The JSON Hypermedia API Language (HAL) is a standard which establishes conventions for expressing hypermedia controls, such as links, with JSON.
(via Classic pro-science-careers music video PSA: Chemical Party)
Xeni says: “The EU wasn’t always so terrible at promoting science careers through funny internet music videos! (thanks, Guido)”
A series of videos with math profs explaining a specific number (or interesting topic with a contrived connection to a particular number)
jQuery plugin that blindly removes lines with errors and recompiles until it works
The second season of our pop-culture travel show kicks off at Wes Anderson’s alma mater.
Summary of one of the Chrome security exploits from pwn2own. Basically XSS into the chrome URI scheme which gives access to special APIs.
A leaf directory in a whole set of files that map from character set byte value to Unicode code point. This one is a set of Microsoft character set byte mappings, but there are other vendors in there too.
Waxy roundup of DMCA takedown process stupidity.
“So the Scripps TV broadcasts are indexed by YouTube, and the Content ID robots do the rest. And because Content ID disputes are judged by the copyright holder, complaints are routinely ignored or denied.”
The conversation surrounding how to liberate HBO from its cable partners and create the entertainment utopia viewers have long desired has been fascinating.
The resulting analyses of the numbers has pretty much shown that the amount people are willing to pay is not nearly enough to…
Use of my old Hotmail account has really snuck up on me as I end up caring more and more about all of the services with which it is associated. The last straw is Windows 8 login, but previous straws include Xbox, Zune, SkyDrive, and my Windows 7 Phone. I like the features and sync'ing associated with the Windows Live ID, but I don't like my old, spam filled, hotmail email address on the Live ID account.
A coworker told me about creating a Live ID from a custom domain, which sounded like just the ticket for me. Following the instructions above I was able to create a new deletethis.net Live ID but the next step of actually using this new Live ID was much more difficult. My first hope was there would be some way to link my new and old Live IDs so as to make them interchangeable. As it turns out there is a way to link Live IDs but all that does is make it easy to switch between accounts on Live Mail, SkyDrive and some other webpages.
Instead one must change over each service or start over depending on the service:
Flickr parses the exif out of images using Web Workers, and Blob (File API)!
On the topic of blobs and createObjectURL. Woo blobs!
“From his first months in office, President Obamasecretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
A great JS API to add Clippy or other agents to your website! Make them talk, dance, gesture, etc
The second episode of Comedy Bang! Bang! available for your viewing pleasure immediately. (episode one not yet available)
Web apps really make obvious the lack of URI APIs in the DOM or JavaScript. This blog post goes over using DOM API side effects to resolve relative URIs and parse URIs. An additonal benefit of this mechanism is that you avoid security issues caused by mismatched behavior between the browser’s URI parsing and your app’s URI parsing.
I'm done playing Fez. The style is atmospheric retro nastalgia and on the surface the gameplay is standard 2D platformer with one interesting Flatland style game mechanic but dig deeper to find Myst style puzzles. Despite the following I thoroughly enjoyed the game and would recommend it to anyone intrigued by the previous. Five eighths through the game I ran into one of the game's infamous Fez save game breaking issues, but I enjoyed the game enough that I started over before any patches were released and had no further issues.
While playing the game I created some tools to help keep track of my Fez notes (spoilers) including a Pixelated Image Creator that makes it easy to generate data URIs for large, black and white pixelated images, and (spoilers) a Fez Transliteration Tool to help me translate the in-game writing system.
Answers those questions like “When will the Sun boil away the Earth’s oceans?” and “When will the Sun burn out?”, but brings up new questions like which supercontinent configuration will win? I’m hoping for Pangea Ultima as it has the best name.