For m’nerds.

Over this past year, there have been commentary back and forth on whether everyone should learn to code. A few free, interactive sites like Codecademy popped up which made it easy to start learning some basic coding. I was a big fan – I helped my eleven year old daughter go through it, and we both agreed it was great.

Awesome. As far as I’m concerned, everyone should know a little programming.

MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It’s a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything inbetween

Great to see projects like this doing well on Kickstarter. The Pebbles and Light Tables of the world are great, but nothing beats empowering people (kids and adults alike) to learn how to make things.

Matt Brennan:

It’s all I’m asking. When looking at a framework, or library, or whatever the fuck you’re pitching, I want to see the code, writ large above the fold. It’s all well and good waffling on for the best part of 2000 pixels about high-level English descriptions of why exactly I should care. But if I don’t see the code, I lose interest.

I still have no fucking clue how one goes about writing a Backbone.js app.

Well put. Cue Jerry Maguire imitation.

Mark Cuban:

Its far too easy to borrow money for college. Did you know that there is more outstanding debt for student loans than there is for Auto Loans or Credit Card loans ? Thats right. The 37mm holders of student loans have more debt than the 175mm or so credit card owners in this country and more than the all of the debt on cars in this country. While the average student loan debt is about 23k. The median is close to $12,500. And growing. Past 1 TRILLION DOLLARS.

From the ever-astounding MIT Media Lab:

Users can physically place [ZeroN] anywhere within a specified three-dimensional block of “anti-gravity space,” then watch as it stays in place when they let it go. It can also move through the air on its own, and even function as a virtual movie camera.

Amazing. I didn’t even know the Lending Library existed. What a concept. Who’s got two thumbs and is buying a Kindle?

This is a critical inflection point where the user is weighing the following: is the amount of investment I’ve made to date worth banging my head against the screen trying to figure out what to do next? An application like Photoshop doesn’t do [the kind of extensive user testing done by the Portal team] because they know you’re going to be committed to figuring out the challenge because you plunked down $700 for the privilege of owning Photoshop.

Eric Adelson for Yahoo! Sports:

Yeah, Brodeur’s at the end of his career. Yeah, he’s 40. Yeah, he hasn’t won a Vezina Trophy since 2008 (the horror!). And lately he hasn’t always been his old self, including in these playoffs, when he was benched during the opening round after allowing three quick goals in Game 2 against the Panthers.

Some Devils fans got panicky when that happened. But even that was foreign. Devils fans? Fretful about the goaltending situation? How often has that happened in the last 20 years? About as often as Flyers fans have been fretful about the goaltending over the last 20 minutes.

Nice.

From Disney’s Research Labs (who’d-a thunk it?).

This reminds me of (former Apple UI designer) Bret Victor’s rant on the present and future of touch interaction. A worthy read, especially after (or before, for that matter) watching this incredible demo.

M.E. Driscoll, in “the secret guild of silicon valley”:

They aren’t interested in tweeting, blogging, or giving talks at conferences. They care about building and shipping code. They’re more likely to be found in IRC chat rooms, filing JIRAs for Apache projects, or spinning out Github repos in their spare time.

Today, long after losing its title as the tallest building in the world, and at a time when taller structures (everywhere, but especially in Asia) are rising at a dizzying clip, the ESB nevertheless still stands alone — literally and figuratively — on the Manhattan skyline.

Taken by my good friend, Brian McDonald. Be sure to +1.

I seem to have a lot of conversations recently with people who find themselves in the kitchen but without the means to cook anything.

As a cook myself they often ask me how to go about finding themselves a chef who can cook something for them. I ask them why they want to do that and they tell me they’ve got a great idea for a cuisine only they don’t usually have a recipe and, as mentioned, they never have a chef.

Hint: this isn’t an article about food.

Art Carden for Forbes:

The demand curve for drugs is extremely inelastic, meaning that people don’t change their drug consumption very much in response to changes in prices. Therefore, vigorous enforcement means higher prices and higher revenues for drug dealers.

Yup.

Louis Montulli, creator of Lynx and an original Netscaper:

At some point in the evening I mentioned that it was sad that Lynx was not going to be able to display many of the HTML extensions that we were proposing, I also pointed out that the only text style that Lynx could exploit given its environment was blinking text. We had a pretty good laugh at the thought of blinking text, and talked about blinking this and that and how absurd the whole thing would be.

Jim Dalrymple for the Loop:

April is Autism Awareness Month and while more children than ever are being diagnosed with Autism, many are finding a bit of relief by using some form of modern technology, like Apple’s iPad.

As you would expect, the ubiquity and affordability of the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch have brought AAC apps to a larger segment of users than ever before.

Despite all the good news, what’s heartbreaking about this situation is that Dynavox, et al., have patented the hell out of the assistive technology that they use on their (inferior) touchscreen devices.

In order to protect themselves from better or just-as-good competitors (i.e., iPad apps) that cost orders of magnitude less than their proprietary hardware, they’ve resorted to litigation, stifling innovation in the space.

Here’s to the death of software patents.

With adapters for iOS, mini, and micro USB. I’m picking up the Dock Connector/micro USB pack for my iPhone and Jawbone Icon.

Great idea.

Speaking of two-factor authentication, check out Duo. Free for a single user, it enables everyday folks like you and me to add two-factor authentication to our other internet identities. Works with iOS, Android, or via text. Though I haven’t tried it yet, it looks great at first glance.

There’s also a WordPress plugin for it, and I’ll be adding it to my installation tonight. If you’re planning on hacking my blog, be sure to do it soon. ;)

Update: Installation was a breeze. And the app is fantastic as well. Highly recommended.

By John Gall.

Jeff Atwood, on GMail’s two-factor authentication:

I know what you’re thinking. Yes, this is a pain in the ass. I’ll fully acknowledge that. But you know what’s an even bigger pain in the ass? Having your entire online identity stolen and trashed by a hacker who happens to obtain your email password one day. Remember that article I exhorted you to read at the beginning? Oh, you didn’t read it? Go freaking read it now!

Permit me to channel Jamie Zawinski one last time: “OMG, entering these email codes on every device I access email would be a lot of work! That sounds like a hassle!” Shut up. I know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway.

I’ve been using two-factor authentication with my frank.is email address for the last year or so. It’s not that big of a hassle. The protection is well worth the inconvenience. Please.

If you use GMail, you must do this. If you use another email service that doesn’t offer two-factor auth, switch to GMail or one that does. Please. Seriously.

Bob Stein:

The most interesting thing for me today about these images is that although we foresaw that people would be accessing information wirelessly (notice the little antenna on the device in the “tide pool” image, we completely missed the most important aspect of the network — that it was going to connect people to other people.

Kip Hawley, former head of the TSA:

Taking your shoes off for security is probably your least favorite part of flying these days. Mine, too. I came into office dead set on allowing people to keep their shoes on during screening. But, contrary to popular belief, it isn’t just Richard Reid’s failed shoe-bomb attempt in December 2001 that is responsible for the shoe rule. For years, the TSA has received intelligence on the terrorists’ footwear-related innovations. Some very capable engineer on the other side is spending a lot of time improving shoe bombs, which can now be completely nonmetallic and concealed in a normal street shoe. There’s still no quick way to detect them without an X-ray.

Looks like you were right, George, but twenty years late.

Pebble is the first watch built for the 21st century. It’s infinitely customizable, with beautiful downloadable watchfaces and useful internet-connected apps. Pebble connects to iPhone and Android smartphones using Bluetooth, alerting you with a silent vibration to incoming calls, emails and messages. While designing Pebble, we strove to create a minimalist yet fashionable product that seamlessly blends into everyday life.

Sweet. Getting a white one to complement my black iPod Nano watch.

Chuck Raasch, for USA Today:

[The Oklahoma-based auction house offering the property] markets Buford as a “unique opportunity” to “own your own income-producing town.” The auction will be at noon MT at 2 Sammons Lane in Buford, illustrating how naming streets after yourself is a perk of owning your own town. Online bidders who register by noon CT Wednesday can participate at www.auctionnetwork.com.

I’d do it if I had the money, just because it’d be the greatest conversation starter in history.

(via Freakonomics)

Roger Ebert:

As a documentary about world-class sushi, this film is definitive. It runs only 81 minutes, but the subject is finite. While watching it, I found myself drawn into the mystery of this man. Are there any unrealized wishes in his life? Secret diversions? Regrets? If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough?

Be sure to check out the film’s beautiful trailer.

iOS devices have, on average, reached 10% version share 300 times faster than Android versions, 30% share 19 times faster, and 50% share 7 times faster.

I’d be willing to bet that there are millions of Android users out there who’re using their phones the same way they used their dumbphones before upgrading. (via The Loop)

Exactly what it sounds like. It reminds me of that crappy camera you could buy for the Gameboy way back when. Except the dithering is better.

Here’s its App Store link.

Mini review update: The app does (live) 1-bit dithering of two varieties: either Bayer dithering or Atkinson dithering, the latter of which was developed by Bill Atkinson for QuickDraw on the original Macintosh. If you like vintage personal computing, you’ll like this.

That said, I can’t see myself using this all too frequently, though the effect is quite nice, because the only way to export photos from the app is to post them to a social network (either tumblr, twitter, or Facebook). I see the charm in simplicity, but even just an option to email the photo would’ve been enough for me. In order to get this photo into this article, I had to post it to twitter and delete it immediately after. Le sigh.

“Love rats” infest British newspapers, if not the real world. The same applies to the verb “to knife”; an editor at some point must have decided that simply “stabbing” wasn’t emotive enough. And of course the need for drama means mild criticism whispered in corridors become all-out “attacks” when rolled through the printing presses.

I wonder if this piece’s author, identified only as C.S.W. in the byline, has ever read a newspaper written in another language. If he has, he’d know that English speakers aren’t alone in this. Still, his thesis rings true. Journalese is weird.

The real reason I’m annoyed is not that their estimate is wrong. It’s that they assume that they can even make an estimate. That’s because as developers we unconsciously realize that the way a layperson naturally estimates complexity breaks down when it comes to software.

Well put. I deal with this on nearly every project, and often multiple times on each.

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

Sound advice for a little girl from a master storyteller. I’m printing this out and hanging it near my desk.

So the Ryan budget is a fraud; Mr. Ryan talks loudly about the evils of debt and deficits, but his plan would actually make the deficit bigger even as it inflicted huge pain in the name of deficit reduction. But is his budget really the most fraudulent in American history? Yes, it is.

Extremists have hijacked the Republican party, and they’re wielding their newfound power with swift and heavy hand, pulling apart the middle class bill by bill and shaking up the foundation of American politics with every refusal to compromise.

What her brain tumor needs, Maureen says, is someone like Christopher Reeve. When Christopher Reeve became a quad, oh baby, there was a tsunami of research money for quads. But Maureen’s brain tumor is an unmapped, uncharted, unclaimed publicity wilderness. No celebrity has stuck his or her flag in it, so to speak.

“You need to understand that you’re involved in the greatest world war in the history of the world, and at a foundational level this is a war of world views,” Miller said. “It’s not a war of bombs, bullets and airplanes, it’s much more serious than that. This is a war that’s already claimed the souls of billions of people.”

Rather than attempt to prove that the Earth had formed in six days or present evidence for a global flood, Miller spent most of the talk attacking evolution. He presented a barrage of slides highlighting what he claimed were problems with everything from radio-carbon dating to humanity’s hominid ancestors.

Each point was met with alternating smatterings of laughter and ‘Amen.’

Frightening.

“Was the MacBook Air an inspiration for this category?” I asked Intel’s P.R. team. “No,” was the answer. “The Ultrabook category was conceptualized out of multiple rounds of research going back several years.” Chalk up one for mind-blowing coincidence.

When Thunderbolt drives become more affordable¹, the value of the MacBook Air will skyrocket. The speed of a connection like that liberates notebooks from their (relatively) giant-sized hard drives of yore. Internal hard drives are, as they say, so last year. You can count on it.

1. My prediction: Q1 2013. ↩

“We have just been told that we can only work a maximum of 36 hours a month of overtime. I tell you, a lot of us are unhappy with this. We think that 60 hours of overtime a month would be reasonable and that 36 hours would be too little,” she added. Chen said she now earned a bit over 4,000 yuan a month ($634).

I’m no expert, but it seems that there’s some cultural misunderstanding here. Every time some agency full of white people comes in to check up on the working conditions at Foxconn, the workers get pissed that their hours are getting cut.

Possibly related to the fact that if they weren’t doing this, they’d be doing backbreaking farm work with zero chance of advancement. Possibly.

There may be no white America and no black America, no blue-state America and no red-state America, but one thing is clear: There is a young America and there is an old America, and they don’t form a community of interest. One takes from the other. The federal government spends $480 billion on Medicare and $68 billion on education. Prescription drugs: $62 billion. Head Start: $8 billion. Across the board, the money flows not to helping the young grow up, but helping the old die comfortably.

This is not a magazine article. This is a devastating exegesis of a major economic and cultural deficiency plaguing the planet. You must read it.

In America, the boomers in (and out of) our legislature need to start taking this generation seriously and to start pushing for public policy that fosters success without dismissing our pleas as ‘asking for handouts.’ We didn’t build the internet, but we made it what it is today. We changed the way the planet communicates. We’re smarter, better connected, more tolerant, and more conscientious about our planet’s and our society’s needs. And we’d be improving it all if they’d only let us.

This is not merely a question of nomenclature. The label we apply to criminal acts matters crucially in terms of how we conceive of and stigmatize them. What we choose to call a given type of crime ultimately determines how it’s formulated and classified and, perhaps most important, how it will be punished.

What scares me most about all this is that the fogies in the legislature who are making these decisions don’t understand the technology at all. Across the board, these are guys (and they’re mostly guys) who barely know how to use computers, let alone how they function.

This post concludes with the Amtrak logo (2000), which is a typical post-2000 logo without any meaning or character.

By improving our ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data, the initiative promises to help accelerate the pace of discovery in science and engineering, strengthen our national security, and transform teaching and learning.

A rare bit of promising news from the demoralizingly inefficient Federal Government. Slightly less surprising because it comes from the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Geeks FTW and all that.

Get a more detailed rundown in the very readable full press release.

To accurately represent the diversity among little people, Snow White would have to be followed around by about 3.5 million dwarfs. Oh sure, some would be sleepy or dopey, but others would be alert or brilliant or didactic or bemused or pushy or depressed or sarcastic or generous or vindictive or whatever. They would be bank presidents and single moms and acrobats and violinists and fry cooks and drug pushers and so on. But everyone’s been so brainwashed by those damn seven dwarfs.

Hysterical. Smart Ass Cripple nails it again, with all the dark wit you expect from the man voted “World’s Biggest Smart Ass by J.D. Power and Associates.”

An inscription on paper or stone can be a beautiful thing to look at, a work of art. It is not the content which interests me most, but the shape and rhythm of the lettering. An inscription must be pleasing and well balanced to the eye. This requires an in-depth knowledge of sound typographic principles.

Absolutely gorgeous work. The level of precision is astounding.

“Technological innovation makes human societies prosperous, but also involves the replacement of the old with the new, and the destruction of the economic privileges and political power of certain people,” Acemoglu and Robinson write. Yet when elites temporarily preserve power by preventing innovation, they ultimately impoverish their own states.

Maybe children have an eye for detail because everything is new to them.