mbishop

Gotta take issue with the characterization of “bolted on”. That’s a design feature and it’s huge. It made interoperability trivial. You can write C, C++, and Objective-C within the same source file.

I was with you until the last sentence. Removing borders makes it harder. Not being able to see the actual area of a clickable target makes it harder. I never had trouble knowing what to click in the early 2000’s, when UI was ostensibly more dense.

They are indeed awesome and I made one with a simple box fan. It works great but it’s really loud. We can’t really have it on when company comes over.

We got one of these instead and have been really happy with it. Pros: super-quiet low-energy computer fans. Uses standard air filters you can buy at Lowe’s. Cons more than a box fan.

https://www.cleanairkits.com/products/brisk-box

Yes. Software-based ICs.

https://blog.metaobject.com/2019/03/software-ics-binary-comp...

Quick, alert Douglas Hofstader!

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/498192-the-paraphrase-of-g-...

Attention all designers: That skeuomorphic, non-flat design that you might think is unstylish but in reality is so very usable… this book explains why.

In the UI of the 2000’s, the UI is visible, the chrome is visible and it has meaning and utility. Buttons are easily found and pushed because they visibly look like they are extending from the display. That’s an affordance. The window corner used to have a “rough” texture just like exterior stairs have texture strips to keep your feet from slipping. They indicated that the friction from your mouse-pointer on the screen will move the window corner.

These designs allowed user decisions about UI function to exist in the subconscious where they weren’t a distraction from the actual problem at hand.

The bar these days seems to be “is it possible for the user to eventually accomplish their task?) as opposed to “how can we demand even less of the users’ brain for the task to be accomplished?”

I am anticipating this will not be a popular response, but I can’t help but think wrt/ UI design, we’ve collectively thrown out the baby with the bath water for vanity and it’s going to take some criticism to get it back.

Reading this book and studying the UI designs it inspired (ex: early to late 2000’s Mac UI) is IMO the best education a young UI-designer can get.

Edit: I don’t want to lay too much at the feet of designers because it’s probably Product Managers that also need to read this book and care about it.

Can someone please make this, but for creating an orchestral arrangement from a piano theme (maybe with some hints?)

I think the lesson is to not think first about your data and how to put it on a screen.

Start with the user and then figure out how to utilize your data to support your UI.

Dumping database records to a list view on the screen, no matter how pretty you make each entry, is rarely useful.

With that in mind, it might be more effective to write a BASIC REPL in Javascript (I’m sure one already exists) and then run the original programs.

This is a symptom of flat design. When you remove texture, shadow, and borders, you have to rely more on margins to group and distinguish items.

I wish the power switch on the mini was back on top, where it should rightfully be.

This book looks great!

I tried to implement this in Ruby with a gem about 6 years ago and got really close. If anyone wants to know more about this, but is more fluent in Ruby, you might find this a good jumping-off point. There’s a good explanation in the README.

  https://github.com/michaeljbishop/mulligan

Why did it not work in the end? Because even though I was able to implement an error-recovery mechanism that wouldn’t pop the stack, it still triggered all the `ensure` statements that were up the stack. It was still a valuable exercise. I'd welcome this addition in any exception-based language.

Small point, but you are assuming the only direction a phone can grow is height and width. Thickness would also allow a larger battery.

It works where the power company might just raise your air conditioning thermostat for a few hours.

Your Nest can already do this:

  https://nest.com/support/article/What-is-Rush-Hour-Rewards

For those of you skeptical that software can address this problem.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant

Adding storage to the grid is one solution, but adding software that can better influence the demand various customers put on the grid is also surprisingly effective.

This absolutely is a software problem.

Many utilities are interested in enrolling their customers in programs that would allow software to control the energy demands their customers put on the grid.

For instance, if you are a high-energy consuming factory, you may have a fixed amount of energy that you need to use each day, but have some flexibility as to exactly what time of day it is used.

There are companies right now writing software that takes into consideration all the constraints around the electrical usage of the various customers of a utility, and then vary the customer’s electrical usage in real time as the energy demand/production fluctuates on the grid.

Think of it this way. You can either put a battery on the grid to supply energy when the grid needs it OR, you can ask customers to stop using as much energy at that moment. Either way, the supply meets demand.

For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant

I set this up in the most hacky way 10 years ago with my girlfriend. We would watch dvds together and I wanted to synchronize them (especially important for comedies)

My setup? An app that would monitor DVD Player for events while listening to events over iChat using AppleScript.

If someone paused or played the DVD, the moitoring process would notice the event, make a JSON payload representing the action including the local timestamp, and use AppleScript to post an iChat message. Then, the process on the other side, would see the special iChat message (forwarded via AppleScript), and apply the action to the local DVD player process, taking into account the difference between the sent timestamp and the local timestamp.

It worked like a charm and made watching movies so much more fun. We always had iChat open anyway so it seemed like an easy win to piggy back on that, no server needed.

An inelegant hack, but it worked.

That video about the 6-year-old complaining that their whole life is online without their consent is spot on.

Indeed: https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/985793231295311872...

The most important part:

> In total, we believe the Facebook information of up to 87 million people — mostly in the US — may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

Interesting followup by Seth Abramson.

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/978329921192906752

How to do this in a for-loop:

  for (int 1 = 0; i < length; i++) {
    if (checkError(i))
      continue;
  
    ... // happy path
  }

You can also use a return statement inside the for-loop if you want to exit the entire function.

Why would this be surprising? Apple has no skin in the advertising game, while it's the core of Google's income.

You get what you pay for. These shoes last a very long time.

If you are timid about the price, they have regular clearance sales about twice a year, usually about 40% off. Just get on their mailing list. And buy quick as soon as the sale occurs!

My friend, the company you need to go visit is Vivobarefoot. They are not as cheap as your Chinese shoe, but they are the wide-toebox, no-support, tough-as-nails-soles that you have been looking for.

  https://www.vivobarefoot.com/

Because of them, every shoe that I wear for every occasion can be minimal and I get to feel everything under my feet everywhere I go. I even have fancy black leather shoes for special occasions.

They are wonderful.

I worked at a startup that used WeWork (Denver) for about 9 months. When I first walked into the lobby, I wondered if I was in the right place, because it felt like a clothing-retail store, complete with constant runway-music playing from overhead.

My first impression was "how am I supposed to work here?" I loved that they had cold-brew and beer on tap, a clean working-space, and interesting events. They seemed really optimized to provide a workspace that was fun.

The problem was, I wasn't there for fun, I was there to get stuff done and for that I needed a place that was peaceful, quiet, with few distractions. The environment at WeWork wasn't optimized for that kind of long, deep work and in fact seemed to actively fight against it.

If your work tasks consist mostly of light, interruptible "busy" tasks, like responding to email, or participating on Slack, WeWork is probably fine. If your work consists of long, deep-dive tasks, I'd recommend getting your own office space until WeWork starts providing an atmosphere that better accommodates peace, quiet, and isolation.

This post is excellent. Bravo! The best places I’ve worked had this kind of culture.

Am I the only person frustrated that this article contains a call to arms and then no actionable items? I'm on board, but what should I do about it? Put that in your article!

It's enough of a challenge to communicate effectively through text-only discussions with people I like. I like this idea, but wish it were full video chat so I could get facial expressions and tone.

I used to use this site, long ago and I did lose weight in my 20’s. Now in my 40’s I find it emphasizes a way of thinking that I think is missing the point.

I don’t necessarily disagree with calorie counting, but forcing yourself to not eat when you are hungry is the key to failure. I think this is at the root of the low-carb approach in which the foods that you eat don’t stimulate your body’s fat-making hormones.

If your body is being asked to make fat (through raised insulin levels), it doesn’t matter how many calories you eat, they are mostly being stored and you will continue to be hungry.

Low-carb helps you eat fewer calories because more of the calories you eat are available for energy and your body will signal that you are satiated.

If you want to go really low-carb, you can go into ketosis, where your body realizes it can also start eating its own fat for energy and promptly does so. Then you are satiated on even fewer calories because your body can get what it needs from itself.

I’ve found ketosis to be very reliable and even better, I find I concentrate much better because I’m not so distracted by how I’m going to get my next snack to much while I code. That concept is no longer a part of my consciousness. You don’t realize how noisy your brain is around food until it’s quiet.