New NSA Documents Shine More Light into Black Box of Executive Order 12333
What is arguably the most powerful of the U.S. government’s surveillance authorities is also the most secretive, and it operates with the least amount of oversight.
Guide to Landing Page Optimization
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your…
CSS is unnecessary given a layout language
CSS, a language for specifying visual appearance on the web, is … so complex that it has never been implemented correctly; yet, successive versions specify even more complexity. At the same time, it is so underpowered that many elementary graphic designs are impossible or prohibitively difficult, and…
68 Katy – 68000 Linux on a Solderless Breadboard
What does it take to build a little 68000-based protoboard computer, and get it running Linux? In my case, about three weeks of spare time, plenty of coffee, and a strong dose of stubborness. After banging my head against the wall with problems ranging from the inductance of pushbutton switches to memory leaks in the…
The new 501(c)(3) and the future of free software in the US
Note: I'm a software developer, not a lawyer. I suspect I'm not the only coder whose eyes roll to the back of their head when legal or tax matters are discussed. However, if you're involved in the free software movement—especially in the United States—you may want to read through this, as long as it may...
Launch of the 3rd Edition of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial Book
News & blog about Learn Enough (including the Ruby on Rails Tutorial)
EFF Challenges New Jersey Subpoena Issued to MIT Student Bitcoin Developers
As the popularity of Bitcoins has increased, government officials are concerned about criminal activity associated with the virtual currency. But a recent subpoena issued by the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs to 19-year-old Bitcoin developer and MIT student Jeremy Rubin goes too far, and...
iPhone 6 Screens Demystified
Articles about PaintCode's new features, interviews, application development topics.
Coffee and its Effects on Feature Creep (2011)
Starting in mid-2004 and until the end of 2006, I worked at a small DNS and DHCP software company called Nominum . These days Nominum offer...
CoreOS Beta Release
No single cloud fits all. Explore how we build a more flexible future with hybrid cloud.
The inexplicable rise of open floor plans in tech companies
Update: I originally quoted the average price of office space as $36 / square foot / month, where ...
Negative SEO Does Exist
Please check the end of this post for some final notes, following communications with Google.
Introducing ASP.NET vNext
There’s some really cool stuff going on on the ASP.NET and Web Tools team. The ...
Firefox 28 Release Notes
Thanks to our contributors linkCheck out "What’s New" and "Known Issues" for this version of Firefox below. As always, you’re encouraged to tell us what you think , or file a bug in Bugzilla .
8088 Domination Post-Mortem, Part 1
These next few posts are a technical write-up of how I created 8088 Domination, which is a program that displays fairly decent full-motion video on a 1981 IBM PC. Before reading further, it might b…
Startup School is going global
In the past few years, we’ve seen more founders from around the world coming to Silicon Valley to start startups. In YC’s W14 batch alone, we had founders from 22 different countries, and every year we see an increasing number of international applicants. We want to help founders from all over learn about startups, so…
Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition now available
Try our free, fully-featured, and extensible IDE for creating modern developer apps for Windows, Android, & iOS. Download Community for free today!
A Clojure Crash Course
It’s time to learn how to actually do things with Clojure! Hot damn! Although you’ve undoubtedly heard of Clojure’s awesome concurrency support and other stupendous features, Clojure’s most salient characteristic is that it is a Lisp. In this chapter, you’ll explore the elements that compose this Lisp core: syntax…
Judge Releases Information about Police Use of Stingray Cell Phone Trackers
A Florida judge has sided with the ACLU to order release of information about police use of “stingrays,” which are invasive surveillance devices that send out powerful signals to trick cell phones into transmitting their locations and identifying information. The Tallahassee judge’s pro-transparency decision stands in…
How to Hire and Build a Remote Team
Since 2011, Zapier has grown from three founders cramped in a small apartment to a team of over 350 around the world. Read more
Reverse-Engineering Xkcd's 'Frequency'
About a week ago, Randall Munroe published Frequency , the 1331st entry in his xkcd webcomic series. Unlike most xkcd comics, it's animated — actually, 5-by-10 grid of animated GIFs. Each describes a scenario (e.g., "one birth," or "someone locks their keys in their care") and blinks at the scenario's purported…