CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-18 17:52:40 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

"You can’t beat the Illuminati."

The hottest new social network. Sign up today.

It's like Path for high-ranking social placeholders.

2013-06-17 21:59:19 (15 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

The grammar rules for whomever vs whoever are as clear as mud.

2013-06-17 20:31:56 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 11 +1s)

Exciting—more Chromebooks in more places!

Members of both of our families are now using Chromebooks as their daily laptops, and I recently started using a Pixel myself (wow, what a bit of kit), and even though I'm a diehard command-line junkie, life in Chrome and the Cloud is already there for the 80% of what even I do. For normal people, that's got to be more like 95%.

Great to see.

2013-06-17 16:36:28 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

As of Xcode 4.6.3 you're apparently now required to launch Xcode to download the command line tools. Used to be a stand-alone download. For those that never use Xcode itself, but do use homebrew, this is a annoying regression.

2013-06-15 13:45:03 (7 comments, 32 reshares, 57 +1s)

Lucid walk-through of +Jordan Mechner's recently released Prince of Persia source code for the Apple II, at least the bootloading parts. Not having been an Apple II programmer myself, this is one of those articles where I learned something in literally every paragraph.

I'm hoping the author, +Fabien Sanglard, can find the time to go into detail about more of the game code itself. Fascinating stuff!

In three parts:

1. http://fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia
2. http://fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia/pop_boot.php
3. http://fabiensanglard.net/prince_of_persia/pop_boot2.php

Many thanks to Fabien for writing this. Insightful throughout.

2013-06-11 12:24:37 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 20 +1s)

In the fight against sign-up spam, it's nice to be able to highlight a company doing it right.

In the example below, we see how the people at kik.com follow several best practices when signing up new users. While they do require an email address to register, they also:

  a) First require that the email address be confirmed before using it.

  b) Provide a  "this wasn't me!" disavowal link in the confirmation mail.

  c) Provide a one-click "unsubscribe" link, per the CAN-SPAM rules.

Everything about this email is properly done as far as I can see. Good work by the Kik team. Even the disavowal page is well designed and clear.

I don't know if I'll ever be in the market for another messenger product, but if I am, I have a good impression of Kik already.

2013-06-02 18:37:08 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

With the new commute I've had more of a chance to catch up on casual reading, and I'm back on a near-future post-apocalyptic kick.

+Matthew Mather's CyberStorm was a fun read and a steal at $0.99 (why not charge full price!), and I'm wondering if there are any more recent novels in the genre like Cormac McCarthy's The Road in narrative style (not that anyone can  do McCarthy but McCarthy).

Along those lines, I'm very much enjoying part two of +Hugh Howey's Silo Saga, Shift (amzn.com/B00B6Z6HI2), the follow-up to his excellent Wool (amzn.com/B0071XO8RA). I have no idea how he can write that well that fast.

Anything else post-apocalyptic I might enjoy?

2013-06-02 17:27:30 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Interesting. I created an account on medium.com, and the vanity profile URL has an @-sign in it. I'm not sure, but this might be the first time I've seen someone risk an un-encoded @-sign in a HTTP URL before. Any prior art?

I'm not entirely surprised that it works in modern browsers; while the '@' character is reserved in RFC 3986 under gen-delims I don't believe it in practice gets special treatment for general URLs. Though it is used specifically in the email: scheme, and many clients use it as a hint in Basic Access Authentication flows. That said, I wonder it will break older browsers, or fail validation tests on other non-browser client libraries.

Personally, I'd probably have skipped the @-sign if just for aesthetic reasons (as Twitter does), but it's an interesting choice either way.

2013-06-01 17:06:02 (3 comments, 4 reshares, 22 +1s)

Spintires

Now this is an impressive physics demo. Four-wheeling in realistic off-road conditions.

Will it make for a quality game? I'm not sure. But if you're interested, there's a kickstarter for it here:

  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/358753914/spintires-the-ultimate-off-road-challenge

Via r/games: http://redd.it/1fgrzo

2013-06-01 04:01:30 (8 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

Not sure how sharing from All Access works, but The National's Trouble Will Find Me hits you right in the feels. Worth listening to if you liked Boxer even a little bit.

2013-05-28 14:20:51 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

For functional programming fans: +Adam Bard takes a look at Clojure/core.reducers, and how the parallelism expressed in the framework impacts performance. In particular, the new 'fold' method (a parallel 'reduce' and 'combine') can have major benefits.

More on reducers at clojure.com/blog/2012/05/15/anatomy-of-reducer.html.

2013-05-27 16:19:27 (4 comments, 7 reshares, 34 +1s)

"On April 17, a paper arrived in the inbox of Annals of Mathematics, one of the discipline’s preeminent journals. Written by a mathematician virtually unknown to the experts in his field — a 50-something lecturer at the University of New Hampshire named Yitang Zhang — the paper claimed to have taken a huge step forward in understanding one of mathematics’ oldest problems, the twin primes conjecture."

Great article. Written for the non-mathematician, author Erica Klarreich provides a clear overview of the challenges of the twin primes conjecture itself, and then explains Zhang's progress toward unraveling it.

A quick search shows this was shared by several people already, but worth noting regardless. Via +Simon Phipps.

2013-05-26 19:08:55 (13 comments, 3 reshares, 10 +1s)

I think I like this British teenager's rendition of Daft Punk's Get Lucky even better than the Pharrell Williams original. More soul.

2013-05-24 14:24:15 (7 comments, 3 reshares, 17 +1s)

Just had a pleasant first-time shopping experience at booking.com.

I landed there after a hotel search at google.com/hotelfinder (which also is really good if you haven't seen it). The price on booking.com was a full $100 cheaper than buying directly to the hotel website, which was unexpected, and then the new user purchase experience on the booking.com website was so strong I felt inspired to write this.

As far as the experience went, I liked that the entire thing fit in just three attractive screens. First the hotel and room selection on one screen, then entering my personal contact information (email, address, phone) on another, then my form of payment on a third, each with pleasant in-line green checkboxes appearing when a field was properly filled out.

And finally, at the end, after the successful reservation, it simply said "enter a password if you'd like... more »

2013-05-23 21:37:45 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I've had somewhat of an obsession of late with hyperrealist art (both painting and sculpture) and this Justin E. H. Smith essay in Paper Monument uses the work of Ron Mueck as a touchpoint to drill down into questions of scale and size and perspective. A world where even exquisitely and perfectly rendered bodies become inhuman—perhaps transcend humanity?—when the point of view itself is transfigured.

Via +Roger White.

2013-05-22 20:40:37 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Driver killed on I-580 in freak accident

"The pipe was 2 to 3 feet long and 1 to 2 inches in diameter, Hahn said. It was probably being used as extra leverage to strap down a large load on a truck and fell off, but it could be all but impossible to determine its source, he said."

I vehemently disagree that this was a "freak accident." I see trucks driving with unsafe loads all the time around here. CHP needs to be much more vigilant about enforcing basic safety requirements.

While it may be impossible to catch the person responsible in this case, it's a shameful cop-out to not even try to make our highways safer.

2013-05-21 17:27:55 (34 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

I'm highly likely to buy whatever it is that Microsoft is announcing as Xbox One today. The PS4, not so much.

So what exactly did Microsoft announce?

2013-05-21 05:54:09 (16 comments, 2 reshares, 20 +1s)

Daft Punk Random Access Memories

I know what I'm listening to on my commute tomorrow:

Play: https://play.google.com/music/listen#/sal/Bpc2cw3xyf7i3ffifugspb3ufti Rdio: http://www.rdio.com/artist/Daft_Punk/album/Random_Access_Memories/ Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/album/4m2880jivSbbyEGAKfITCa

So what are your first impressions?

2013-05-21 02:35:17 (19 comments, 20 reshares, 32 +1s)

This is what happens when you let junk mail subsidize the US postal system.

2013-05-20 05:49:33 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Hey, it's my old friend +Peter Rubin talking about the all-time great stories in gaming in what I think is his first video podcast with +WIRED. Excellent segment. Nice to see you on YouTube, Peter!

2013-05-14 15:33:25 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 37 +1s)

Picked a good day for my first day in the new office.

2013-05-14 06:19:16 (7 comments, 6 reshares, 25 +1s)

What an end. Has to be seen to be believed.

2013-05-13 15:27:19 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 19 +1s)

I can't believe it took me this long, but I finally found the magic incantation on Mac for removing autocompleted websites from the Chrome Omnibar:

Type the site name, "www.foo.com", use the arrow to highlight the site, then Function (fn)  - Shift (⇧) - Delete (⌫).

Thanks Gareth on Superuser.com.

2013-05-10 23:43:17 (17 comments, 2 reshares, 53 +1s)

Next week I'll be returning from leave, and my first stop is Google I/O, where we may or may not be unveiling a product I may or may not have spent the past year or so helping create. (How's that for coy!)

Then I'm changing gears and off to join the Google App Engine team full-time up here in San Francisco. I'm thrilled about having the opportunity to work with a wonderful engineering team, and look forward to meeting the many, many of you who use App Engine in your own products. Together we can do incredible things.

If you're in town for Google I/O 2013, I can't wait to see you again. And if you're interested in talking about Google App Engine, please do drop by and say hello. See you all next week!

2013-05-10 22:17:03 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Sequs Horribilis

Not exactly sure why, but problem #112 gave me more trouble than most.

The problem itself is simply stated: "Create a function which takes an integer and a nested collection of integers as arguments. Analyze the elements of the input collection and return a sequence which maintains the nested structure, and which includes all elements starting from the head whose sum is less than or equal to the input integer."

In fact, I effectively gave up entirely and used an atom (which is race-free, but breaks parallelism due to lock contention on the atom), rather than code a purely functional solution, which I know to be do-able, but I just couldn't solve it in a pretty way, no matter how hard I tried.

I believe that it might be possible to use reductions of the flattened collection, something along the lines of (reductions + (flatten... more »

2013-05-09 18:59:55 (14 comments, 4 reshares, 18 +1s)

Now this is a Kickstarter I can get behind: My friend +Dorrian Porter is raising money to bring a life-sized bronze statue of Nikola Tesla to Palo Alto.

They need to raise just over $100k to build the statue. I say we can do it.

Become a backer of the Nikola Tesla statue here: http://kck.st/ZWLzgG

Go Team Tesla!

2013-05-08 20:18:33 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

I'm on a horse.

Via +Laughing Squid: laughingsquid.com/tiny-goat-rides-a-horse-and-gets-bucked-off

2013-05-08 19:55:20 (30 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I'm curious. How many of you have your visibility set to public when you visit other LinkedIn profiles? 

I've always had my visibility off, never thought to change it. Do most people reveal themselves?

2013-05-06 22:41:29 (6 comments, 6 reshares, 13 +1s)

All of the positions of +Sauber F1 Team's pit crew identified and labeled.

And if you missed it earlier this year, here's Team +Red Bull setting a record stop of 2.05 seconds on Mark Webber's second pit in Malaysia: Infiniti Red Bull Racing sets new pitstop world record - GONE IN 2.05 SECONDS. Need to watch that 10 times just to make sense of it all.

Good luck in Spain, Mark! We're pulling for you. You deserve another podium. And Nico, your day is sure to come soon.

Ninja edit: Replaced the imgur link to the one posted directly by +Sauber F1 Team. Thanks, +Henning Hoefer!

2013-05-01 23:39:44 (15 comments, 14 reshares, 39 +1s)

This video is totally f**king ridiculous.  Check it out.

2013-05-01 20:15:00 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

+Kashmir Hill's adventure trying to live off of bitcoin for a week in San Francisco is a good read. 

Though I think cheating and using cash is a perfectly acceptable alternative for the privacy and anonymity inclined. Would have made buying a cup of coffee a whole lot easier, too.

2013-05-01 14:50:37 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

The Blue Bottle barista at HSM spelled my name with a "k" this morning. Not sure that way would have even occurred to me.

2013-05-01 04:47:18 (13 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Hmm. Not sure if there's any there here.

I mean, it's trivial to recognize in hindsight that an idea that you thought wouldn't pan out actually did. Dustin Curtis here cites Pinterest and Vine as two that he missed. Happens to all of us. I was skeptical about both Chrome and YouTube, for example, and those are two of the most important developments of the past ten years.

But what do you take away from this? That all ideas are potentially good, if only the founders have sufficient passion and stick with them long enough? That you should never trust your own instinct when you think a product might flop? That you should never pass on an investment opportunity? That there are, on the contrary, no stupid ideas?

What path would that line of reasoning lead us down? Is there anything actionable here at all?

2013-05-01 01:03:06 (4 comments, 6 reshares, 16 +1s)

Step one, open Nena - 99 Luftballons 1984 in a new tab. Wait for the beat.

Step two, click the video below.

Enjoy. Via +Marco Nelissen.

2013-05-01 00:36:03 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Know anybody who would like to work at +O'Reilly.  A new entry position for a Sales Associate with likely travel right out of the gate. Info here:

http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/jobvite.aspx?b=nxiPhkwK

2013-04-29 06:10:54 (9 comments, 3 reshares, 31 +1s)

I'm sure there was a good story here.

2013-04-28 15:31:32 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 12 +1s)

Thought this would be cheesy.

Nope, it was cool. Really puts things in perspective.

Via: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5620893

2013-04-28 15:32:18 (7 comments, 19 reshares, 39 +1s)

VIDEO: President Obama kills at the WHCA Dinner

This was hysterical:



THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you, everybody.  (Laughter.)  How do you like my new entrance music?  (Applause.)  Rush Limbaugh warned you about this -- second term, baby.  (Laughter and applause.)  We’re changing things around here a little bit.  (Laughter.)

Actually, my advisors were a little worried about the new rap entrance music.  (Laughter.)  They are a little more traditional.  They suggested that I should start with some jokes at my own expense, just take myself down a peg.  I was like, guys, after four and a half years, how many pegs are there left?  (Laughter.)

I want to thank the White House Correspondents.  Ed, you’re doing an outstanding job.  We are grateful for -- (applause) -- the great work you’ve done.  To all thedignitaries who are her... more »

2013-04-27 14:58:53 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Question: Do you prefer Exec or Task Rabbit for small handyman jobs?

The particular task I have in mind is securing a number of free-standing ceiling-height bookcases from tipping in case of earthquake.

Maybe a 2 hour job, between running to the hardware store, moving things around, finding studs, screwing things in and whatnot. Is either service better or worse for something like this in your experience?

2013-04-27 04:51:07 (11 comments, 47 reshares, 79 +1s)

This is absolutely incredible. High resolution (one foot) aerial photographs of San Francisco from 1937-38, stitched together and displayed in a Google Maps satellite-view-esque interface.

It's like time travelling. I can't stop scrolling around.

Via: http://redd.it/1d6sbk

2013-04-27 15:17:08 (8 comments, 2 reshares, 17 +1s)

+Kevin McShane is a cartoon genius. Thanks for sharing!

2013-04-25 23:17:22 (12 comments, 6 reshares, 25 +1s)

Position based fluids demonstration. Apparently there is a new technique for simulating water, and it is more realistic and can render in real time.

2013-04-25 16:02:22 (10 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

Looking forward to giving Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail a shot on my home machine.

Release notes: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes

My primary personal desktop setup is Windows 8 on an iMac 27" running Ubuntu under under VirtualBox. I find that Win8 is fast and required for gaming, the iMac is pretty and looks great in the living room, VirtualBox is stable and easy to use, and Linux is still the best way to get the OS out of the way when you want to focus (I use wmii and an xterm and emacs, none of that silly Unity or IDE stuff).

Anyway, off to take a snapshot of the running 12.10 install and begin the upgrade.

2013-04-19 19:05:03 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I had never considered donating bone marrow before, but that's exactly what my cousin-in-law +Adam Diesburg did. 

The contemporary method sounds intense, but arguably less traumatic for the donor than the old surgical technique:

"You are administered a drug called nupogen that allows your white blood cells to increase in your bones. They run out of space and are pushed out into your blood stream. The marrow physically runs out of space in your bones."

Intense indeed. But for a very good cause. Huge props to Adam for volunteering.

2013-04-19 18:57:33 (5 comments, 13 reshares, 29 +1s)

What happens when you wring water out of a washcloth in zero gravity.

I did not expect that.

Space is wonderful.

Via http://boingboing.net/2013/04/18/what-happens-when-you-wring-ou.html via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575469.

2013-04-19 03:29:11 (2 comments, 4 reshares, 25 +1s)

Some of the most talented people I have met have some form of a disability.

I've never seen this video before but it is incredible. 
http://youtu.be/Lv2xtXSMup0

2013-04-18 18:55:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

So excited that my old friend +Fiona Maazel is here in town for a reading of her latest novel, Woke Up Lonely, this evening at 7:30 at The Booksmith in San Francisco.

  http://www.booksmith.com/event/fiona-maazel-woke-lonely

Hope to make it over there tonight!

2013-04-18 16:23:32 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 24 +1s)

I'm excited to announce something else we've been working on: Google+ Comments, launching today on Blogger. This provides you with some features that you won't have seen in other commenting systems; my own favorite is that it brings the conversation from G+ into your blog, so that the social media conversation doesn't get segregated from the comment thread.

This is a purely opt-in launch for blog owners: if you have a blog and want to try it out, follow the instructions in this post. We'll be rolling it out over the course of today!

2013-04-17 16:23:34 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 5 +1s)

Reinventing Regulation

I'm doing a Google+ Hangout next week (April 23, 11 am PT) on a subject that I've been thinking about for a while: how should government regulation be updated for the 21st century?  Regulation has a bad name, largely because it is so easy to think of so many examples where it's done badly. When regulatory systems work, we take them for granted.

For example, without the "regulation" imposed by anti-spam efforts on the net, email would be unusable, search results would be useless, and reasonable discussions on blogs and other online forums impossible. Without the regulatory efforts of credit card fraud detection, e-commerce would be impossible. Without the regulatory efforts of the fuel injection system in your car, the traffic control system on a subway system, or the autopilot in an aircraft, transportation would be reduced to a... more »

2013-04-16 23:46:45 (24 comments, 3 reshares, 26 +1s)

Bundaberg.

We may have found the perfect ginger beer.

Brewed and bottled in Australia. We get ours at Haight Street Market in San Francisco.