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ndunn2

59 karma · joined May 19, 2009

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ndunn2··on A Crash Course in Information and Visual Design
Excellent post. Would have left a comment on the original article but I'm not about to give permissions to a new app just to leave a comment. Please consider an alternate comment system.
ndunn2··on TextDown: Markdown editor for Chrome
Why does it require so many permissions?

"Access your data on all website Access your tabs and browsing history"

ndunn2··on Solving Scramble With Friends – a tale of three data structures
I hadn't seen that, thanks for the link.
ndunn2··on Pinterest = No Unit Tests
When you reach a certain size, no amount of due diligence on your part can ensure that your changes aren't going to break something in some other part of the code base without automated tests. Do you think Google or Amazon gets by without unit tests?
ndunn2··on "By the end of the summer, I optimized dropbox.com’s pages to render 5X faster."
It's interesting but I don't know if I agree with the conclusion that writing this small function in C would make maintenance too hard. How often do you expect to have to change it?
ndunn2··on How a baseball image got photoshopped by robots
Hmm I remember seeing that video before. Extremely clever technology.
ndunn2··on CSS Markup Detective
Looks very cool. There are a few typos littered throughout the page that the author should fix:

accessility -> accessibility maet -> met

ndunn2··on Show HN: My 6 Weeks Project, MultiplayerChess.com
Until the original poster gives us more info, you can read the source here: http://multiplayerchess.com/mpc.js
ndunn2··on Show HN: My 6 Weeks Project, MultiplayerChess.com
I second the design comment. Extremely easy to jump in and start, no log-in bs, nothing to get in your way. The minimalist aesthetic is nice as well. If only I knew how to play chess..
ndunn2··on XOR Swap - Stack Overflow for Tech Interview Questions
Someone named Alex posted a good rebuttal to the hash function example. Very nice explanation of how hash tables work.
ndunn2··on A clone of Microsoft Paint in JavaScript, using the WHATWG Canvas
Pretty cool. The rectangular select tool doesn't work on my system (Chrome 9.0.597.107, Mac OSX10.6). I see tons of visual artifacts where it hasn't repainted correctly. See http://grab.by/9hPv
ndunn2··on Functional Programming with Java
exactly the example I was going to cite. In Scala this would be

val b = a.exists(str=>str.forall(_.isLowerCase))

or

val b = a.exists(x=>x.toLowerCase() == x)

There's no way I'd start using functional programming in Java if it's this clunky. Just stick with Scala.

ndunn2··on 25 Even More Slick Linux Commands
#2 can be replaced with a 'tree' command

#3 doesn't work for me on Mac OSX with Bash; the ! is interpreted as the last command. Not sure if this works in other shells

#4 is clever, but I would think if you're doing something that complex that you need to recall time and time again you'd make an alias for it.

#8 is clever. I love AWK. But not sure when I'd ever use this.

The rest were pretty bleh to me. Always looking for new shell kung fu but unfortunately this list did nothing for me.

ndunn2··on Why the Leather Cover Crashes the Kindle 3
So weird, my Kindle 3 crashed twice yesterday, something that's not happened in the 3~ months I've owned it. And I have a leather cover. Curious if this is why.
ndunn2··on Introducing Word Lens
You didn't learn any lessons about.. how well it works? I had very poor success in my apartment, but I'd like to try it outside.
ndunn2··on SkyFly - Vertical Takeoff & Landing Ultralight Aircraft
"Why be stuck in two dimensions when you can fly in three!". I don't know about the rest of you, but given how awful people drive while constrained to two dimensions, I'd be truly terrified to see the state of things if travel like this became ubiquitous.
ndunn2··on Facebook intern visualizes friendships, draws world map
Nice piece of data visualization there. +1 for using great circles instead of straight lines.
ndunn2··on Full CSS3 Lightbox - Absolutely no JavaScript
Agreed, that's very annoying behavior.
ndunn2··on Syntax highlighting, auto complete and more within Python interpreter
This is awesome. But the colors seem to interact badly with the terminal backgrounds in Mac OSX. I also can't get any of the function shortcuts (F8 = pastebin) to work; I just get gibberish instead. Also I get a crash when I resize the window:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/bin/bpython", line 8, in <module> load_entry_point('bpython==0.9.7', 'console_scripts', 'bpython')() File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/bpython-0.9.7-py2.5.egg/bpython/cli.py", line 1739, in main banner=banner) File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/bpython-0.9.7-py2.5.egg/bpython/cli.py", line 1636, in curses_wrapper return func(stdscr, args, *kwargs) File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/bpython-0.9.7-py2.5.egg/bpython/cli.py", line 1706, in main_curses clirepl.repl() File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/bpython-0.9.7-py2.5.egg/bpython/cli.py", line 996, in repl inp = self.get_line() File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/bpython-0.9.7-py2.5.egg/bpython/cli.py", line 589, in get_line key = self.get_key() File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/bpython-0.9.7-py2.5.egg/bpython/cli.py", line 567, in get_key self.idle(self) File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/bpython-0.9.7-py2.5.egg/bpython/cli.py", line 1579, in idle do_resize(caller) File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/bpython-0.9.7-py2.5.egg/bpython/cli.py", line 1591, in do_resize curses.endwin() _curses.error: endwin() returned ERR

ndunn2··on Pipes:tags::physics:syntax::plumbing:HTML (Anyone want to learn HTML?)
I don't understand what the title of this post is supposed to mean. If this some tortured reference to the analogy portion of the SATs? If so, that's not the correct form. If not, please elaborate what that is supposed to mean.
ndunn2··on Hick's Law: Decision time is proportional to number of choices
Bad link, it should go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick%27s_law
ndunn2··on Cisco Intern Poised to Become Viral Rap Star [video]
Made me smile a few times. Especially the ergonomic desk chair part
ndunn2··on Programmer's Font [2004]
This is so awful to look at I can't even comprehend.

Maybe in 2004 screen real estate was at a premium, but a lot of developers I know now have at least two high resolution monitors, if not a single ultra high (2560x1200) resolution monitor. I'd gladly take the standard monospaced fonts any day.

ndunn2··on Finally, CSS based gradient text, no images
Am I the only one who couldn't even select the resulting text? No good