March 2012
17 posts
4 tags
Dan Dilger discusses the new iPad's name →
Daniel Eran Dilger:
By centering on a single brand name for each major product category it sells, Apple spends much less on advertising and promoting new brands and customers find it easier to find what they’re looking for and ask for it by name.
Covers most of the same points I did several days ago, but goes much more deeper into Apple’s own history, and their competitive...
4 tags
Case Insensitive Completion in Terminal →
Neat trick. It annoyed me that if I wanted to type the directory “Some Very Long Name I Don’t Want To Type”, I used to have to type a capitol S or else it wouldn’t complete (by pressing Tab). You can modify your ~/.inputrc file to allow case insensitive completion, though. Just add the following line:
set completion-ignore-case on
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Hogwarts model used in the movies →
Wow. Amazing work. Make sure you scroll down to see people standing next to the model, for a sense of its incredible scale.
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"The new iPad"
Of all the new things about the iPad announced yesterday, one thing surprised everybody. What did they decide call it? Rather than going with “iPad 3” or “iPad HD”, they chose, simply, “The new iPad”. From Apple’s homepage (screenshot for posterity):
Why would Apple choose this path, after they did name the previous model “iPad 2” and...
3 tags
Xcode 4.3 fixes installation
I posted a few months ago about the way Apple was distributing Xcode through the app store as an installer, and even defended it (somewhat).
That’s all behind us now, since as of version 4.3, it’s a self-contained .app bundle like a good Mac App Store citizen. This of course had an impact on some command line tools, which are also now distributed in its app bundle, but it will...
4 tags
The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009) →
Rating: ★★★★☆☆
I’m flagging this whole post with a spoiler alert. If you’ve read the book and seen the movie, or have no plans of doing either, or just don’t care, go ahead, but I talk about a lot of details from the end of the story. This post intends to discuss the movie and book amongst those who have already experienced them.
Let me start by discussing what I liked...
February 2012
20 posts
3 tags
New Instapaper web view!
Marco Arment recently updated the web interface for Instapaper, and I’m a big fan. I had been using Instapaper Article Tools to add some functionality to the web view, but that’s no longer necessary. I primarily appreciate two things:
A floating bar at the top of the window that allows you to Archive, Delete, or Favorite an article, no matter how far you’ve read. Previously,...
4 tags
Scarlet Spider
I’m really enjoying the new Scarlet Spider series that started a few weeks ago. I’m glad that Marvel brought back the Kaine character from the Clone Saga, as he was my favorite part of it (especially The Lost Years1: some great John Romita, Jr. work). The first couple of issues (all that are out so far) have a very cinematic feel to them, with #1 going so far as to write its credits...
5 tags
Mountain Lion drops support for several older Mac... →
Both of my Macs (in bold) EOLed at once! This is going to be an expensive year…
This means the following Macs which are supported under OS X Lion will not be able to run Mountain Lion (model identifiers in parentheses):
Late 2006 iMacs (iMac5,1, iMac5,2, iMac6,1)
All plastic MacBooks that pre-date the aluminum unibody redesign (MacBook2,1, MacBook3,1, MacBook4,1)
MacBook Pros...
7 tags
What changed since a particular revision?
Often, I need to see the list of files that changed since a particular revision, and I’ve recently been doing all my version control on the command line.
In Mercurial, the command looks like this (where X is the revision to compare against):
hg status --rev X:
In Subversion:
svn diff -r X:HEAD --summarize
With either one, you can specify a second revision, as well, rather than...
3 tags
Daring Fireball: Walter Isaacson's 'Steve Jobs' →
John Gruber cuts to the heart of what’s wrong with the Steve Jobs book. Essentially:
It’s not just that Isaacson was wrong about something; it’s that he was wrong about the most important thing in Jobs’s career. There’s a decades-long story arc about the software system started at NeXT that Isaacson completely misses.
I had a lot of moments reading the book where I recoiled, thinking...
2 tags
Hypercritical: Better Pasta →
Typical, great, John Siracusa:
I like pasta. I’d like to help people make better pasta. It pains me to think about all the poorly prepared pasta being served and eaten in America. My advice will focus on plain old store-bought dried pasta. Nothing fancy. You’ve probably made some yourself. I’m specifically not talking about…
emitor asked: great safari tumblr extension!
5 tags
Daring Fireball: Mountain Lion →
John Gruber, on the just-announced 10.8 Mountain Lion OS X update (and in a typically well-constructed narrative):
Apple is calling it “Gatekeeper”. It’s a system whereby developers can sign up for free-of-charge Apple developer IDs which they can then use to cryptographically sign their applications. If an app is found to be malware, Apple can revoke that developer’s certificate, rendering...
3 tags
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Hashing for privacy in social apps →
Good article by Matt Gemmell, explaining how easily Path could have allowed its users to find friends without betraying its users’ trust.
This article, therefore, aims to introduce the concept of hashing in a clear, straightforward, and no-degree-required way, suitable for journalists and casual readers as well as programmers and software engineers. I’ll also explain why it’s suitable...
3 tags
Coding tricks of game developers →
Many amusing anecdotes (and a few tips) learned during game development. This was my favorite:
Don’t know how many remember Force 21, but it was an early 3D RTS which used a follow cam to observe your current platoon. Towards the end of the project we had a strange bug where the camera would stop following the platoon — it would just stay where it was while your platoon moved on...
2 tags
Zoolander (2001) →
Rating: ★★★★★☆
If I had to sum up Zoolander, I suppose I’d call it “cleverly stupid”. Derek Zoolander (and the other models) act as stupid as only a good writer could portray. I could list several of my favorite lines from the movie, but I’d hate to spoil any jokes for someone who hasn’t seen it yet.
It may not stand up over the years as one of the greatest...
2 tags
Water for Elephants (2011) →
Rating: ★★★★★☆
This is such an interesting story. Even on this second viewing, I enjoyed watching it unfold, watching the very real conflict of the characters. Each character has very clear motivations, and their individual traits and ambitions drive the movie.
The principal cast also does a great job presenting their characters in a way that you care about. Although Christoph Waltz’s...
