CSS Variables in Firefox Nightly
As reported by Cameron McCormack, Firefox Nightly (version 29) now supports CSS variables. You can get a quick overview in this short screencast: You can define variables in a ...
Evading Airport Security
The news is reporting about Evan Booth, who builds weaponry out of items you can buy after airport security. It’s clever stuff. It’s not new, though. People have been explaining how to evade airport security for years. Back in 2006, I—and others—explained how to print your own boarding pass and evade the photo-ID…
Hyperloop: riding sound’s density peak to exploit the drag equation?
Super short version: if you ride along with a low enough frequency soundwave at the speed of sound, you can trade reduced incoming particle velocity for increased incoming particle density; the dra…
Tesla's ingenious strategy
Tesla motors has huge ambitions. Tesla founder Elon Musk has said he envisions Tesla as an independent automaker, aimed at eventually mass producing fully electric cars at a price affordable to the average consumer. This is a very difficult goal to achieve for several reasons. If you want to produce cheap cars you…
"Attrition is a group statistic. It doesn't apply to me."
10 years ago I sat down with my brother. He was about to attend a high attrition special forces course. The vast majority of candidates drop out. Aren't you concerned about the failure rate? ...
PEP 450: Adding A Statistics Module To The Standard Library
This PEP proposes the addition of a module for common statistics functions such as mean, median, variance and standard deviation to the Python standard library. See also http://bugs.python.org/issue18606
SQLite improves performance with memory-mapped I/O
A complete list of SQLite releases in a single page and a chronology are both also available. A detailed history of every check-in is available at SQLite version control site .
Battlecode: MIT's longest-running hardcore programming competition
As MIT’s Independent Activities Period draws near, I’ve received quite a volume of inquiries from underclassmen about “what should I take?” or “which of these competitions is better?”
The Cinematography of "The Incredibles"
Here is Part 1 of 3 on a case study of the shot compositions from Pixar's film "The Incredibles, I'll go over how the relationships of all ...
A Chat With Aaron Swartz
Aaron Swartz , now in his early twenties, rose to internet fame as technology whiz kid a couple of years ago, working on such things as W3C standards or the Creative Commons. He was also blogger behind the very successful Google Weblog. Via instant messenger, I interviewed him on Reddit, activism, Google and more.
I couldn't wait for the new Mac Pro
For those of you coming from Hacker News wondering why I need OS X it’s because I’m an indie developer that makes this. I’m not sure if it was the after the 4th or 5th time my Macbook Air hard crashed rendering in Final Cut Pro that my planned upgrade timing would need to be brought forward. In any case, the writing…
Rambling On [PHP] Internals
This is a post that I didn’t want to write. Actually, it’s a post that I still don’t want to write. But I find myself in a situation where I feel that I have to say something. So I’m going to just ope
Google Compute Engine available for everyone, App Engine adds PHP
Over the last fourteen years we have been developing some of the best infrastructure in the world to power Google’s global-scale services. W...
Chomsky praises Snowden and condemns US hypocrisy
Typically eloquent Noam Chomsky, speaking this weekend at the Geneva Press Club: My own opinion is that Snowden should be honored. He was doing what every citizen ought to do, telling. [Applause] He was telling Americans what the government was doing. That’s what’s supposed to happen. Governments as I mentioned before…