Jun. 30, 2009

Jun. 19, 2009

Quote

9:44 am

Calling Iranian politics “byzantine” doesn’t quite do the trick, because all Byzantium really had going on was palace intrigue. Tehran is that, plus Twitter.

Gabriel Winant, from a piece detailing the ins-and-outs of Iran's current political scene. I love Twitter and all, but ascribing this kind of importance to the service is just way over the top. (#)

Jun. 18, 2009

Quote

9:52 am

When someone says “FAIL”, what they’re really saying is, “I’m failing to understand a creative person’s constraints.”

Anil Dash, on the death of FAIL. (#)

Jun. 16, 2009

Jun. 2, 2009

Quote

9:17 pm

If you review your first site version and don’t feel embarrassment, you spent too much time on it.

Reid Hoffman. (via 37signals.) (#)

May. 20, 2009

May. 19, 2009

May. 1, 2009

Quote

10:32 am

In order to understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.

Kai Diefenbach, quoting an unnamed source. (#)

Apr. 30, 2009

Apr. 27, 2009

I host the Django powered Dawsoning at Mosso on an Ubuntu cloud server. Since I somehow pulled off a successful upgrade from Ubuntu Intrepid to Ubuntu Jaunty, I thought I’d share a couple pointers.

Keep reading. // Leave a comment.

Apr. 22, 2009

Apr. 21, 2009

Apr. 12, 2009

Mar. 14, 2009

Mar. 10, 2009

Quote

7:12 am

We called it the Rubber Duck method of debugging. It goes like this:

  1. Beg, borrow, steal, buy, fabricate or otherwise obtain a rubber duck (bathtub variety).
  2. Place rubber duck on desk and inform it you are just going to go over some code with it, if that's all right.
  3. Explain to the duck what you code is supposed to do, and then go into detail and explain things line by line.
  4. At some point you will tell the duck what you are doing next and then realise that that is not in fact what you are actually doing. The duck will sit there serenely, happy in the knowledge that it has helped you on your way.

Works every time. Actually, if you don't have a rubber duck you could at a pinch ask a fellow programmer or engineer to sit in.

Andrew Errington, from an awk list-serv discussion on debugging. (#)

Mar. 8, 2009

Quote

8:45 am

When you talk about how much you like a tune, you don’t say: “That’s a great MP3”. You say: “That’s a great song”. The MP3 is the delivery mechanism, not the creative work; just as in type a font is the delivery mechanism and a typeface is the creative work.

Stephen Coles, typography enthusiast and contributor to Font Feed, on the distinction between the terms "font" and "typeface." (via Jeff Croft.) (#)

Mar. 5, 2009

Quote

9:59 am

We’re just a million little gods causing rain storms, turning every good thing to rust.

I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

Arcade Fire, from the song "Wake Up." (#)

Mar. 3, 2009

Mar. 2, 2009

If you’re like me and you’ve been following ExpressionEngine’s Knowledge Base article on porting an EE site from one server to another, let me share a secret. You’ve been doing it the hard way.

Keep reading. // Leave a comment.