The 100:10:1 method: my approach to open source
For many years I was whole hog into the open-source movement and at the time I rarely wrote a stitch of code in my free time that didn’t find itself in a public Sourceforge/GCode/Github repo. 1 However, over time I came to learn that the burden that came with publicly offering code to the universe, to put it mildly…
Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me
I found myself in somewhat of a unique position last week: I’d made the Ashley Madison data searchable for verified subscribers of Have I been pwned? [https://haveibeenpwned.com/] (HIBP) and now – perhaps unsurprisingly in retrospect – I was being inundated with email. I mean hundreds of emails every day
My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part One
I was recently interviewed by Fog Creek and one of the questions was about my favorite programming, coding and development books. I got very excited by this question as I'm a huge book nerd. I love books about computers, programming, and science. Every few months I spend a day or two researching the latest…
PostgreSQL on the Command Line
Working efficiently with psql
Porting third-party programs to TempleOS
Experienced professional software engineer based in York, UK
Doing an HD Remake the Right Way
This is part 1 of a series. Part 2 (regarding Final Fantasy VI) is here [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/doing-an-hd-remake-the-right-way-ffvi-edition/]. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Fantasy V [http://store.steampowered.com/app/382890/] just came out on Steam…
The adblocking revolution is months away
The thing about print adverts was that they stayed where they were. Photo by Bethan on Flickr. TL:DR: when Apple’s iOS 9 comes out in September, there’s going to be a dramatic uptake of…
The Apple Watch
After one week wearing an Apple Watch, my big picture thoughts and observations. It all hinges on the Taptic Engine and digital touch communication.
The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead of by Telling
The following is a transcript of a teaching experiment, using the Socratic method, with a regular third grade class in a suburban elementary school. I present my perspective and views on the session, and on the Socratic method as a teaching tool, following the transcript. The class was conducted on a Friday afternoon…
It Just Works
Marco Arment wrote about Apple losing the ‘functional high ground’ earlier this year, and it was met with tons of discussion - blog posts, podcasts, twitter battles and more. The…
React Tips and Best Practices
I've spent a good deal of the past year working with React. I've written, refactored, and re-written many components in that time, and I've seen some best practices and anti-patterns emerge. I'm not going to get into what React is...
How to create NBA shot charts in Python
In this post I go over how to extract a player's shot chart data and then plot it using matplotlib and seaborn .
Data first, not code first
Developers hate him! We'll cover some standard tips and tricks here, but we're not really interested in those. We're looking for the One Weird Trick to rule them all. Hopefully each trick we encounter brings us closer to coding Mecca. In the beginning The first video game I ever wrote was called Ninja Wars. Yes, that…
Planets in the Fourth Dimension
You probably that planets go around the sun in elliptical orbits. But do you know why? In fact, they’re moving in circles in 4 dimensions. But when these circles are projected down to 3-dimen…
My Interviews with Airbnb, Dropbox, Posterous, Reddit, Weebly and Wufoo
Mixergy's feature today inspired me to dig up these old video interviews I did years ago with some YC founders. We talked about things like how they got started, what went wrong, and what surprised...
Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide
In this post, I’m going to talk about suicide, and why I’m still on this planet. These are stories I’ve kept secret from my family, girlfriends, and closest friends for years. Recently, however, I had an experience that shook me—woke me up—and I decided that it was time to share it all. So, despite the shame I […]
Rise of the Scientific Programmer
A blog on programming C#, REST, WCF, ASP.NET Web API and software architecture
Questions about the Sunday Times Snowden Story
Official website for UK-based journalist Ryan Gallagher.
Auto-Generating Clickbait with Recurrent Neural Networks
Hey! If you are a web developer, you should know about CatchJS. It’s a service for tracking and logging errors in JavaScript, with some pretty exciting features. “F.D.R.’s War Pla…
Five years of Scala and counting: debunking some myths
I started using Scala 5 years ago instead of Java after starting (but never quite finishing) to read the first edition of Programming in Scala. First only present in tests, my first attempts at Scala code would quite soon invade small utility classes and before I knew it take over all of my projects. There are many…
To Master Vim, Use It Like Language
A comprehensive Vim tutorial that teaches Vim as a language rather than memorizing commands. Learn movements, text objects, visual mode, and advanced techniques.
Microsoft BASIC for 6502 – Original Source Code (1978)
This is the original 1978 source code of Microsoft BASIC for 6502 with all original comments, documentation and easter eggs: M6502.MAC (1978-07-27, 6955 lines, 161,685 bytes) This is currently the oldest publicly available piece of source written by Bill Gates.