Star Wars Family Tree Inappropriate Kissing At Joe Stone Graphic Design. (tagged: none) fun.js At Fogus' blog. He's written a book about functional programming in JavaScript (with a healthy dose of Underscore.js to boot). I've had the unique pleasure of getting to review the manuscript, and let me just say that this is just as […]
Tenth of December author George Saunders in conversation with his Random House editor, Andy Ward. At Slate Magazine. I wish I had an editor like this. (tagged: editing writing ) Are People Being Unfair to the House Republicans? Over at The Atlantic, Molly Ball interviews the recently resigned Rep. Steve LaTourette (R) about the House […]
In the past six years, I’ve participated in (and “won”) NaNoWriMo four times. 1 It has been frustrating, stressful, inspirational, enlightening, and fun each time. There is something special about these month-long events. If you do it “right”, and completely let go of your inhibitions–if you abandon the false presumption that your writing will be […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
cyoa Amazing look at Choose Your Own Adventure novel data. "CYOA as Finite State Machines." Fascinating. (tagged: books cyoa visualization ) JavaScript module loaders: necessary evil? Ruben Verborgh presents some arguments re: why you might want to take a pass on AMD. It's worth going through the comment thread as well to see the discussion […]
Service-oriented Songkick James Coglan writing at the Songkick blog re: the migration of their monolithic Rails app into modularized components and a service-oriented architecture. Interesting case study, and definitely worth the 10 minutes. (tagged: service-oriented architecture Rails Songkick James Coglan ) Colson Whitehead’s Rules for Writing Colson Whitehead, writing at NYTimes.com: Most people say, “Show, […]
A Software Architect On Chris Eppstein's Coderwall: A software architect lives to serve the engineering team — not the other way around. And ten more aphorisms just like that. (tagged: Chris Eppstein software architect software engineering ) Behold the Boötes void, the spookiest place in the cosmos At io9: There is another, albeit more radical […]