girton's devnotes

ongoing developer notes

Grand Central Station in Low Resolution

This walkthrough of the new Apple store in New York's Grand Central Terminal called up a memory image from another age. Or, rather, the memory of another image from another time.

Kodak. And it wasn't that long ago, either. I remember a New York Times story on Kodak's new Ektar color film, which represented the pinnacle of silver-crystal film process. Two photos taken of Grand Central, one with Ektar, one with another fast film. You could see many real differences throughout the photo, especially the detail in the dark areas of the image.

Now, film has pretty much disappeared, and Kodak is about to. And anyone can walk through Grand Central with a camera and post it on YouTube for free. No biggie. What will we see 25 more years down the road?

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/07/video-a-walkthrough-apples-grand-centr...

7 times fun (Seven languages in Seven Weeks, by Bruce Tate)

Already I've found 2 new things about my beloved Ruby, which I thought I knew so well. And I'm only as far as page 15!

There is a one-line form of the "if" statement, which can also take the form of "unless".


x = 42
puts 'This is true' unless x == 43

and

puts "Strewth" if x == 42

These are both lines which each cause output to occur.

The occasion of these new, extremely minor discoveries are the arrival by postal mail of the next book for the patterns study group. I have tried to use the Kindle for study group books, but it just doesn't work all that well. And besides, my Kindle broke and neither Amazon nor I were interested in replacing it. Maybe if I see it in a store and it looks really great, but I'd rather put the $79 toward a new iPad.

The Ruby exercises for day 1 were kind of fun.

James Heckman's Amazing Website

Anyone looking for upstream solutions to the biggest problems facing America should look to Nobel Prize winning University of Chicago Economics Professor James Heckman's work to understand the great gains to be had by investing in early and equal development of human potential.

via heckmanequation.org

I have to say -- who did the information architecture and interaction design on http://www.heckmanequation.org ? I'm impressed. Spend some time on this site and see if you don't agree with me!

Doggone Google+!!!

#googfail I tried to log on to plus.google.com, a site that TRUE Internet trendsetters have already tried and abandoned. To me it looked good, but Mighty Goog told me I needed an invitation. I've heard if invitations on auction sites for .99 cents but you know, you get what you pay for & I think I'd rather have my dollar-minus than my Google-plus

Impatiently yours,

devnotes.
Sent from my iPod

Will Clarence Thomas recuse himself on Health Care Reform?

Will Clarence Thomas Recuse Himself on Health Care Reform? | Mother Jones

Will Clarence Thomas Recuse Himself on Health Care Reform?
— By Stephanie Mencimer| Tue May. 31, 2011 8:11 AM PDT
James Berglie/Zuma
Following a time-honored Washington tradition of dumping required but embarrassing information on a Friday night before a major holiday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas finally released the details of his wife's income from her year or so working for the tea party group Liberty Central, which fought President Obama's health care reform law. His new financial disclosure form indicates that his wife, Virginia, who served as Liberty Central's president and CEO, received $150,000 in salary from the group and less than $15,000 in payments from an anti-health care lobbying firm she started.

The disclosure was apparently prompted in part by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who had been needling Thomas (including on Twitter) for months to disclose how much money his wife earned from Liberty Central. That's because challenges to Obama's health care reform law are likely to end up before the Supreme Court sooner rather than later, and if Thomas and his wife benefited from her income working against the bill, the justice has an enormous conflict of interest in hearing any legal challenge. Thomas had failed to disclose Virginia's income on his financial disclosure forms for 20 years; under pressure from Weiner and others, he had recently amended old disclosures to reflect hundreds of thousands of dollars she had earned working for the Heritag ...
...
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Drowning doesn't look like drowning

Last night I read this story, which was "retweeted" by someone I follow on twitter.
It had the shocking statistic that 10 percent of drownings occur in full view of a parent or other adult.

This makes it a must-read article for parents.

Drowning doesn't look like drowning.

http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154

In other news, I have heard that the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda pass will be closed on the weekend of July 15. Sorry if I spoiled the surprise!


Sent from my iPod

I've been tricked into reading about the iPad killer!

Why Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Hates The "iPad Killer" | Fast Company

But in real life, he added, industries usually rise and fall together. When it comes to competing products, however, success isn't always so black and white. "In a sporting event, there really is a winner and a loser," Bezos explained. "I think in business people use that metaphor--the sporting event metaphor is ingrained in us."