Saturday, December 31, 2016

The Case Against Dark Matter

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161129-verlinde-gravity-dark-matter/
A framework where dark matter isn't needed, but it makes the universe an even stranger place. 

Metaknowledge

https://aeon.co/essays/a-mathematical-bs-detector-can-boost-the-wisdom-of-crowds
The wisdom of crowds is good in large numbers, metaknowledge can improve smaller samples.

Thursday, December 29, 2016

https://www.cloudways.com/blog/php-trends-2017/
The state of PHP at the start of 2017 and what the new year holds. Hint: PHP 7.1 is it.

2017 Trendy google Fonts Combinations

http://fonts.greatsimple.io/
Trendy combinations of Google Fonts. Now if he only knew about color combinations.

Segregated Witness: A Fork Too Far

https://medium.com/the-publius-letters/segregated-witness-a-fork-too-far-87d6e57a4179#.j7a6whbgk
Yet another excellent BitCoin article. I'm very impressed by the amount of thought going into the blockchain lately.

Discourse Civilized Discussion

http://www.discourse.org/
Open Source discussion engine, in Ruby with Docker insall if you wish.

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

HandBrake 1.0.0 Released

https://handbrake.fr/news.php?article=37
after 13 years in development, Handbrake hits release 1.0.0. Yea!!!


The farmer who built her own broadband

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37974267
Farmer in England who organized a co-op ISP which delivers cheap Gigabit Internet: 

Sunday, December 25, 2016

The Distance is a podcast by Basecamp about longevity in business

https://thedistance.com/
Podcast about businesses who have gone the distance and still thrive after decades.

Congressional Encryption Working Group says encryption backdoors are near unworkable

http://betanews.com/2016/12/23/ewg-encryption-report/
At least one congressional committee has half a brain: We can't weaken encryption just for law enforcement.

Saturday, December 24, 2016

12 Reasons You Should NEVER Use the Public Wi-Fi

https://due.com/blog/12-reasons-never-use-public-wi-fi/
Perhaps a bit over-paranoid, but still informative piece about the hazards of using public Wi-Fi. 

Thursday, December 22, 2016

World's largest cities over the ages

https://i.redd.it/9zng0bv1av4y.gif
World's largest cities over the ages, wish it was more than just a gif.

Systemd at 3am

https://www.redpill-linpro.com/sysadvent/2016/12/22/systemd-at-3am.html
Good shortcuts for when you have to resurrect something running under systemd. 

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

When Do You Outgrow IKEA?

https://priceonomics.com/when-do-you-outgrow-ikea/
Interesting data piece about the peak ages of customers at various home stores. 

Piwik 3.0.0

https://piwik.org/changelog/piwik-3-0-0/
PiWik, the opensource web analytics platform, hits 3.0.0.

Intro to the 8-Point Grid System

https://medium.com/built-to-adapt/intro-to-the-8-point-grid-system-d2573cde8632#.8i9ivhj5y
Most CSS grids are horizontal 12 column. Here's a case for a vertical 8-point grid to go with them

Monday, December 19, 2016

The all-in-one web design platform

https://webflow.com/
Yet another point-and-click, build-your-own-website service.

We collect and annotate in real-time news articles

http://eventregistry.org/
Interesting news aggregator with an API to create custom news feeds and dashboards.

The Sysadmin Guide

https://www.varonis.com/sysadmin-guide/
The jumping-off for a good intro to being a modern IT SysAdmin.

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Entropy Explained, With Sheep

https://aatishb.github.io/entropy/
At last, an explanation of entropy that gets it right. It's quantum degeneracy.

Friday, December 16, 2016

How to Rank Number One in Google: A Study of 1 Million Pages

https://www.matthewbarby.com/ranking-in-google/
Study of what ranking signals are important to Google these days by reverse-engineering factors: 

“Balance of Terror”: Star Trek, History, and National Security

http://the-artifice.com/star-trek-balance-of-terror-history/
Interesting analysis of Star Trek's original series Balance of Terror against the Cold War backdrop.

Map In Seconds

http://mapinseconds.com/
Paste in columns from a spreadsheet, make a map. 

Thursday, December 15, 2016

The State of Wordpress Security

https://blog.ripstech.com/2016/the-state-of-wordpress-security/
According to RipsTech, WordPress security isn't that bad after all, mostly. Except where it isn't.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

The Open/Closed Principle

http://patrick.louys.ch/2016/12/11/open-closed-principle/
the open/closed principle in OOA&D is often misunderstood. Here's an work-through in PHP:

HTML Color Codes

https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/html-color-codes
business case and lessons of building an internet tools and monitizing it. 

Holiday Reading List

http://blog.nandotech.com/post/2016-12-13-holiday-reading-list/
despite reports to the contrary, coding is hard. Here's some books for guidance: 

The Ultimate Guide to Web Fonts

https://litmus.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-web-fonts
Guide to using web fonts in marketing email: some email clients still won't use them. 

Unix in your browser tab

https://browsix.org/
Run Linux in the browser?!? Could be interesting for education. 

Searching for a Better Search

http://codepen.io/hhcc/post/better-search
Brief study of how looking at internal site search metrics lead to better user experience. 

How We Knew It Was Time to Leave the Cloud

https://about.gitlab.com/2016/11/10/why-choose-bare-metal/
GitLab is moving from Azure to bare metal. I think their process may be a bit upside-down:

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

You are listening to..

http://youarelistening.to
Unusual background audio: ambient music and radio chatter

Dear JavaScript,

https://medium.com/@thejameskyle/dear-javascript-7e14ffcae36c#.kbbegp8an
Toxic areas of opensource communities, probably not isolated to JavaScript: 

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

What does altcoin success look like?

https://decentralize.today/what-does-altcoin-success-look-like-e81121b9804b#.etf3mhv1k
Good overview piece on the state of affairs of altcoin (cryptocurrency) I had no idea there were 100+ of them.

Friday, December 2, 2016