one. Instead, I created My Map, a relational map and alternative self portrait. My Map is a piece of custom designed software capable of rendering the relationships between myself and individuals in my address book by examining the TO:, FROM:, and CC: fields of every email in my email archive. The intensity of the relationship is determined by the intensity of the line. My Map allows me to explore different relational groupings and periods of time, revealing the temporal ebbs and flows in various relationships. In this way, My Map is a veritable self-portrait, a reflection of my associations and a way to locate myself.