2010 Feb 1, 8:39"Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most
peaceful time in our species' existence." Working up towards Forever Peace?
video history violence culture ted steven-pinker game-theory 2010 Jan 29, 3:54
Raymond Chen has some thought experiments useful for discovering various kinds of stupidity in software design:
Tim Berners-Lee's principles of Web design includes my favorite: Test of Independent Invention. This has a thought experiment containing the construction of the MMM (Multi-Media Mesh) with
MRIs (Media Resource Identifiers) and MMTP (Muli-Media Transport Protocol).
The Internet design principles (RFC 1958) includes the Robustness Principle: be strict when sending and tolerant when receiving. A good one, but applied too liberally can lead to interop issues. For instance, consider web browsers.
Imagine one browser becomes so popular that web devs create web pages and just test out their pages in this popular browser. They don't ensure their pages conform to standards and accidentally end
up depending on the manner in which this popular browser tolerantly accepts non-standard input. This non-standard behavior ends up as de facto standard and future updates to the standard
essentially has had decisions made for it.
technical design principles software development 2010 Jan 28, 4:28Photos of locations in present day with aging photos of the same location overlaid. Cool idea, nice execution, and also does that lady have a pet rabbit on a leash?
art photo flickr history 2010 Jan 20, 2:03The only doctor in Antarctica has to remove his own appendix. "When Rogozov had made the incision and was manipulating his own innards as he removed the appendix, his intestine gurgled, which was
highly unpleasant for us..." Oh wow, Rogozov should for sure appologize for making you uncomfortable. Jerk. There's photos in the report too. Gross.
history science medicine antarctic appendix russia via:kottke 2010 Jan 18, 3:11Crayola's Law: "The number of colors doubles every 28 years!" With chart depicting Crayola colors over the years.
visualization via:waxy history timeline crayon crayola color 2010 Jan 15, 6:03The derivation of the word Zork.
history language english game if interactive-fiction zork mit 2010 Jan 5, 6:38Lovely historical infographics. For instance, check out the topographical map of NY city from 1874.
information infographics graph design history via:kottke 2009 Dec 16, 9:48Its sometimes captioned frames from hilarious moments you may recall from The Simpsons!
humor history tv simpsons image 2009 Dec 11, 5:13"A real true history lesson: Before there were laptops, everyone had to carry entire desktop computers to class. Before there were desktops, they had to lug typewriters. Before that, everyone just
tried real hard to remember stuff. Ask your grandparents!"
humor typewriter satire laptop college 2009 Dec 10, 6:53Tycho was a jerk.
humor tycho comic history 2009 Dec 8, 12:02"This illustration, from the September 10, 1910 New York Tribune, imagines the rooftop burglars of the future. 'BURGLARS LEARN TO HANDLE THE AEROPLANE WITH PRECISION AND SILENCE: Our artist takes a
look into the future and foresees the time when roofs must be secured as carefully as any other part of the home.'"
humor history burglar crime newspaper news 2009 Dec 4, 10:24Flickr dev. blog on the accept-language HTTP header: "It’s true that the Accept-Language header has a troubled history. Because of this, many developers regard it the way medieval villagers might
have regarded a woman with a warty nose and a pet cat – it should be shunned, avoided and possibly burned at the stake." And this great anecdote: "In two and a half years of running as an
international site, we’ve only ever had one case where it didn’t work. Helio, a cellphone company, had a browser was custom-built for them in Korea, and had its “Accept-Language” header hard-coded to
always request Korean, something which led to much confusion for the Flickr users amongst their American customers."
flickr internationalization language accept-language http http-header development technical web 2009 Dec 4, 5:06"If you want to watch videos from the National Archives today, they try to talk you into buying a DVD from the official government partner, Amazon.Com...To demonstrate to the Congress that if we
liberated this wonderful content people would really care, I forked over $251 for 20 DVDs and posted them on-line."
video history politics government public-domain internet-archive 2009 Nov 23, 1:21"Je vous propose aujourd’hui de découvrir le travail de StarType, un ex typographe qui a connu le temps du plomb et travaillé dans de nombreuses imprimeries pour évoluer et devenir graphiste par la
suite."
typography advertising font french design history 2009 Nov 23, 11:47'Bill Gates is being taken on a guided tour of the product support department's new office building...Bill puts on a headset, sits down, and answers the phone. "Hello, this is Microsoft Product
Support, William speaking. How can I help you?"'
humor microsoft bill-gates raymond-chen support history 2009 Nov 3, 1:33'A few hours after that, Tim Berners-Lee responded: I had imagined that figues would be reprented as <a name=fig1 href="fghjkdfghj" REL="EMBED, PRESENT">Figure </a>'. Ohhhh, that would
have been better.
html history mark-pilgrim browser web images technical 2009 Oct 30, 10:41All the stuff Nintendo forces developers to take out of the Nintendo Maniac Mansion port. I had read this before and didn't connect after watching Douglas Crockford's JavaScript talk that this was
the same guy.
douglas-crockford game videogame nintendo censorship pc history geek 2009 Oct 8, 4:59A brief introduction to Hadoop, its history, subprojects, and current status
via:pskomoroch hadoop introduction google yahoo facebook database technical 2009 Oct 5, 8:44Brief history of the Luddites. "Are we all Luddites now? ... If you are reading this essay on your laptop or iPhone, chances are that you aren't an unemployed weaver staring starvation in the face."
Also: "The Luddites didn't oppose technology; they opposed the sudden collapse of their industry, which they blamed in part on new weaving machines." So the TV and newspaper associations and Rupert
Murdoch are Luddites.
history technology luddite
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