found_drama

• The Hacker Crackdown
  via lawnczar — just in time for the 20th anniversary of the Steve Jackson Games raid; Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown in HTML
  (tagged: history hackers government censorship )
• The Steve Jackson Games Raid was 20 years ago
  at Beyond The Beyond (via lawnczar) — 20th anniversary of the Steve Jackson Games raid
  (tagged: history hackers government censorship )
• What the JavaScript RegExp API Got Wrong, & How to Fix It
  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.
  (tagged: javascript regex essay work todo )
• User Interface as Customer Service
  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.

  (tagged: ui ux customerservice essay work )
• "hey lazy web – is there something that will sync my OS X Dock…"
  At lazytweet.com — my question about syncing the Dock Stacks and Places in the Finder sidebar.
  (tagged: OSX Finder )

• Designing User Interfaces For Business Web Applications
  at Smashing Magazine
  (tagged: webdev design ui usability ux prototyping work todo )
• Ten rules for writing fiction(part two)
  via B² — …and 2 of 2.
  (tagged: writing inspiration )
• Ten rules for writing fiction
  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.
  (tagged: writing inspiration )
• Foyer Clohting: Is this intentional? Did nobody…
  stevenf.com – asking the important questions. again. so soon.
  (tagged: spelling )
• Flickr: The defaced presidents Pool
  via B² — illegal, but fun.
  (tagged: design art humor )
• My Solar System 2.02
  Holy crap! Awesome.  For super-fantastic sumulations like this one:
  
  (tagged: science space games fun astronomy math physics awesome )

• Google To End Support For IE6
  at Slashdot Technology:
  

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

  (tagged: IE6 Google obsolescence )
• Preparing for the IPv6 Transition
  at Comcast Voices (via Slashdot)
  (tagged: comcast ipv6 todo )
• What colours were dinosaur feathers?
  at Not Exactly Rocket Science (via Slashdot) — short version: looks like the "thunder lizards" were basically big color birds.
  (tagged: science biology evolution dinosaurs news )
• stevenf.com – I need to talk to you about computers. I’ve been…
  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.

  (tagged: IPad ui ux computing future )
• The Pinnacle of Web Design
  (tagged: graphics design humor system:filetype:jpg system:media:image )
• ‘Catcher in the Rye’ author J.D. Salinger dies
  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.

  (tagged: lliterature obituary JDSalinger Salinger news )

• geuis’s helium-css
  at GitHub (via Ajaxian) — scan your page for unused CSS
  (tagged: css javascript webdev todo )
• Realism in UI Design
  at ignore the code (via @brown_MINI)
  (tagged: design ui usability ux icons essay )
• Internet Explorer 8 document and browser modes
  at NCZOnline
  (tagged: webdev IE8 work todo )
• Data URIs explained
  at NCZOnline
  (tagged: datauri uri webdev css performance work todo )
• How to reduce the number of HTTP requests
  At Robert's talk (via Nicholas Zakas)
  (tagged: webdev javascript css work todo )

• Super Dress Up Morgan Freeman
  at Jay is Games (via woot.com) — w? t? f…?
  (tagged: illustration surreal games blog )
• Poor, Poor Child. You have no idea.
  "It's OK to suck at math; you won't be using much anyway."
  (tagged: blog software humor programming coding essay )
• A Form of Madness
  at Dive Into HTML5
  (tagged: forms html5 usability ui ux javascript webdev todo )
• Observations: Prion evolution takes lessons on diversification from viruses
  via /.
  (tagged: prion science biology evolution health )
• Programmers Need To Learn Statistics Or I Will Kill Them All
  via /.
  (tagged: stats math dev science essay humor )

• Crafting Subtle & Realistic User Interfaces
  At Flyosity (via JR) — re: “what exactly is button?“
  (tagged: ui ux Essay todo )
• What storytelling risks could Avatar have taken?
  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.
  (tagged: scifi film Avatar narrative )
• The True Odds of Airborne Terror Chart
  at Gizmodo (via B²) — consider it a public service announcement
  (tagged: visualization data terrorism )
• UIZE JavaScript Framework
  via jsmag.com
  (tagged: webdev javascript ui framework api todo )
• A simple drawing program using Javascript and Canvas
  at Steve Hanov’s Programming Blog (via Ajaxian) — looks very cool
  (tagged: javascript canvas todo )

It started simply enough.  A simple¹ question:  ”Is it a button?”  Referring to this:

This is (of course) the “All Sizes” button for any given photo on Flickr.  And (also “of course”) depending on how pedantic you want to get and/or how technical, it’s arguably not a button at all:

…it’s an <a> masquerading as a <button>?  Or is its “buttonness” defined by its appearance?  Or is it defined by its function?  Or by some other, harder to define, harder to quantify quality?

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Really? Simple? [↩]

• In-wall USB charger is as cheap as it is ingenious
  at Engadget — so cool
  (tagged: USB power charger energy blog )
• One Million Years of Isolation: An Interview with Abraham Van Luik
  at BLDGBLOG (via B²) — re: Yucca Mountain (great images and interesting discussion)
  (tagged: design science future history environment nuclear energy architecture interview interesting research essay todo yucca geology geography )
• Protovis
  via Ajaxian
  (tagged: javascript SVG webdev charting visualization api )
• The Importance of Blogging
  at Karelia Software (via Gus Mueller) — more about blogging for your company as a marketing apparatus but the underlying bits apply to anything
  (tagged: blog marketing )
• Ten Editing Tips, for Your Fiction Mss.
  by Margaret Atwood
  (tagged: writing editing fiction todo )
• Web forms design guidelines: an eyetracking study
  at cxpartners (via J.R.)
  (tagged: UI webdev usability forms design work )
• Google Code: Let’s make the web faster
  (tagged: performance speed webdev css javascript work todo )

• NaNoWriMo is over. Now what? Toss it, or floss it? And…
  via Scrivener
  (tagged: writing nanowrimo )
• Steve Souders: Making Web Sites Faster in the Web 2.0 Age
  at O'Reilly Radar
  (tagged: JavaScript webdev work todo )
• CommonJS effort sets JavaScript on path for world domination
  via /.
  (tagged: javascript interesting CommonJS ServerJS todo )
• Vt.’s Long Trail beer to buy Otter Creek
  (tagged: beer Vermont news )
• Practical Prototyping
  via Theresa Neil (via Jamie L.)
  (tagged: work ui ux prototyping todo )

• 15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee
  at The Oatmeal — I love this design.
  (tagged: coffee design visualization )
• Fox News Fact-Checks Sarah Palin’s Coin Conspiracy Theory (VIDEO)
  short version: "Sarah Palin is too crazy even for the crazy network." Personally I'd like it if "In God We Trust" came off the money all together (it's part of the reason I don't carry cash?)
  (tagged: money politics atheism crazytalk news )
• Vermont City Almost Encased In a 1-Mile Dome
  a Slashdot News Story — I found out about this years ago and have been telling it to damn near everyone. And no one believes me. Even a few native Vermonters. Not that I'm relying on /. to up my credibility but still—thanks for backing me up, CmdrTaco.
  (tagged: Vermont Winooski geodesic dome absurd surreal )
• 5 Simple, But Useful CSS Properties
  (tagged: css webdev work todo )
• Daring Fireball Linked List: Lots of Excuses
  Perhaps a bit meta but to sum up: this is a good, paradigmatic microcosm of where I think the Android is currently "going wrong". And let's not get me wrong: I wish Android nothing but success—I want it to be as hugely popular/successful a platform as the iPhone. But this is a worrying trend, don't you think? I could link back to Gruber linking back to someone else again here: when we talk about mobile decides—especially mobile "touch" devices—we're talking about how badly there needs to be a common interface language that is not "owned" by any singular entity. Tapping, dragging, pinch-to-zoom, etc. That needs to be taken as the de facto way to interact (and that's just talking about ONE FACET of the the user-input aspect of this discussion). I think it's inevitable that these things will work themselves out (and quickly) over the next couple months and then developers on the non-dominant platforms will be playing a game of "refactor-or-perish".
  (tagged: mobile touch ux ui )
• Move Your Home Folder Off Your SSD Boot Drive in OS X
  at Ransom Note Typography (via DF)
  (tagged: osx ssd mac hack hardware todo )