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2012
721

How to build a windmill

Windmills have always fascinated me and for a long time I was dreaming of one day building my own. Where I live there are still machines from the 1600’s that are just as magnificent today as when they were first built. When you see one standing in a field rotating and converting passing air into usable energy they…

733

Why Responsive Design Is Not Worth It

UPDATE (April 2014): After the huge debate this original post created, we decided to refine and build upon the original article, bearing in mind the thoughts of some very insightful feedback left by some commenters. You can find the new article here. UPDATE (March 2018): Some of the comments are not taking into…

735

Life as a Service

I was born on a rainy morning, the 20th of March 1965, 3:15 am on the outskirts of a big European city. There wasn’t much to do for me other than to drink my milk so I’m kind of surprised that I don’t remember the man with the contract that I signed within a few hours of being born. Stupid me. I really shouldn’t have…

736

Go Bloviations

This post was written sixteen months ago, when fish briefly explored Go with the intention of writing a new command line shell. ( fish abandoned Go after discovering that terminal programming is what makes shells so horrible, and term programming is least horrible in C.)

745

SHA-3 to Be Announced

NIST is about to announce the new hash algorithm that will become SHA-3. This is the result of a six-year competition, and my own Skein is one of the five remaining finalists (out of an initial 64). It’s probably too late for me to affect the final decision, but I am hoping for “no award.” It’s not that the new hash…

747

The Pendulum Swings, Again

In the early days of computing, computers were physical monsters, occupying large rooms or even whole buildings. Acess to them was closely guarded, you were lucky if you had access at all, let alone close-up and personal access. That was reserved for the system operators, the people tasked with the relatively boring…

750

Reading Other People's Code

I really enjoy reading other people’s code, it allows you see how others solve common problems, and sometimes even provide parables on what you shouldn’t do with yours. It also teaches the much needed skill of reading other people’s code. Now, ask yourself two questions: 1. how