February 2008
59 posts
Keyboard Pounder software (.zip) →
For parents with curious young children. Let your baby pound away in safety, no need to worry about programs or files accidentally deleted, modified, or started. Instant cause and effect. Soft music and fish, flowers, and butterflies. Free and Fun.
For some reason I just found this hilarious - a piece of software designed to allow babies to bang away on the keyboard with effects on the screen....
2 tags
“I thought ostentatious was that place where they hold the SXSW every year…...”
– wendell on Metafilter
Obsolete Skills →
Long list of skills made obselete by technology, trends, or simple disuse in an editable wiki-based directory.
Highlights include:
Blowing the dust out of a Nintendo cartridge
Crew a muzzle loading cannon
Having your gas pumped for you and your oil checked at a full-service gas station
I feel like I should use this list as a starting point for skills I want to learn.
(via...
Twiddla Public Beta →
camh:
A web whiteboard, Twiddla is like Campfire, but with drawing. And more importantly, you can draw over a website. It doesn’t even require a sign-up unless you want to start a private room. This new public beta has an interface overhaul by Neven Mrgan.
Looks like a great tool, say, if you’re a web designer and want to have a visual discussion with a client.
Monthly morning bike tours at San Francisco zoo →
Once a month, the docents at the SF Zoo do a 1.5 hr “BikeAbout” bike tours. It’s a great way to see the animals just as they wake up. Since the tour starts at 8:30am, you also beat the crowd. I only wish it was the same price as general admission ($11) instead of $25.
(via sfist.com)
Poolga: iPhone and iPod Touch wallpapers →
Fun and unique iPhone wallpapers. Only wish they’d link to larger version for desktop pictures.
(via cameron.io)
2 tags
A bit of typography humor
keming. noun. The result of improper kerning.
(via ironicsans.com)
Free AA T-shirts at Radar.net →
The guys at Radar.net (mobile pictures social network) are offering free t-shirts to respondents. Unlike most shirts, these actually look well designed. And they come in Men’s Small!
2 tags
“I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually...”
– Paul Graham on Six Principles for Making New Things
2 tags
“[Identify] their ‘need states’ — including such compulsions as...”
– Clueless comment by a mobile content provider exec on how to replicate the success of the iPhone
Argentina On Two Steaks A Day →
An oldie but goodie must-read post on food, specifically steaks, in Argentina. Maciej describes the entire culture of eating there and leads me to believe that Argentina should be designated as the mecca of meat.
Maciej Cegłowski's tribute to his grandfather →
As always, Maciej Ceglowski produces a wonderfully poignant piece. Today he wrote a tribute to his recently-passed grandfather. My condolences, Maciej.
1 tag
Sunday Bloody Sunday by Saul Williams
Off his...
No Child Left Behind Is Leaving Designers Behind →
Dan Saffer briefly talks about why teaching to standardized tests is a bad thing:
We’re six years into the No Child Left Behind education program, which is to say about half of a generation has been taught rote-style in order to pass standardized tests. Children have memorized facts and multiplication tables and the like to the detriment of, well, real learning.
Being taught in this rote-style...
Rex Sorgatz (Fimoculous) interviews EveryBlock's... →
EveryBlock’s greatest achievement will be in the two layers that Adrian describes.
The first layer is the army of scripts do the job of “[compiling data from] public APIs, private APIs, screen-scraping the ‘deep Web,’ crawling news sites, plus harvesting data from PDFs and other non-Web-friendly documents.” I don’t know of any other website that’s...
3 tags
“Computed tomography (CT), was originally known as “EMI scan” as it...”
– Wikipedia entry on Computed tomography (via makenosound.tumblr.com)
Interface | Konigi →
A growing collection of well-designed interfaces. This is going to be a terrific reference for my work.
3 tags
“The Canadian system aims for universality not perfection. A short-order cook in...”
– “GuyZero” in MetaFilter thread about Canadian healthcare
3 tags
“When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a...”
– Christopher Nolan in Newsweek (via maniacalrage)
Optimal boarding method for airline passengers... →
“Using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo optimization algorithm and a computer simulation, I find the passenger ordering which minimizes the time required to board the passengers onto an airplane. The model that I employ assumes that the time that a passenger requires to load his or her luggage is the dominant contribution to the time needed to completely fill the aircraft. The optimal boarding...
2 tags
“I’ve never understood why some people have these all-or-nothing feelings...”
– Horace Rumpole at Metafilter.com
1 tag
Cavalry by Thao Nguyen
Reminds me a bit of...
Chyrp →
Cameron Hunt has switched his blog from Tumblr to Chryp. It’s a lightweight PHP/MySQL blogging engine that’s built to resemble Tumblr and still provide the features of other blogging engines (pages, more customization, hosting). I may consider switching this weekend.
