The Value of Subverting Authority Sherman Alexie: These religious fundamentalists are unaware that freedom of religion necessarily brings with it the freedom to mock religion. (tagged: religion Sherman Alexie ) President Obama Is an Introvert and So Am I: But that doesn’t mean we don’t like you. Scott Dodd, writing for Slate Magazine ("Obama’s Denver […]
You do not mess with Big Bird Mary Elizabeth Williams, writing at Salon.com: Romney made the error of looking like a man who is not on the side of innocence, whimsy, learning or childhood. Nor did he seem to grasp that Big Bird is an integral part of a show that was created for and […]
The Secret to Good Writing: It’s About Objects, Not Ideas John Maguire, writing for The Atlantic: How should one train students to give good, vivid examples in their writing? Should you tell them, Be more specific? I used to do that but I don't any more, because it's too vague, not operational. Today I give […]
The Flawed Theory Behind Unit Testing By Michael Feathers. My "tl;dr" take-away: testing for the sake of testing is useless unless you're using the tests as an exercise in critiquing and scrutinizing your code and the intent behind it. (tagged: testing Michael Feathers ) Setting Up a Command Line Clojure App Mike Ebert, writing at […]
Cable Is the New Novel By Thomas Doherty, in The Chronicle of Higher Education. (tagged: essay narrative television serialization novel ) Do I Really Need A Style Guide? How to determine whether you need a style guide, and how to go about putting one together. (tagged: design style guide ) The End of Global Warming: […]
Responsive Web Design Patterns (tagged: responsive design RWD ) Zero Bar Fantastic short fiction by Tom Greene over at Strange Horizons. Recommended. (tagged: race science fiction fiction ) Just Enough Ruby Matt Neuburg: My way of describing Ruby is somewhat peculiar, but there is method in my madness. Most discussions of Ruby explain it “from […]
jQuery Fundamentals :: A guide to the basics of jQuery Looks like the crew at Bocoup gave "jQuery Fundamentals" a nice, solid refresh. If you ask me, this is one of the best (if not the best) guides to writing efficient, scalable jQuery-based JavaScript. Recommended. (tagged: JavaScript jQuery ) Bash One-Liners Explained, Part III: All about […]
Beyond Farmers Markets: Why Local Food Belongs on Grocery Shelves Kathleen Merrigan (deputy secretary of the USDA), writing at The Atlandtic: When the farmer, the packer, the wholesaler, and the retailer all prosper in the same region, it creates opportunity for home-grown jobs, draws more people into agriculture, and fosters relationships between the people who […]
Pixar story rules (one version) At The Pixar Touch: #3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite. (tagged: inspiration creativity storytelling writing ) Atmosphere 1.0, the Asynchronous JavaScript/Java Framework now available! (tagged: async WebSockets JavaScript Java Atmosphere ) Newfound […]
Bugged Greg Knauss writing at An Entirely Other Day: I don’t normally like to talk politics. Not real politics. I’ll smart-ass on Twitter, but I get uncomfortable as soon as I feel the need to be earnest. I don’t trust myself when I actually care. But the Republican convention just finished up, and tens of thousands of people […]