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Tweet from Buzz Aldrin

2016 Jul 26, 12:25
47 years ago I submitted my travel voucher reimbursement for my trip to the moon.
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Considerate MessagePort Usage

2013 Aug 7, 7:14
Sharing by leezie5. Two squirrels sharing food hanging from a bird feeder. Used under Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.When writing a JavaScript library that uses postMessage and the message event, I must be considerate of other JS code that will be running along side my library. I shouldn't assume I'm the only sender and receiver on a caller provided MessagePort object. This means obviously I should use addEventListener("message" rather than the onmessage property (see related What if two programs did this?). But considering the actual messages traveling over the message channel I have the issue of accidentally processing another libraries messages and having another library accidentally process my own message. I have a few options for playing nice in this regard:
Require a caller provided unique MessagePort
This solves the problem but puts a lot of work on the caller who may not notice nor follow this requirement.
Uniquely mark my messages
To ensure I'm acting upon my own messages and not messages that happen to have similar properties as my own, I place a 'type' property on my postMessage data with a value of a URN unique to me and my JS library. Usually because its easy I use a UUID URN. There's no way someone will coincidentally produce this same URN. With this I can be sure I'm not processing someone else's messages. Of course there's no way to modify my postMessage data to prevent another library from accidentally processing my messages as their own. I can only hope they take similar steps as this and see that my messages are not their own.
Use caller provided MessagePort only to upgrade to new unique MessagePort
I can also make my own unique MessagePort for which only my library will have the end points. This does still require the caller to provide an initial message channel over which I can communicate my new unique MessagePort which means I still have the problems above. However it clearly reduces the surface area of the problem since I only need once message to communicate the new MessagePort.
The best solution is likely all of the above.
Photo is Sharing by leezie5. Two squirrels sharing food hanging from a bird feeder. Used under Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.
PermalinkCommentsDOM html javascript messagechannel postMessage programming technical

Sci-fi short stories disguised as Internet docs

2013 May 29, 2:48
The recent short story Twitter API returning results that do not respect arrow of time by Tim May written as a Twitter bug report reminded me of a few other short sci-fi stories written in the style of some sort of Internet document:
PermalinkCommentscsc fiction sci-fi Scifi time-travel twitter

laughingsquid: Time Travel in Movies Flowchart

2013 Apr 15, 3:41


laughingsquid:

Time Travel in Movies Flowchart

PermalinkCommentstime-travel movies chart movie bttf

AV Club Pop Pilgrims: The Rushmore School

2012 Jun 11, 6:55

The second season of our pop-culture travel show kicks off at Wes Anderson’s alma mater.

PermalinkCommentsfilm rushmore wes-anderson av-club

International - Max Fisher - Welcome to America, Please Be On Time: What Guide Books Tell Foreign Visitors to the U.S. - The Atlantic

2012 Jun 7, 9:15

Such tips as: “don’t hand out cash to dinner guests” reveal what foreign tourists findsurprising about coming to America.

PermalinkCommentshumor travel us

The frequent fliers who flew too much - latimes.com

2012 May 6, 10:24

“Both men bought tickets that gave them unlimited first-class travel for life on American Airlines. “

“He was airborne almost every other day. If a friend mentioned a new exhibit at the Louvre, Rothstein thought nothing of jetting from his Chicago home to San Francisco to pick her up and then fly to Paris together.”

“She pulled years of flight records for Rothstein and Vroom and calculated that each was costing American more than $1 million a year.”

PermalinkCommentshumor airline american-airlines travel

Primer - Full Movie (by mvjstrikesagain).  This movie is great. ...

2012 Apr 16, 1:46


Primer - Full Movie (by mvjstrikesagain). 

This movie is great.  There’s really no excuse now - Primer is on YouTube for free.  Best representation and exploration of time travel in a movie.

PermalinkCommentsmovie youtube primer time-travel scifi

Dark Patterns are UI patterns used to trick users into doing...

2012 Mar 12, 7:05


Dark Patterns are UI patterns used to trick users into doing things they’d otherwise rather not: buy traveler’s insurance, click on ads, etc.  Covers the anti-patterns and how we as technical folk can help stop this.

PermalinkCommentstechnical ui programming dark-pattern

Telex

2011 Jul 18, 2:38Neat idea: "When the user wants to visit a blacklisted site, the client establishes an encrypted HTTPS connection to a non-blacklisted web server outside the censor’s network, which could be a normal site that the user regularly visits... The client secretly marks the connection as a Telex request by inserting a cryptographic tag into the headers. We construct this tag using a mechanism called public-key steganography... As the connection travels over the Internet en route to the non-blacklisted site, it passes through routers at various ISPs in the core of the network. We envision that some of these ISPs would deploy equipment we call Telex stations."PermalinkCommentsinternet security tools censorship technical

forgetomori » Another photo of Hipster “Time Traveller” found

2010 Nov 22, 3:29
PermalinkCommentstime-travel hipster humor photo history

Flowchart: Understanding the Web, for Fans of Charles Dickens | Fast Company

2010 Oct 28, 8:26Time travel, flow charts, and humor.PermalinkCommentsflowchart time-travel humor image

HotelChatter's Annual Hotel WiFi Report 2010 || HotelChatter

2010 Apr 29, 11:45"...Well guess what? The demand for hotel WiFi has not gone away, quite the opposite, a growing number of hotel guests not only demand the hotel they book have proper wireless access but most will consider *not* staying at a hotel that can't meet their basic access needs."
PermalinkCommentshotel wifi technical statistics travel network internet wireless via:boingboing

Time Traveler Caught in Museum Photo? | forgetomori

2010 Apr 16, 1:08Analysis of a potentially time travelling individual captured in a 40s photo "Reopening of the South Fork Bridge after flood in Nov. 1940".
PermalinkCommentshumor history photo photography time-travel via:boingboing

Palimpsest by Charles Stross

2010 Apr 6, 5:06"Palimpsest by Charles Stross, 2009. This version made available for 2010 Hugo Award voters by kind permission of the publishers."PermalinkCommentscharles-stross palimpset fiction scifi todo time-travel hugo-award

Luggage home

2010 Feb 26, 3:34Check out some lost luggage and their contents.PermalinkCommentslost-luggage luggage humor travel clothing

Don't Be Afraid: Passengers Break into "Hey Jude" During Newark Scare | NBC New York

2010 Jan 5, 5:47Oppresive airport security brings people together! 'A traveling guitarist is becoming viral sensation after leading a group of passengers in a rousing round of the Beatles' classic "Hey Jude" while stuck at Newark airport over the weekend.' Includes videoPermalinkCommentsvideo humor airport security music beatles

I Love Local Commercials - Sponsored by MicroBilt Corporation

2009 Nov 5, 2:07Two guys sponsored by MicroBilt to travel around the country and make totally awesome commercials for local companies. Includes such gems as Salt Lake Community Barbering & Cosmetology School: "Your hairdo is only limited by your immagination. And how far along we are in the semester.", as well as Cullman Liquidation: "They're used. Some of them have stains. We cover that up."PermalinkCommentsvia:boingboing video advertising commercial tv monthly

Conceptual Trends and Current Topics

2009 Oct 15, 6:33"Besides the canonical Bristlecone Pine, there are many other organism on earth that will outlive you. Photographer Rachel Sussman has been traveling around the world to find and photograph them."
PermalinkCommentsphoto time nature biology age

Reduce Your Chances of Dying in a Plane Crash | Information Is Beautiful

2009 Sep 14, 4:52PermalinkCommentsvia:kris.kowal information visualization plane airplane flight statistics death travel humor
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