found_drama

Whitney Hess at A List Apart:

My client says, “I want to build a spaceship!” I say, “No, we need to make a kite.”

at msnbc.com (via B²)

at Mother Jones:

I sat down, and they said on the back of your Social Security card, there's a number. That number indicates the bank that bought you when you were born based on a projection of your life's earnings, and you are collateral. We are all collateral for the banks. I have this look like, "What the heck are you talking about?" I'm trying to hide that look and look clueless. I figured clueless was better than argumentative. So they said, "You don't know this?! You are a member of Congress, and you don't know this?!" And I said, "Please forgive me. I'm just ignorant of these things." And then of course, it turned into something about the Federal Reserve and the Bilderbergers and all that stuff. And now you have the feeling of anti-Semitism here coming in, mixing in. Wow.

at Theresa Neil

at markitechture:

Marissa Mayer had a question – the right question – and she answered it by testing. ¶ “If you make links less blue, do we lose money as a business?” ¶ Yes, yes you do.

at msnbc.com — Let's check back in annually, shall we?

at Beautiful Interfaces (via @rmurphey)

Zeldman on "HTML5":

To encourage what should be encouraged, yet not add confusion to an already over-vague understanding, folks like us might want to say, “HTML5 and related technologies,” or “HTML5 and other new technologies,” or something along those lines. ¶ Sure, it’s a bit stiff. But such a construction allows us to participate in the current frenzy and be understood by non-technical people while not fostering further misunderstandings—particularly as we also need to concern ourselves with web colleagues’ and students’ knowledge of what HTML5 is and is not.

"JavaScript performance playground" (via <a href="http://badassjs.com/post/893443459/jsperf-the-github-of-javascript-performance-testing"?Badass JavaScript)

JavaScript Application Framework for HTML5

at nvie.com

via @ebertchicago:

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

at Thomas Hawk Digital Connection (via DF) — this makes me want to try Lightroom (…and dump Aperture?)

at Boing Boing — a quote within a quote, re: Exxon Valdez:

Despite heroic efforts involving more than 11,000 people, 2 billion dollars, and aggressive application of the most advanced technology available, only about 8 percent of the oil was ever recovered.

In other words, off-shore drilling (and petrol, in a more general sense) is a fundamentally bankrupt institution and we better start in earnest on our alternatives right fucking now.

at blog maverick (via DF):

If you dont think the company you are buying is worth at least a quarter more than what you are paying , why are you buying shares ?

at Etsy's Code as Craft blog — an awesome (and thorough) run-down of their push-button deployment process. Good readin'.

A List Apart:

In recent years, I’ve been meeting with more companies that request “an iPhone website” as part of their project. It’s an interesting phrase: At face value, of course, it speaks to mobile WebKit’s quality as a browser, as well as a powerful business case for thinking beyond the desktop. But as designers, I think we often take comfort in such explicit requirements, as they allow us to compartmentalize the problems before us. We can quarantine the mobile experience on separate subdomains, spaces distinct and separate from “the non-iPhone website.” But what’s next? An iPad website? An N90 website? Can we really continue to commit to supporting each new user agent with its own bespoke experience? At some point, this starts to feel like a zero sum game. But how can we—and our designs—adapt?

via DF:

If it were only that the prequels were ruined by subpar writing, I would be okay. Disappointed, but hardly inconsolable. Maybe Lucas had just caught lightning in a bottle with the originals. But unfortunately, the nature of the prequels seems to spoil the originals merely by occupying shelf space near them, via some sort of heinous osmosis. Now, if you watch the prequels before the original trilogy (in chronological order), the ending of Empire is completely without weight. The biggest reveal in the history of cinema is ruined. Sure, there’s the dramatic irony of watching Episode IV and V knowing Luke and Leia are siblings and Vader is their father, but it’s not played for dramatic irony; for that you need suspense, and the climax of Empire is dependent on surprise, not suspense. It is the reason I will ensure that my children not watch the prequels until they’ve seen the original trilogy (in whatever form it exists by that point).

at merhl (via JL) — The implicit question here: at what point does distinctive look-and-feel become a barrier to user comprehension and/or adoption?

via lawnczar — just in time for the 20th anniversary of the Steve Jackson Games raid; Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown in HTML

at Beyond The Beyond (via lawnczar) — 20th anniversary of the Steve Jackson Games raid

Steve Levithan at Flagrant Badassery and his "95 [regex] theses nailed to the ES3 cathedral door"; or, what's wrong with regular expressions in JavaScript, and a more than a few suggestions on how to fix it.

at 52 Weeks of UX:

In its place is embedded support: directions, tips, cues, and other signposts that can nudge us back on track.

…this is a trend about which I have mixed feelings.

At lazytweet.com — my question about syncing the Dock Stacks and Places in the Finder sidebar.

at Smashing Magazine

via B² — …and 2 of 2.

via B² — Inspired by (and including) the ten rules from Elmore Leonard. These are great lists; though not nearly as beautiful as the actual physical copy of the Leonard book. 1 of 2.

stevenf.com – asking the important questions. again. so soon.

via B² — illegal, but fun.

Holy crap! Awesome.  For super-fantastic sumulations like this one:

at Slashdot Technology:

[Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager] suggested that customers upgrade their browsers to pretty much anything else.

at Comcast Voices (via Slashdot)

at Not Exactly Rocket Science (via Slashdot) — short version: looks like the "thunder lizards" were basically big color birds.

At stevenf.com (via DF) — some thoughtful remarks about the iPad and computing more generally:

For a species so famous for being adaptable to its environment, we certainly abhor change. Especially a change that involves any amount of money being spent.

For the record: my own jury is still out about this whole iPad thing; and/but for what it's worth, any praise and/or criticism from anyone that hasn't actually yet used the thing… Well, there's this little thing called credibility.

at Yahoo! News:

Salinger's other books don't equal the influence or sales of "Catcher," but they are still read, again and again, with great affection and intensity. Critics, at least briefly, rated Salinger as a more accomplished and daring short story writer than John Cheever.

…makes me want to read the rest of his werks.

at GitHub (via Ajaxian) — scan your page for unused CSS

at ignore the code (via @brown_MINI)

at NCZOnline

at NCZOnline

At Robert's talk (via Nicholas Zakas)

at Jay is Games (via woot.com) — w? t? f…?

"It's OK to suck at math; you won't be using much anyway."

at Dive Into HTML5

via /.

via /.

At Flyosity (via JR) — re: “what exactly is button?“

at B² — having had about two weeks to unpack it now, I must say that I feel similarly. I hope to put together a more thorough write-up of the film here on F_D but the short-short version: it’s a good film with an OK story and great visual effects but there is absolutely no nuance or subtlety there. Also: the comment thread is great.

at Gizmodo (via B²) — consider it a public service announcement

via jsmag.com

at Steve Hanov’s Programming Blog (via Ajaxian) — looks very cool