Published
Weekend Reading — Things keep winning
The geek way of folding t-shirts
Design Objective
A New Yorker walks into a San Francisco start up…
Designers will do anything to convince themselves we are not in a service industry. Why are we so desperate to make ourselves feel better? Because we feel GUILTY and we have to reconcile what we do professionally with the world we live in. We WANT to save the world so we repeat our daily affirmations on our way to work… “Design can change the world.”
Every Single Web Portfolio Site Ever Don't do that if you want to stand out.
Tools of the Trade
It’s The Future Funny and oh so true:
So I just need to split my simple CRUD app into 12 microservices, each with their own APIs which call each others’ APIs but handle failure resiliently, put them into Docker containers, launch a fleet of 8 machines which are Docker hosts running CoreOS, “orchestrate” them using a small Kubernetes cluster running etcd, figure out the “open questions” of networking and storage, and then I continuously deliver multiple redundant copies of each microservice to my fleet. Is that it?
-Yes! Isn’t it glorious?
I’m going back to Heroku.
On monoliths, microservices and critical thinking Point well made: the best foundation for your next architecture is critical thinking.
The Future Generation of CSS Selectors: Level 4 All the pseudo selectors that will spare you from toggling element states with classes and JavaScript.
The state of Web Components TL;DR reaching consensus is hard, maybe in 2016?
pa11y Automated accessibility testing pal. Runs HTML CodeSniffer for programmatic accessibility reporting.
tota11y Quick and easy way to visualize your site's accessibility.
How to undo (almost) anything with Git
trine Interesting JavaScript functional library that takes advantage of the new bind syntax in ES7.
All the new stuff supported in Safari 9.0 Force Touch events, better app extensions, AirPlay HTML5 videos, pinned tab, ES6, and the killer feature: being able to use Safari from your native app.
xhyve – Lightweight Virtualization on OS X Based on bhyve Lightweight VMs on the Mac using the built-in Hypervisor.framework.
Lingua Scripta
Announcing “Exploring ES6”. Go get it. If you're curious about or currently using ES6, go get this book!
New io.js Features You May Not Be Using Some ES6, easier stream construction, unhandledRejection and more.
JavaScript ES7 Function Bind Syntax JavaScript fixes long standing issue: lack of proper methods.
Types XKCD nails JavaScript:
Lines of Code
What Is Code? Is a long epic read that's totally worth an hour of your time, with gems like:
Then the programmers shuffle back to their standing desks and complain until the product is shipped. Or else they just quit, because Lord knows there are jobs out there. For programmers, particularly the young ones, there are jobs everywhere.
And:
Java was supposed to supplant C and run on smart jewelry. Now it runs application servers, hosts Lisplike languages, and is the core language of the Android operating system. 27 It runs on billions of things. It won. C and C++, which it was designed to supplant, also won. A lot of things keep winning because computers keep getting more plentiful. It’s weird.
And check the console, because:
crazy thought: write your code as if it was actually the computer writing you a memo about what it plans to do to solve a problem.
How Not To Write an API What typeahead.js 0.11 got wrong.
The Underhanded C Contest A contest to write code that is as readable, clear, innocent and straightforward as possible, and yet fails to perform at its apparent function. And the winner is a piece of work at hiding bugs in plain sight.
If you pursue DRY for its own sake, you’re really engaged in compression.
Reminder: A maximally compressed document looks like noise.
How Is Critical 'Life or Death' Software Tested? Formal methods vs trial by fire:
The story was about how the fly-by-wire avionics software on major commercial airliners was tested. According to the story, Airbus engineers employed the latest and greatest formal methods, and provided model checking and formal proofs of all of their avionics code. Meanwhile, according to the story, Boeing performed extensive design review and testing, and made all their software engineers fly on the first test flights.
@noahsussman So true:
everyone struggles with programming. It's tolerance-for-frustration that determines who winds up "a programmer" and who doesn't
@eviltrout "They finally made an accurate horror movie about programming"
Devoops
name your db nodes after GoT characters, to remind yourself you shouldn't give a shit when they die. #lifehacks
Peopleware
Why I’m finally convinced it's time to stop saying "you guys" And to help keep this resolution, add these to your Slackbot settings, courtesy of @hipsterbrown, to get this:
mxcl How not to interview:
Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off.
How to have awesome startup things without abusing them
Instead of just talking about the problems of startup culture — which, again, I would never dispute — how do we keep the good parts and fix the bad? How do we have awesome things without abuse?
@UltraLinx "Every project ever."
Techtopia
BBS The Documentary 8 part documentary about the online world that was before the web.
Quit Your Job and Go to Work An interesting scheduling problem worth solving: "The future of employment was meant to liberate us from the shackles of a 9-to-5. In fact, it’s leaving people in an impossibly annoying, semi-flexible purgatory."
‘Text Walking Lanes’ Installed in Antwerp, Belgium to Prevent Distracted Pedestrians From Colliding
Locked Doors
How My Mom Got Hacked "Welcome to the new ransomware economy, where hackers have a reputation to consider."
Apple iOS 9: Security & Privacy Features Content blocking extensions, HTTPS + HSTS for all apps, VPN API, LibreSSL replacing OpenSSL, better 2FA, longer passwords, oh my!
Stepson of Stuxnet stalked Kaspersky for months, tapped Iran nuke talks
These guys are so confident to develop their entire platform based on this zero day it means if they get caught and this zero day is patched they probably have another one they can use, which I would say is a pretty scary thought
How the Columbia lawsuit could put software vendors back on the hook for security
Meanwhile, as insurers push back, we can expect customers who purchase software to do the same. Vendors should expect requests and requirements for Minimum Required Practices in the products and services they deliver.
Perhaps in the next decade we will learn the obvious lesson:
The only way to secure personally identifying information is to NOT STORE it
Every Sysadmins Nightmare in One Cartoon
None of the Above
Police use ultrasonic device to make sure drivers stay 3 feet from cyclists
Man Forced To Come Up With 45 Seconds Of Facial Expressions While Waitress Lists Off Specials
The Ideal Image Sizes for (almost) Every Social Network
How a curmudgeonly old reporter exposed the FIFA scandal that toppled Sepp Blatter
This journalism business is easy, you know. You just find some disgraceful, disgustingly corrupt people and you work on it!
Algorithms of the Mind "What Machine Learning Teaches Us About Ourselves."
