logbook

Links for 2009-2-04

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:05:04 +0000

webgen - static website generator
uh oh, this is how CMS's happen. It's starts off all nimble and helpful, but by version 2 it's grown to Enterprise level and you've hired a sale team.
I used to like writing these little systems. My favourite one (called sub-area generator, aka. SAG) powered large chunks of the bbc.co.uk/cult site and it was pretty much a csv2html code generator with a bit of extra cleverness. People warm to technology like this, like a hammer after you've been smashing nails in to wood with your fist, it lets them extend their usefulness to the organisation, most technology is dictatorial.

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Seat Guru
Seemingly well researched differences of legroom & seat pitch information for long-haul carriers.
Rendering Effective Route Maps: Improving Usability Through Generalization
Proposes that the usability of (electronic) maps should mirror the way we might sketch out directions by hand to a friend. Generalised, not to scale, scribbled notes, features on the landscape. Boxes and arrows. Google/MS/SatNav et al. fail to understand this. I'd rather my SatNav said, 'get on the motorway, take the junction after the red McDonalds sign, then you'll see a big glass building, head towards that.", then perhaps interject if I get lost.
Computers are too literal, that's not how humans interact with each other, there's advantages to our human imprecision. Some kind of OpenStreetMap RouteWiki could carve out a niche here.

Modeling Entity Relationships - Google App Engine - Google Code
Walk-through of implementing relationships in the Model code (rather than at DB schema level).

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Domain-driven design - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Need to learn how to do this.
Transclusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Another one in the series of words that I didn't know but use the concept on a regular basis.

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Keeping it Simple: ActiveRecord does not suck
Ah, this explains why an abstract Zend_Model class doesn't exist in the way I imagined it would having poked around with AppEngine & Django.

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:05:04 +0000

Computers, Society, and Nature » Blog Archive » 4D GIS
Nice simpe explanation of 2nd, 3rd and 4th dimensional geospatial use cases.

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Outerthought :: Home
'Outerthought is a small yet industrious software engineering company specialized in Java-based open source development with a focus on knowledge-centric content applications and ReST-based web application development." - as recommended by some people at work.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Twitter / Jared M. Spool: Email is like Tetris. New ...
'Email is like Tetris. New email falls from the top and fills up the rows. You try to empty them. Eventually, it fills up and you lose."
Beyond Flash, an addendum
The text of the FOTB08, as recommended by cisnky.
Playpen » Blog Archive » Jonathan Harris at Flash on the Beach 08
“Tools are not the idea. Tools are tools.”
I often find myself being impressed by the technical solution of projects, and it's wrong to say that's not true of other mediums - I like the production on some Girls Aloud singles, the cinematography of .. Flying Daggers mind blowing but the end product of both pretty vacuous, sometimes that's enough to satisfy.

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:05:03 +0000

famfamfam.com: Flag Icons
Free mini PNG flags
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production…Amazon.co.uk: Y Benkler: Books
Commons-based peer production - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
'... a new model of economic production in which the creative energy of large numbers of people is coordinated"
Yochai Benkler
Presentation :: Charles Leadbeater
Notes from Leadbeater, Internet & Society (presentation to British Library Strategy Seminar)
First, want meaningful opportunities to participate, contributors, at least to be offered the option to do so, more of the time. Add their bit even if the core of what they are adding to has been created by someone else.

Second, they want to find economically viable ways to share, easily. Think and work laterally.

Third, they want organisationally viable ways to collaborate, not abstract but ways to get things done – share videos, play games, create software, campaign, find friends.

Real significance = creating new and more public, open ways to share and develop knowledge.

Strategy needs to derive from a broader argument about what society will need to make the most of the Net (and so what organisations can do).

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:05:04 +0000

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:05:03 +0000

Dynamic CSS | Ruby on Rails for Newbies
Interesting, especially colour mixing. What other simple Photoshop-like features could be modelled by a more dynamic CSS language?

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 05:05:04 +0000

Beautiful Soup
A Python html/xml parser.
Friedrich Hayek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spontaneous order
Uploading Data with Bulk Data Uploader - Google App Engine - Google Code
Playing with Google App Engine this afternoon. It's got a one-click install local development environment, one-click deployment (!), Python is fun to use, the documentation actually reflects how the thing works, and it's currently got a small but beautifully formed set of service API's (user, datastore, memcache). For small weekend projects this beats any DIY hosting arrangements. The only downer is that code.google.com keeps routing me to the Japanese documentation rather than UK.
Internet Archive: Details: Hypercard

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:05:04 +0000

Volkswagen UK > New cars > Fox
VW thing #2. The way the driverless car pops over the hill and winds it's way towards me, then sits there all attentive and in need of an owner, like a puppy at the dogs home. Clever piece of interactive design.
Volkswagen UK > New cars > New Golf
I'm buying a new car. The VW site wins the award for the most persuasive site, I love how the colour selection on their pimp-a-car section is performed by the same machines from the adverts. I think we'll end up getting a 3-series though :)
Forget the Film, Watch the Titles
Archive of file title sequences. The Michael Riley ones are so engaging in the way the web/interactivity almost never is. How can we create artistic, meaningful but functional interfaces.