- Julie Learns to Program — blog from our own Julie Steele as she learns her first programming language. The point is: it’s in me. I wasn’t sure that is was, and now I know—it is. And what, exactly, is “it”? It is the bug. It is the combination of native curiosity and stubbornness that made me play around with the code and take some wild guesses instead of running straight to Google (or choosing to stay within the bounds of the exercise). That might sound like a small thing, but I know it is not. I was determined to make the program do what I wanted it to do, I came up with a few guesses as to how to do that, and I kept trying different things until I succeeded (and then I felt thrilled). As much as I have to learn, I know now that I really am hooked. And that I’ll get there.
- underscore.js — new Javascript library of functional programming primitives (map, each, inject, etc.). (via Simon Willison)
- WWW::Mechanize::Firefox — Perl module to control Firefox, using the same interface as the WWW::Mechanize web robot module. (via straup on Delicious)
- Anatomy of SSDs — teeth-rattlingly technical Linux Magazine article explaining the different types of SSDs (Solid State Disks–imagine a hard drive made of rapid-access Flash memory). Artur Bergman told me that installing an SSD drive in his MacBook Pro gave the greatest performance increase of any computer upgrade he’d performed since he went from no computer to one.
"Linux" entries
Four short links: 29 October 2009
Learning Programming, Functional Javascript, Controlling Firefox, Kicking Ass (with SSDs)
Four short links: 8 October 2009
DIY Baby Rocker, Unix Systems Glory, Encrypting Ephemera, and Explaining Creative Joy
- Linux Baby Rocker — inventive use of a CD drive and the eject command … (via Hacker News)
- I Like Unicorn Because It’s Unix — forceful rant about the need to rediscover Unix systems programming. Reminds me of the Varnish notes where the author explains that it works better because it uses the operating system instead of recreating it poorly.
- Encrypting Ephemeral Storage and EBS Volumes on Amazon — step-by-step instructions. (via Matt Biddulph on Delicious)
- You Have No Life — if a video smacks even slightly of concentrated effort or advance planning, someone will inevitably scoff that the subject has a) “too much time on his hands” or b) “no life.” Ten times out of ten. […] After six years I lack a succinct, meaningful response to my students’ defensive, clannish embrace of mediocrity, though I’m grateful for this tweet, which comes pretty close: dwineman: You say “looks like somebody has too much time on their hands” but all I hear is “I’m sad because I don’t know what creativity feels like.”
Four short links: 14 September 2009
NoSQL, Gov 2.0 Videos, Linux Conf, Geodata Grump
- WTF Is A Supercolumn? — Cassandra is a NoSQL database, a triplestore that scales superwell. Because it’s not the usual relational thing we’re accustomed to, the language can be a barrier to learning: ColumnFamily, SuperColumns, and more. This post explains what’s what, with examples. (via joshua on Delicious)
- Gov 2.0 Summit Videos — When I grow up, I want to be Clay Shirky, Tom Steinberg, and Carl Malamud. Some videos are up, others coming up soon–stay tuned for Carl’s, which received the only standing O of the show. [updated with link to Carl’s talk when it was released]
- linux.conf.au Schedule Posted — bring the thunda down unda in 2010. The schedule was just released.
- Transport for London Does Not Like the Ordnance Survey — an Official Information Request yielded the Transport for London response to an Ordnance Survey “strategy consultation”. The OS should appoint an independent body to review their licence documents and pay them based on the number of words deleted. Sound advice too–OS have crippled the geospatial industry in the UK by charging for their (admittedly finely-detailed) data. (via mattb on delicious)
Four short links: 12 June 2009
- New Media Challenges: Legal and Policy Considerations for Federal Use of Web 2.0 Technology (Center for American Progress) — report on the issues around Web 2.0 use in Government, which include privacy, security, Public Records Act, advertising, etc. See also It’s Not the Campaign Anymore: How the White House Is Using Web 2.0 Technology So Far from the same group.
- Government Data and the Invisible Hand — Ed Felten has written a fantastic piece on the relationship between data, presentations of the data, and the government departments that produce the data. It is full of powerful recommendations: The best way to ensure that the government allows private parties to compete on equal terms in the provision of government data is to require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large. (via timoreilly on Twitter)
- Fast Modularity Community Structure Inference Algorithm — This algorithm is being widely used in the community of complex network researchers, and was originally designed for the express purpose of analyzing the community structure of extremely large networks (i.e., hundreds of thousand or millions of vertices). The original version worked only with unweighted, undirected networks. I’ve recently posted a version that works on weighted, undirected networks. (via mattb on Delicious)
- First Driver for USB 3.0 — After a year-and-a-half’s worth of work, Intel hacker Sarah Sharp announced that Linux will be the first operating system supporting USB 3.0. (via deusx on Delicious)
My Netbook Took Me Back To Windows
When I left Microsoft I switched to a Macbook Pro and didn't look back. I never thought that I would use a Windows machine regularly again. Then I got an Asus Eee PC 1000h (10.2 in screen, 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, upgraded to 2GB RAM; I judge it to be on the larger end of a netbook)….
Linux Kernel Worth $1.4 Billion
The Linux Foundation has released a report estimating the Linux kernel to be worth $1.4 billion, and the Fedora 9 distribution to be worth just over $10 billion. The report is an update of a 2002 report estimating the worth of Red Hat Linux 7.1 (Fedora is the community edition of Red Hat Linux, renamed in 2003). The report doesn't…