google-jstemplate - Project Hosting on Google Code -
Another random release from Google - a templating system for Ajax based applications.
I a world where micro equals better, it’s sometimes nice to focus on just one thing for an hour or two. Here is a collection of links to longer form content that I’ve found interesting over the past week.
Longest, and my favorite, is From Nand to Tetris in 12 hours. In this 2007 Google Tech Talk, Professor Shimon Schocken describes a one semester course in which students build (simulated) hardware and software, for a fully functioning general purpose computer. It’s an inspiring video, both from an educational point of view, and because it gives an insight into the inner workings of computers.
Even more technical is Rich Hickey’s presentation, A deconstruction of object-oriented time [pdf]. You don’t have to understand it all to appreciate it—it covers a lot of the general design of object-oriented programming, and how that’s based on several assumptions of time.
Next, I’m happy to note that the book Dive Into Python 3 is released as a free download. A great resource for Python geeks looking to learn about version 3.
Website of the week is Russell Beattie’s blog, a title which he earns with two awesome posts. The first is Mobile Web Browser Thoughts, a monster post on design principles of mobile browsers (exemplified by Mozilla Fennec). The second is Empirical User Experience Design Through Action Costs, a new (?) way of measuring usability.
Lastly, I’ll leave you with two absolutely non-technical links - a reddit post correctly titled Random thoughts from people our age [our age being late teens to late twenties] and beautiful illustrations on sleep by NYT’s Christoph Niemann. ❧
“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.” — Alfred North Whitehead
Paper explaining how Shazam works -
This scientific paper (though short on sources), explains how Shazam, the audio recognition service, works.
A new MacBook Pro 15” versus the first unibody MacBook - how big is the difference? Since I have both, I’ll try to answer this.
Both computers are the lowest end version. This means a 2GHz/2GB/160GB MacBook and a 2.53GHz/4GB/250GB MacBook Pro. I won’t be running any benchmarks, but a general speed boost is definatly noticable with the Pro. Boot and application load times are a bit better (even after I put Snow Leopard on the MacBook, which I’ve yet to do on the Pro). And heavier usage, such as virtualization, really benefits of the 4 gigabytes of memory.
With its 1440 by 900 screen, the Pro can fit 27% more information than the older MacBook. This actually makes a huge difference, taking my mobile computing experience from slightly cramped to just right. Since both computers fit in the same bag (barely), the larger size doesn’t make any difference for me. As far as quality goes, the screens are about the same—at least to my eyes.
One thing unique to the Pro is its backlit keyboard, which is very cool and semi-useful. The backlight is controlled by an ambient light sensor—you never have to think about activating it. The same light sensor can, optionally, control the brightness level of the screen. This is a feature I think you have to get used to, it sometimes feels too sudden.
The best thing about the Pro is its massive battery life, about 6.5 hours of “browsing time”. It’s really quite amazing to be able to use a powerful machine for that long. The older MacBook is OK, but not more, with its 4 hours.
Both computers have excellent build quality! Though, the Pro actually seems somewhat less solid than the older MacBook, possibly due to Apple’s efforts to keep the weight down. However, this probably wouldn’t be noticeable unless you go from one to the other.
To conclude, I’ll just leave you with the following: I might just have become a 15” guy. ❧
I posted 3 videos after Sweden Social Web Camp, and they made quite an impression on my Flickr visitor stats. About 950 views in five days.
[video]
If you’re a frequent reader of my tumblelog (which, let’s face it, you’re not) you’ll have noticed that I in fact don’t post that much. I’ll spare you the reasons for this, and instead focus on the future. In doing so, I’d like to extend a thank you to Posterous.
This super simple blogging tool is the reason why I’ve today redesigned (slightly) my tumblelog, and decided to actually produce some content in the future. Why? Posterous have shown me how easy it is to produce something value. Some key points on Posterous:
User interfaces tend to use simplicity as a means to reduce mental load. Posterous uses simplicity on a whole other level, and changes the entire mindset of its users. They make it easy to post - and to be inspired.
I haven’t yet decided the frequency with which I’m going to post. But I’ll try a couple of times a week, and take it from there.
More people should use Brightkite. It’s lonely right now.
Me and Peter are studying different ways that tags can be used. One step in this process was Linne2.org, a simple experiment in hierarchical ordering of words. To get help with this, we used Twitter. This graph shows the number of submissions on Linne2.org, compared to the number of ReTweets of our original announcement. Click for bigger.