April 2009
django-twitterauth →
A Django app that lets you auth against twitter using OAuth
March 2009
There was a pretty good oboe player in the...
unladen-swallow - Plans for optimizing Python →
We want to make Python faster, but we also want to make it easy for large, well-established applications to switch to Unladen Swallow. Produce a version of Python at least 5x faster than CPython.
Python application performance should be stable.
Maintain source-level compatibility with CPython applications.
Maintain source-level compatibility with CPython extension modules.
We do...
“To prepare for our upcoming Navigation Design seminar, we’ve been running...”
– Jacob Nielsen, Mega Drop-Down Navigation Menus Work Well
“HTML 5 introduces new elements like <section>, <article> and...”
– <section> is not just a “semantic <div>”
“For every Ars Technica there are a dozen lame rumor sites that just make things...”
– Old Growth Media And The Future Of News
SR-71 Break-Up →
Um… whoa…
Everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. I learned later the time from event onset to catastrophic departure from controlled flight was only 2-3 sec. Still trying to communicate with Jim, I blacked out, succumbing to extremely high g-forces. The SR-71 then literally disintegrated around us.
From that point, I was just along for the ride.
My next recollection was a...
Locavore →
This looks like really sweet iPhone application! I will definitely be trying this out when I get back to our local farmer’s market this spring/summer!
Knowing what’s available in your area at a given time of year is often difficult to determine, so we’ve taken on the task of collecting data from a variety of sources and presenting it all in the most understandable of ways. The...
WatchAuto Tuning on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
Duck Prosciutto →
One last duck splurge: had some shots of a recent duck prosciutto to share. A magret duck breast packed in salt, rinsed, dried and hung for a week. Magrets are the breasts from ducks…
WatchI highly recommend you watch this video: natalie portman’s shaved head - sophisticated side ponytail on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
A Culture of (Potential) Assholes: Sexual... →
Saw this on Jacqui’s gReader shared items:
On a recent trip I had my eyes opened to the phenomenon of sexual harassment in the IT industry. I don’t know why I was so surprised, but I was. It broke my heart to discover that friends of mine had to put up with treatment that I thought only occurred in bad HR training videos.
Before I unpack my thoughts on this issue I feel I must...
43,439 reasons to use jQuery.append() correctly →
Some really good advice here if you’re spawning a lot of DOM nodes:
The .append() method is perhaps the most misused of all jQuery methods. While an extremely useful and easy method to work with, it dramatically affects the performance of your page. When misused, the .append() method can cripple your JavaScript code’s performance. When used well, it’ll keep your script...
Is writing for the rich? Nope. →
Its pretty simple Francis. Get a job doing something and write on the side. If you’re good at it, people will take notice and you’ll get better paying gigs. Soon you’ll be living off your writing.
That’s how I got on at Ars, first writing for free, then I was paid, then I came on and though I no longer really write on a regular basis, it got me into the position...
Django snippets: Smart {% if %} template tag →
Found via Simon:
Chris Beaven’s drop-in replacement for Django’s {% if %} tag that adds comparison operators (less than, greater than, not equal etc) while staying backwards compatible with the less able original.
A Boy and His Blob revealed for Nintendo Wii - Ars... →
A boy and his blob was probably one of my most favorite NES games!
Many gamers have fond memories of the odd friendship between a boy and his blob in… well, A Boy and His Blob. The David Crane-designed Game Boy title had you, the boy, feeding different-flavored jelly beans to change your blob into different forms to solve puzzles. Nintendo Power has revealed that the game is getting a...
Bush administration memos claimed vast war powers →
Uh…
Yoo and Delahunty also said in the Oct. 23 memorandum that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” They added that the “current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”
Alex Payne — Towards Better Technology Journalism →
True fact: none of the writing staff at Ars Technica has a journalism degree, many have never written in a professional capacity before coming to Ars.
Many of us however, have been doing this for 5+ years, and a few of us have been working at Ars for nearly 11 years. We’ve picked up a few things along the way. We put virtually 0 stock in journalism degrees or prior writing experience. ...
