Fors

Remove Blogger post preview traffic from Google Analytics

2012-05-28T23:05:00.000+03:00

Even though Blogger offers traffic stats in the default dashboard, the numbers are often inaccurate, being inflated by referrer spam. I have seen traffic spikes on a couple occasions that aren’t reproducible in other traffic tracking solutions like Google Analytics or the stats offered by link shortening services. Usually Google Analytics is more reliable, since it’s using a script after the page has actually loaded to track the visits, and it’s also integrated in the Blogger dashboard. It does have it’s downsides, one of which is the very complicated procedure to exclude your own traffic from the stats – a method which incidentally isn’t very reliable, in my experience.

Another inconsistency in the stats from Google Analytics I noticed recently is the fact that it also tracks the previews of your Blogger posts before publishing. In a way it makes sense, since the preview is now a full-fledged page with script support, located on the same domain as the site/blog. You can see the amount of visits to the post previews in the Google Analytics dashboard under ‘Content’ ► ‘Site Content’ ► ‘Content Drilldown’ ► select the ‘Page path level’ /b/. The amount of virtual visits on preview pages should be relatively small (in my case 1.14% over half the previous month) and, depending on the total number of visits, should have a negligible overall impact on the traffic data. On the other hand, these self-visits are registered under ‘returning visitors’ and generate a low bounce rate; this could skew important metrics in the long run.

Fortunately there is an easy way to filter out there false hits directly in Google Analytics by adding a filter. Go to the ‘Admin’ section in the top orange bar, under ‘Profiles’ ► ‘Filters’, click ‘New Filter’, choose ‘Predefined filter’, then in the following drop-downs choose ‘Exclude’, ‘traffic to the subdirectories’, ‘that contain’ and finally fill in the subdirectory /b/ for the post previews.

I have enabled this filter about two weeks ago and, as you can see in the image below, Google Analytics stopped recording my traffic to post previews immediately. It would be nice if the filter could be applied retroactively to the entire database, that would yield better stats over the lifetime of the blog, but I’m not sure if there is a way to do that.

Sebastian A. Corn - Adrenergic!

2012-05-27T12:00:00.000+03:00

În metropola South Sabrata, undeva în secolul 22, Tamerlan Banks – un nume predestinat pentru fapte mari – directorul onorific al giganticei corporații United T‑Skell Spaces, își pune în mișcare planurile de a‑l detrona pe actualul director și succesorul său, Hugh Secada. Desigur, n‑ar strica dacă pe lângă faimă, putere și bogății ar obține și atenția Priscillei Ydriss, actuala soție a lui Secada. În goana lui nebună, care durează mai puțin de 24 de ore, Tamerlan se aliază cu contrabandiștii de la marginea societății și cu turboskelii, entitățile cibernetice semi‑inteligente care populează și întrețin reticulosistemul, rețeaua informatică a orașului. Deși luat prin surprindere, Secada știe cum să contraatace, arătând că a ajuns în fruntea ierarhiei pentru că e mai mult decât un fost emigrant columbian, fost șomer și fost spațiofor. Iar turboskelii, deși aparent recunoscători lui Tamerlan, creatorul lor, și dornici de a obține enormul spațiu virtual promis de el în schimbul sprijinului împotriva lui Secada, au propriile planuri învăluite în secret.

„Adrenergic!” e un roman cyberpunk care‑și respectă pe deplin titlul, asociat cu receptorii de adrenalină din corpul uman. Nu numai pentru ritmul alert care nu obosește deloc și stârnește serios adrenalina în cititori, ci și pentru tehnologia imaginată a viitorului. Aceasta se bazează aproape exclusiv pe biotehnologie, de la banchetele din tentacule amplificate de calmar la clădirile vii, împânzite de ochi pentru supraveghere. Până și banalele tatuaje ca simbol de statut sau apartenență la anumite grupări sunt înlocuite cu implante organice – solzi albaștri de crap japonez sau culturi de mușchi de pădure. Ca să nu mai vorbim de reticulosistem, echivalentul din povestire al Internet‑ului, care rulează în creierele spațioforilor, oameni păstrați în cuve organice care au ales să‑și doneze capacitatea cerebrală în schimbul banilor sau ca pedeapsă pentru infracțiuni. Autorul merge foarte în amănunt în crearea universului, deși romanul este destul de scurt, adăugând până și o asociație care se ocupă de drepturile spațioforilor, Human Anamnestics, care investighează în mod curent practicile marilor companii, avide după putere suplimentară de calcul.

În spatele acțiunii rapide se dezvoltă o idee dragă genului cyberpunk, influențată de filozofia orientală: ce este realitatea și cum o putem deosebi de iluzie? Unde se găsește punctul din care o copie devine atât de fidelă că poate fi confundată cu originalul? Și dacă treci de acel punct, cum poți ști că originalul nu era la rândul lui o simulare? Fugind de agenții lui Secada, Tamerlan pătrunde în spațiul virtual unde sinapsele a trei spațiofori reproduc cu fidelitate Sabrata de Sud, de la clădiri și peisaje până la imaginile oamenilor din oraș. Însă aici se găsesc și alte spații, create de turboskeli pentru propriile nevoi sau cumpărate de la contrabandiști, alte versiuni ale orașului, subtil diferite de cel din care provine Tamerlan.

„Și sînteți sigur” continuă femeia, „că în adevărata South Sabrata n‑a apărut un alt Tamerlan Banks? Coborînd de la un alt etaj?”

Ceea ce m‑a deranjat – mă rog, deranjat e cam prea mult spus, poate sâcâit e mai potrivit – e prea marea similitudine la nivel de acțiune și de personaje cu un alt roman al lui Sebastian Corn, „2484 Quirinal Ave.”. Deși fundalul e complet diferit (steampunk vs. cyperpunk), avem și aici un nonconformist însetat de putere, de droguri și de femei, care tânjește după soția rivalului său, mult mai conservator. E oarecum ca și cum ai citi o altă piesă de teatru în care recunoști aceiași actori principali jucând aceleași roluri. În plus, autorul insistă să nu explice termenii noi pe care îi introduce, ceea ce face acomodarea la lumea din roman dificilă. Asta nu‑mi strică plăcerea de a citi romanul de față, dar aruncă o umbră de îndoială asupra originalității autorului. Vreau să cred că poate imagina și alte personaje decât aceste câteva modele care se repetă în ambele romane.

Încă de la primele pagini, povestea mi‑a lăsat senzația pe care o ai într‑un vis; un vis la limita realității, plin de acțiune, de fugă fără sens, în care decorul se schimbă brusc, dar totuși în acord cu logica proprie visului, în care simți mereu o amenințare greu de definit chiar undeva în spatele tău. Dacă alții l‑au comparat cu „Matrix”, eu aș zice e mult mai aproape de un alt film recent, „Inception”, cu care împărtășește imaginea spațiilor (aici în realitatea virtuală, acolo în vise) care se acopereau unele pe altele ca niște foi de ceapă, în care te poți afunda tot mai adânc, până la a pierde legătura cu punctul de plecare și cu realitatea – oricare ar fi ea. Dacă „Adrenergic!” a ajuns cumva în mâinile lui Christopher Nolan, sunt sigur că a găsit în roman o bună sursă de inspirație pentru filmul său.

Make Blogger more printer-friendly

2012-05-25T23:01:00.000+03:00

In the current digital world, printing is probably not a big priority for someone building a site, let alone for small- to medium-sized blogs. Nevertheless, some users might want to keep a PDF- copy of some articles, so it’s nice to offer a dedicated layout for print. Unfortunately, Blogger templates don’t offer native print support, as it’s mostly a niche feature most blog owners wouldn’t ask for. So I set out to build my own print style-sheet using CSS media queries.

The idea is pretty simple: you basically want to reset colors and background images to a more print-safe black & white and hide all page elements that don’t make sense in a static medium as print, namely navigation, sidebars and widgets, sharing buttons, the footer, videos and other interactive content e.g. the comment form. But the task is made harder by the way Blogger templates handle sidebars, with a combination of margins and padding, probably to keep the best compatibility with older versions of Internet Explorer.

After some experimenting I managed to put together a simple workable solution. Besides Internet Explorer, who supported media queries only starting with version 9, all other desktop browser are fully compatible with this code, so the results should be pretty consistent. Also, the solution works automatically whenever the user starts the printing process, so there’s no learning curve and no extra buttons to click on the page. The code is all-purpose, designed to work on most blogs as long as they employ the standard Blogger templates – with some small exceptions, namely the last section where I added a couple of classes and ID’s I manually added in my template. You can safely leave that part out, as it’s unlikely you would have the same classes on your blog or that they would serve the same purpose as on my blog. I haven’t tested this with dynamic templates, but since they are mainly rendered in JavaScript I think it’s safe to assume this is not going to work for them.

To add the CSS code, go to ‘Template’ on the new Dashboard, click ‘Customize’, then ‘Advanced’ ► ‘Add CSS’ and paste the code in the box – if you have other CSS customizations saved here, add the print CSS preferably at the bottom, to make this the last thing the browser reads and renders on the page.

@media print {
/* hide Blogger bar */
#navbar-iframe { 
 display: none; }
/* Reset colors to black text on white background and background images */
.header, .footer-outer, .post-outer { 
 background-color: white; background-image: none; 
 color: black; text-shadow: none; }
/* Hide Pages, sidebars, embedded videos & iframes */
.tabs-outer { 
 display: none; }
.sidebar { 
 display: none; width: 0%; }
iframe, object { 
 display: none; }
.blog-pager, .quickedit, .post-feeds, .post-share-buttons, .comment-replybox-thread { 
 display: none; }
/* Reset post width to fill the entire page */
.main-inner, .columns {
   padding-left: 0px !important;
   padding-right: 0px !important;
   width: 100%; }
.content-outer { 
 margin: 0px; width: 100%; }
.content-inner { 
 padding: 0px; width: 100%; }
.post-outer { 
 border: none; width: 100%; }
/* Specific for my blog */
#footer-2-1, #footer-2-2, #sharenav, .buttonlist, .videocontainer { 
 display: none; }
}

And the result on the right, compared to the default look for printing:

This is, of course, only a starting point, as there are many other CSS tweaks that can be applied to make the print experience better. You can get more insight into this technique in this article from “A List Apart”.

TechCrunch: “Facebook Redesigns Mobile To Make News Feed Photos 3X Larger”

2012-05-24T21:21:00.000+03:00

If you’re sick of interrupting your news feed reading to open and load photos, you’ll like a new Facebook mobile site, iOS, and Android app redesign rolling out today that makes photos three times larger. Shares of single photos now look a lot like Instagrams, as they appear full width so there’s less need to stop and open them. Meanwhile the bigger previews of photo albums will help you instantly assess whether to dive in or breeze past. Josh Constine

I got this update as well the day before. I don’t think bigger photos work on mobile for three reasons: longer load times (I used to think the Facebook app couldn’t get any slower, but I now stand corrected), more bandwidth (this certainly won’t encourage me to use it over 3G) and more scrolling (before you could see a couple of updates at a glance, now only one). Just look at the example on the right: the photo is so big, that on the iPhone you can’t fit the avatar and the status message above the photo on the same screen with the Like & Comment bar at the bottom. I like to choose what photos I look at more closely, not have all of them shoved in my face. But hey, still no ads! That has to be a good thing, right?

One more thing: while writing the post I noticed on Twitter that Facebook just launched a standalone app for photos, Facebook Camera. The previous update to the main app makes even less sense now: why change the news stream when you know you’re going to launch a dedicated app with better features in a couple of days?

A book by any other name…

2012-05-22T20:30:00.000+03:00

I hope my poor Shakespearian reference may be excused, but I feel it’s appropriate given the subject at hand: the Kindle. It’s been more than a year since I bought one and in the mean time Amazon has already launched a new generation and there’s even talk about future models with color (no, not the Fire!) or backlit screens. I also had some experience before with a Sony e-book reader. Ever since I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about it on the blog, so now I finally got around to it.

I heard a lot of people talking about ‘the special feel of printed books’ and how they can’t get used to reading on a screen, even on e-paper. I never had that impression, maybe because I consider the physical support less important than the content, the message of the book. And let’s face it: printed books have many disadvantages over the electronic version: they’re heavier, bulkier, you can’t annotate or set bookmarks without leaving lasting marks, you can’t do full text search or look up words you don’t know in the built-in dictionary. The only advantages of classical books that come to mind are the fact that you can easily skim trough and that you don’t need any power to read one – although the Kindle can handle about a month of reading without a recharge. In fact the last couple of times I forgot to check the battery level and had to apply an emergency solution: I recharged it at work with a Samsung changer borrowed from a colleague – hooray for standard USB connectors!

The switch to e-books didn’t change my reading habits much; for one I do more reading than before because it’s easier to carry a Kindle around than a paperback – the bigger the book, the more advantageous the Kindle becomes. I am also becoming more critical about the books I read, abandoning some after a mere dozen pages. It’s easy to account for this, because with a physical book you wouldn’t have an alternative around if you didn’t liked what you picked up; instead with the Kindle you practically have a whole library of untouched books at your fingertips, ready to supply you with another title if the current one doesn’t feel interesting.

The Kindle emphasizes the library concept with some subtle hints in the interface: if you noticed the string of dots underneath book titles they actually act as a progress bar, indicating how much of the book you read. This way you can distinguish at a glance between read (bold dots) and unread books (lighter dots). Also, the length of this bar is directly related to the length of the book. There’s also the Collections feature allowing you to group similar books and unclutter the main screen – curiously it only works after you connect the device to an Amazon account. There are other subtle ways to make the experience better: the software remembers the reading progress per document, so you can navigate to other books or documents and return to the same page without manually placing a bookmark. There is also an indication of progress in the current reading session, marked by a small arrow above the progress line at the bottom of the page. And speaking of bookmarks, there is a shortcut to add one: click an arrow button to start a selection and then double-click the 5-way selector in the center – no need to go through the menu for that!

Another thing that comes up a lot in relation to the Kindle is the comparison to the iPad. While I don’t own one (I don’t plan to either), I can get a rough idea from my iPhone. The Kindle clearly has better dimensions for mobile use; I saw a couple of iPads and other tablets in the subway on my way to work and they looked positively awkward compared to my smaller Kindle. I actually don’t see the two products competing, they are simply designed for different purposes. The iPad/iPhone can have multiple uses, limited only by the apps and the availability of a data connection, and so are much closer to a traditional PC. The Kindle instead is focused on the reading experience. Sure, you also browse and shop in the Kindle store or share quotes on Twitter or Facebook, but the core remains the digital book. Just notice how the interface fades away when you start reading to remove all distractions for the reader. If I check the iPhone multiple times a day for short bursts of information, I fire up the Kindle when I have enough time for a longer, uninterrupted, session – and consequently I probably use the Kindle more in the course of a day.

With the Kindle, you’re becoming absorbed in a story for an hour or more at a time. You can read in bed, right before you go to sleep, without worrying that it will rile you up. To the contrary, the Kindle relaxes you. You might even take it outside to the pool or to the hammock. Flight attendants will chastise the iPhone-using passenger next to you as the plane descends for landing; but you, the gentle Kindle user, she’ll merely touch on the shoulder and tell you with a smile to make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened. Mark Jaquith

My only complaint regarding the Kindle is, naturally, the small number of file formats it supports – basically only their own proprietary e-book format. They also theoretically render PDF files, but I found that support half-baked; PDF documents aren’t reflowed on the smaller screen, so if you have A4-sized pages you need to scroll many times left to right to read the text – changing the screen orientation to landscape doesn’t help much. If you have the document in another format I found it better to generate a PDF-file myself using a paper size close to the physical dimensions of the Kindle screen (about 9cm x 12.5cm). Or you can use their free conversion service by email, which requires an Amazon account, or third-party software like Calibre. Other services – like klip.me – allow you to send pages from the Internet wirelessly to the Kindle, especially useful for long articles I don’t have the patience to read in a single session on the web.

E-ink feels peaceful to me. The Kindle doesn’t feel like a computer. It feels — not to the touch but to the eyes and mind — like a crudely-typeset and slightly smudgily-printed paper book. That’s a good thing. Battery life is un-computer-like as well: Amazon measures e-ink Kindle battery life in months, and they’re not joking. It’s a surprise when the Kindle actually needs a charge. I was a doubter until I owned one, but now I’m convinced that e-ink readers have tremendous value even in the post-iPad world. John Gruber

The most intriguing thing about the Kindle (and the Sony reader I used for a couple of months in Germany) was the reaction of people who saw me using it. I was approached by many to ask me about the device and the experience, people interested in purchasing e-book readers themselves, or who offered to sell me a cover – it was actually a good deal and I took it! But the reflex I encountered the most was to touch the screen and the slight disappointment that it didn’t react. I wonder where did they get that idea…

The New York Times: “The Zuckerberg Tax”

2012-05-21T12:26:00.000+03:00

If Mr. Zuckerberg never sells his shares, he can avoid all income tax and then, on his death, pass on his shares to his heirs. When they sell them, they will be taxed only on any appreciation in value since his death.

Consider the case of Steven P. Jobs. After rejoining Apple in 1997, Mr. Jobs never sold a single Apple share for the rest of his life, and therefore never paid a penny of tax on the over $2 billion of Apple stock he held at his death. Now his widow can sell those shares without paying any income tax on the appreciation before his death. She would have to pay taxes only on the increase in value from the time of his death to the time of the sale.

Now compare Mr. Zuckerberg with Lady Gaga. Last year she told Ellen DeGeneres that she had to get “completely wasted” to sign her tax returns because she owed so much. Lady Gaga reportedly earned $90 million in 2010. Because she earns fees and royalties, she’s subject to the highest income-tax rate. So, assuming she’s just as successful this year, she will certainly pay more than $30 million in taxes and probably more than $45 million, which is infinitely more tax than Mr. Zuckerberg will pay on the $23 billion of Facebook stock he now holds. […]

Our tax system is based on the concept of “realization.” Individuals are not taxed until they actually sell property and realize their gains. But this system makes less sense for the publicly traded stocks of the superwealthy. A drastic change is necessary to fix this fundamental flaw in our tax system and finally require people like Warren E. Buffett, Mr. Ellison and others to pay at least a little income tax on their unsold shares. The fix is called mark-to-market taxation. […]

A mark-to-market system of taxation on the top one-tenth of 1 percent would raise hundreds of billions of dollars of new revenue over the next 10 years. The new revenue could be used to lower payroll taxes, extend the George W. Bush tax cuts, repeal the alternative minimum tax, reduce the budget deficit, prevent military cuts or a combination of all of these.

This tax would not affect the middle class, or even most wealthy Americans. Nor would it affect small-business owners. It would affect only individuals who were undeniably, extraordinarily rich. Only publicly traded stock would be marked to market.
David S. Miller

America, truly the Land of Opportunity. For the 0.1%…

via Piaw Na

Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Princess of Mars

2012-05-20T12:00:00.000+03:00

Trebuie să mărturisesc că, deși e considerat un clasic al genului, romanul de față m‑a lăsat rece de la primele pagini. Ba chiar l‑am abandonat după un capitol; am revenit la el de‑abia când am dat de o carte și mai greu de digerat (de Philip K. Dick, evident). De data asta am rezistat până la sfârșit, doar pentru ca prima impresie să‑mi fie confirmată din plin. Acțiunea s‑ar putea să vă fie cunoscută în mare, fie din carte, fie din diversele variante de ecranizare: John Carter, un veteran al Războiului Civil American, ajunge în Arizona în căutarea aurului, când partenerul lui e ucis de un trib de indieni. După ce salvează corpul acestuia dintre ei, Carter se refugiază într‑o peșteră, de unde e transportat ca prin magie pe suprafața lui Marte – sau Barsoom, așa cum e cunoscută de localnici. Capturat de Marțienii Verzi, se remarcă printre ei ca războinic și devine protectorul și pretendentul frumoasei Dejas Thoris din rasa Marțienilor Roșii, prințesă a orașului-stat Helium.

Cartea e o combinație eclectică de elemente care acum ar fi disputate de genurile science-fiction și fantasy – de înțeles pentru perioada din care provine. Burroughs are în repertoriu destule explicații științifice plauzibile: gravitația scăzută de pe Marte, care‑i conferă eroului puteri aproape supranaturale (deși amploarea salturilor lui e compatibilă mai degrabă cu Luna decât cu Planeta Roșie), cei doi sateliți (prea luminoși în roman pentru dimensiunile lor reale, iar văzut de pe suprafața planetei Phobos răsare la vest, ceea ce din câte țin minte nu e descris corect în roman), faptul că John Carter trebuie să învețe limba băștinașilor, descrierile vegetației și animalelor locale, cum ar fi faptul că noi-născuții Marțienilor Verzi au capul proporțional mai mare decât adulții, la fel ca în cazul oamenilor. Romanul introduce multe idei care răspândesc mai târziu în literatura SF: automate care pregătesc mâncare, călătorii interplanetare și sateliți artificiali, terraformarea pentru a supraviețui ecosferei în declin, care trebuie menținută la un nivel suportabil cu fabrici atmosferice sofisticate și sistemul de canale marțiene. Probabil de aceea întâlnim referiri la Barsoom în romane SF moderne, ca „Steaua Pandorei”.

Totuși, autorul cade destul de repede în capcana explicațiilor facile sau pur și simplu fanteziste acolo unde nu are alte resurse: de la călătoria instantanee către Marte la materiale cu proprietăți aproape magice (radium‑ul folosit în gloanțe pentru că explodează la lumină, a opta rază care are proprietăți anti‑gravitație și a noua rază care e o sursă inepuizabilă de energie), la ignorarea legilor biologice astfel încât John poate avea un ou/copil cu prințesa, deși cu doar câteva pagini mai înainte era remarcată diferența între organele lor interne, sau ouăle Marțienilor Verzi care, odată depuse, cresc de unele singure, fără acces la nutrienți. A, și să nu uităm telepatia, care apare și dispare la momentele cele mai convenabile pentru a‑l scăpa pe John în situațiile mai complicate.

În afară de latura oarecum științifică, romanul mustește din păcate de clișee și de personaje lipsite de adâncime. Triburile războinice sunt în mod necesar sălbatice, înapoiate, violente, crude, lipsite de compasiune, în esență „rele”, în timp ce cei care controlează tehnologia sunt nobili, miloși, „buni”. La acest nivel romanul e aproape o justificare a războiului de exterminare dus de coloniștii americani împotriva băștinașilor amerindieni. Femeia e obiect de atracție erotică sau face toate treburile casnice, eroul învinge toate obstacolele din cale fără măcar să obosească pentru a obține în final și trofeul, prințesa – o poveste demnă de un blockbuster hollywoodian. Iar, pentru un roman care se vrea de aventură, scenele de luptă sunt de o scurtețe spartană. Spre final autorul are nevoie doar de un paragraf, ceva mai mult de o frază, pentru a puncta victoria lui Carter asupra adversarului neinspirat să ridice mâna asupra personajului principal.

And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new.

„A Princess of Mars” îmi amintește de poveștile fantastice medievale ale oamenilor care au călătorit către Lună într‑un balon, sau de faimoasele „Călătorii ale lui Gulliver” – deși orice comparație e clar defavorabilă lui Burroughs. „Călătoriile” au de partea lor un scris inteligent și satira fină a lui Jonathan Swift, în timp ce „Prințesa marțiană” oferă un ritm egal și previzibil, idei interesante, dar deloc dezvoltate, și în final nu spune nimic demn de reținut.

Proceedings of the Royal Society: “Cooperation and the evolution of intelligence”

2012-05-18T22:44:00.000+03:00

Additionally, although kin selection is still of importance in highly intelligent taxa, high relatedness may hinder the evolution of intelligence by driving unconditional cooperation to fixation in the population, without any need of contingent behaviours.
A trait as complex as advanced intelligence is likely to have evolved owing to a combination of several factors rather than a single factor [4]. Along with the social intelligence hypothesis, many other theories attempting to explain the evolution of advanced intelligence have been suggested, among them that intelligence is an adaptation for tool use [53,54], that intelligence is an adaptation for social learning and the accumulation of culture [55–57], and that intelligence is the result of sexual selection [58]. All of these theories are supported by evidence from at least some of the most intelligent animals. However, the difficulty lies in disentangling the traits that are causal factors in the evolution of intelligence from those that are by-products of advanced intelligence. Luke McNally, Sam P. Brown and Andrew L. Jackson

Fascinating study, if a bit too technical, about the emergence of intelligence. Unlike the birth of the Universe and even the origin of life, it remains a largely uncharted area of scientific research. There are many hypothesis but few scientifically verifiable facts. And unfortunately the experimental method is not really an option. This study tries to simulate group behavior in by applying game theory repeatedly, to see if the simulated individuals evolve towards greater intelligence, meaning better strategies for cooperation. The setup is over-simplified, but, hey, you have to start somewhere!

The results are interesting, with complex patterns emerging. I was most interested in the first paragraph above, found towards the end, in the conclusions; it resembles my own views about a science-fiction novel I have recently read, namely intelligence is more likely to develop in larger, mixed groups, than in small ones, where the members are already inclined to cooperate by their family ties. Without a better understanding of the origin of human intelligence, it seems unlikely we will be able to create artificial ones.

Flipboard update makes it easy to discover sections

2012-05-17T22:40:00.000+03:00

With yesterday’s update (currently version 1.9), Flipboard announced support for sound playback inside the app in partnership with SoundCloud – not something I would personally get excited about. But I noticed another more interesting feature: the top bar added a drop-down menu where you can quickly switch to another section related to the current social network: your favorites and lists from Twitter, your News Feed Links and Photos on Facebook, the Flickr Favorites or the Interestingness photo stream (I had no idea such a nice thing even existed before today!). This makes it much easier to navigate to different streams; previously any section not added to Flipboard could only be accessed through Accounts in the app options. It was cumbersome and so I rarely visited anything other than the content I had already pinned to the main screens. After this small change I expect to spend more time in Flipboard and to explore more data sources, especially my Google Reader subscriptions, which were the most neglected previously. As before, when you open new sections you also get the option to add them to the main screen by tapping on the ‘+’-button in the top bar.

Update: In reply to my post, I received an extra tip from Flipboard Follow @Flipboard for managing Google Reader inside the app:

@EXDE601E nice write up, you can also swipe left/right in the menu to mark Google Reader feeds All Read. Might be worth adding to your post?
— Jon Virtes (@FlipboardCM) May 17, 2012

Official Gmail Blog: “Continuing to bring people front and center in Gmail”

2012-05-17T13:14:00.000+03:00

Circles are also now supported in search and filters. Find messages from a specific circle by typing circle:[circle name] in the search box. You can also find mail from any of your circled contacts by searching with has:circle. You can refine your search even further with other criteria and create filters based on circles. This means you can now view all the unread emails from your ‘Friends’ circle or automatically star every message that comes from your ‘VIP’ circle. Itamar Gilad

Finally a meaningful way to use circles in your Gmail inbox! A little bit more automation for managing e-mail can’t hurt, for example a filter like this:

circle:friends subject:-(fw|fwd) ► Apply the label: Friends; Never send it to Spam

or:

-has:circle ► Skip the Inbox (Archive it)

One can’t help wonder why this wasn’t doable with the plain old Groups in Contacts. Going through Google+ seems such an overkill.

I’m curios if this also applies to outgoing mail…

Daring Fireball: “iOS Low-Hanging Fruit”

2012-05-16T23:00:00.000+03:00

iOS is by no means feature-complete. But it’s getting harder to identify the low-hanging fruit — the things you just know Apple has to be working on, not just the stuff you hope they are. The biggest one left is mapping. Today brings a report from 9to5Mac that Apple is set to switch the back-end data in iOS’s Maps app from Google to its own mapping services; John Paczkowski confirms it, quoting a source who claims the new Maps will “blow your head off”. John Gruber

Interestingly, I was just taking with a work colleague about the very same thing a couple of days ago – meaning what new features would we like to see on our iPhones in a couple of months. He’s very into Apple; I wouldn’t call him a fanboi, but he comes pretty close. Between the two of us, we couldn’t find many things missing from iOS.

@m4tt you could turn off cellular data. That's what I do on some weekends.
— George M (@EXDE601E) May 2, 2012

Sure, there are small refinement that would be welcomed: a way to jump to a specific date in Calendar, a better way to mark messages as unread in Mail (optionally replace ‘Delete’ for the swipe gesture, maybe?), badges for Reminders and Calendar to quickly see if there are pending tasks or events for today. Neither of us cares very much for Android-like widgets, although it would be nice too see some more interactive home-screen icons, like Calendar, which automatically updates with the current date. After all, the weather isn’t always a sunny 23° C! Photos could also feature the latest picture from the PhotoStream for example, for a more personal touch.

The one thing we both would love to see copied from Android is a quick way to toggle a couple of settings, like Wi-Fi, cellular data, Bluetooth. I visit those settings basically every day, sometimes more than once, and that would naturally save time. The Notification Center would be a good place for the quick toggles – and so would the multitasking bar.

But the biggest impact could come if Apple would allow third party apps to become defaults in iOS. Unlike others, I am pretty satisfied with the default Mail app, but I would love to have a more powerful Photo app, like Camera Awesome, sitting in the lock screen just a swipe away. And I’m sure the demand for other default browsers would be pretty big, even if they are limited to the built-in rendering and JavaScript engines.

What’s new in Chrome 20

2012-05-14T23:00:00.000+03:00

The version increase to v21 is right on schedule, even though the stable channel still remains at version 18, so it’s time to do a quick summary of the changes. Unfortunately, like many of the versions with even numbers before it, Chrome 20 brings next to nothing new for casual users – the only change you may notice is a slightly larger ‘New Tab’ button. Most of the updates concern developers and standards implementation, for example:

A setting to enable ‘Web Intents’ has been added to the interface, located under ‘Advanced Settings’ ► ‘Privacy’ ► ‘Content settings’ ► ‘Allow Web Intents to enable me to connect my applications’.
The datalist element for web-based forms is now available in Chrome – a bit late compared to other browsers, since Firefox and Opera already support it.
Mobile developers – all developers interested in responsive design actually – can use the Web Inspector to specify the screen resolution and font scale factor in order to quickly simulate different screen sizes; and also emulate touch events with the mouse. You can find the two new options in the Inspector ‘Settings’ menu (the gear icon in the lower right).

Other small updates include ‘Chrome To Mobile’, introduced in the previous version, now enabled by default and can be disabled through a flag. And on the topic of flags, you can enable ‘Asynchronous Spellchecking’ to get spellchecking suggestions from Google’s servers, a feature that has been in testing for a while; the UI seems to have stabilized now. Also a number of new internal pages have been added, for example:

‘Inspect with Chrome Developer Tools’ (chrome://inspect/) lists the currently opened tabs and running extensions, providing a link to inspect the code. The functionality was briefly available in the Task Manager, but that menu item is now disabled.
‘Policies’ (chrome://policy/) provides a user interface for applying group policies, I presume, a long-running feature request to smooth the adoption of Chrome in companies.
The ‘Omnibox Debug Page’ (chrome://omnibox/) lists the predicted results for a specific Omnibox input, basically what Chrome would suggest if you were to type that in the Omnibox – similar to the ‘Autocomplete Action Predictor’ page (chrome://predictors/), which lists all your past search terms and the matching suggestions from the Omnibox.

Quora expands Facebook integration with frictionless-sharing

2012-05-13T19:00:00.000+03:00

As the Facebook Timeline rolls out to more users, apps are increasingly taking advantage of the deeper integration available as Open Graph apps. The latest arrival is Quora, as I was prompted today upon visiting the site; I didn't notice the official announcement on Friday – it’s hard to keep track of their blog without RSS. If you didn't enable the frictionless sharing straight from the prompt, visit ‘Settings’ ► ‘Connect accounts’ and then click on the ‘No’-link under Facebook. That opens the Facebook dialog to approve the extra permissions for Quora. The link acts as a toggle to quickly turn the integration on or off. At this time no other options are available. You can post your questions or feedback directly on the site or just follow the dedicated topic for updates.

Instead of sharing everything you do on the site with Facebook, Quora took a more careful approach, adding only the questions and topics you up-vote and the questions and people you follow automatically to the Timeline. While others complained that your own questions and answers aren’t included in the seamless sharing, I for one welcome the ability to keep some things separated from Facebook. It’s not like it’s difficult to share your own content, you just need to check a box before posting. I’m not sure mixing the two different styles of networking (‘friend’-based vs. ‘interest’-based) is such a good idea, but I’m not very active on Quora, so it shouldn’t become too noisy for my Facebook friends, who probably never heard of Quora, let alone use it. I’m mildly surprised that Facebook allowed Quora to connect through the Open Graph, given that it competes more or less directly with one of its own features; or could this be the reason why Quora doesn’t share your own questions seamlessly?

Haruki Murakami - La sud de graniță, la vest de soare

2012-05-13T12:00:00.000+03:00

Dacă se spune că prima iubire nu se uită niciodată, cartea de față transformă ideea asta în literatură – și una de calitate pe deasupra. Pe Hajime și Shimamoto îi apropie la începutul adolescenței atât faptul că sunt vecini cât și alte afinități, iubirea de muzică și relativa izolare ca unici copii la părinți într‑o vreme când norma erau familiile mai numeroase. Apoi viața îi desparte și niciunul nu face o încercare de reapropiere timp de douăzeci de ani. După care însă flacăra se reaprinde periculos, amenințând existența așezată a lui Hajime.

Romanul e o rețetă relativ tipică pentru Murakami: personajul principal non‑conformist, oarecum singuratic, cu unele elemente autobiografice – Hajime, născut în ianuarie, ca și Murakami, devine proprietar de baruri în prezentul romanului –, pasiunea bine‑cunoscută pentru muzică a autorului și a protagoniștilor, universalitatea poveștii, stilul japonez, curat și înșelător de simplu. Singurul element atipic este lipsa completă de elemente fantastice și suprarealiste, compensate aici prin senzații și sentimente, prin atmosfera dulce‑amară în ton cu melodiile de jazz care îi însoțesc pe cei doi îndrăgostiți de‑a lungul romanului, prin subiectivitatea trăirilor lui Hajime, care dau semnificația fiecărei scene. Deși debutând la nașterea lui și încheindu‑se la vârsta de 37 de ani, cartea acoperă cele mai importante perioade din viața lui – cel puțin din perspectiva lui proprie. Din întregul deceniu douăzeci de viață nu ne alegem decât cu un capitol, și acela dedicat unei posibile întâlniri cu Shimamoto. Aici întâlnim un motiv confirmat și de psihologie, anume că amintirile însoțite de sentimente puternice se fixează mult mai durabil în memorie. Povestea lui Hajime culminează în momentele când e alături de Shimamoto, iar perioadele intermediare se dizolvă în conformism și indiferență.

Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn - Starcrossed LoversPrivind înapoi e remarcabil să constat că aceste momente au fost în mare doar trei: întâlnirea lor din copilărie, reapariția ei după douăzeci de ani și unica lor escapadă sexuală dinspre final. Tot trei sunt femeile care îi marchează viața lui Hajime: prima dragoste, Shimamoto, prima iubită, Izumi, și soția sa, Yukiko. Destinele ultimelor două schițează căile pe care le poate urma Hajime odată cu dispariția finală a primei iubiri: poate să cadă într‑o depresie perpetuă, neconsolată, ca Izumi, sau poate încerca să revină la o viață oarecum normală alături de altcineva, cum a făcut actuala soție după propria ei dezamăgire în dragoste în urmă cu mulți ani. În schimb Shimamoto rămâne un mister de nepătruns, despre care atât el cât și cititorul nu pot decât să speculeze fără a putea spera la o confirmare. Singurul indiciu mai consistent este mărturia ei despre copilul născut cu un an înainte de reîntâlnirea cu Hajime și mort în ziua următoare. Cuplat cu afirmația ei din prima parte că nu se vede având decât un singur copil putem întrezări o justificare pentru dorința de a‑și încheia viața într‑o scenă izbitor de asemănătoare cu finalul „Nopții de Sânziene”.

Probabil că nu există oameni pe care să nu‑i atragă lucrurile ieșite din comun. Chiar dacă nouă din zece cazuri fac excepție, tot rămâne unul prin care se țintește la o experiență sublimă și tocmai faptul acesta pune lumea în mișcare. După părerea mea aceasta înseamnă artă adevărată.

În ciuda dimensiunilor reduse și focalizării pe relația dintre Hajime și Shimamoto, Murakami găsește loc – ca și în „Dans, dans, dans” – de un pic de critică la adresa capitalismului sălbatic, a „mâinii oarbe” din economia de piață, care ar trebui să reguleze echilibrele macroeconomice, deși în practică rareori o face. În dialogul cu socrul său afacerist se întrevăd germenii boom‑ului imobiliar atunci când cererea este lăsată liberă, fără a se lua în considerare consecințele pe termen mediu și lung:

– Dacă devine mai animat, mai frumos, mai funcțional, va fi foarte bine. Sunt de acord cu asta. Numai că străzile orașului Tokyo gem deja de mașini. Dacă se construiește tot așa, drumurile or să devină impracticabile. Și cum o să se rezolve aprovizionarea cu apă în caz de secetă mare? Vara, toată lumea deschide aerul condiționat. De unde atâta energie? Centralele electrice funcționează cu combustibil importat din Orientul Mijlociu. Ce se va întâmpla în cazul unei noi crize de petrol?
– N‑are decât să‑și bată guvernul capul cu asta. Și edilii orașului Tokyo. De aceea plătim taxe uriașe. Ce păzesc absolvenții Universității Tokyo? N‑au decât să‑și stoarcă creierii ca să găsească soluții. Știu doar să facă pe grozavii, de parcă ei ar conduce țara. Mai bine și‑ar pune mințile alea ascuțite la contribuție. Eu nu știu, sunt un simplu constructor. Dacă îmi cere cineva să construiesc, atunci eu îmi văd de treaba mea. Este principiul meu și trebuie să‑l respect, nu?

Frank Sinatra - South Of The BorderUna cele mai scurte opere ale scriitorului japonez Haruki Murakami, „La sud de graniță, la vest de soare” e cea care m‑a impresionat cel mai profund, poate și pentru că mă identific în unele aspecte cu Hajime – cel puțin cu faptul că e singur la părinți. Nu e fără imperfecțiuni, căci unele pasaje și scene pot părea trase de păr, dar acestea se pierd rapid în intensitatea trăirilor personajelor și cititorului. Chiar fără să o compar cu filmul Casablanca, așa cum o face însuși autorul spre final (a trecut prea mult de când l‑am văzut), rămâne o poveste de dragoste extrem de personală – dacă nu tragică, cel puțin dureroasă – o ilustrare cum poți înșela pe cineva doar plimbându‑te de mână cu altă femeie pe malul înghețat al unui râu, cum timpul trece inevitabil și unele șanse nu se întorc niciodată. Și o reamintire că uneori nici cea mai intensă dragoste nu e suficientă pentru a garanta fericirea.

Răspunsul meu a fost lung și încâlcit. Ceea ce am vrut să zic suna cam așa: „Eu, cel care sunt aici, am crescut fără frați și surori. Dacă aș fi avut frați sau surori, probabil că aș fi fost cu totul altul, așa încît consider anormal ca eu, cel de acum, să mă gândesc cum ar fi fost dacă aș fi avut frați sau surori”. Cu alte cuvinte mi s‑a părut întrebarea mamei cam lipsită de sens.

Rate your recent apps on Facebook

2012-05-12T14:00:00.001+03:00

As you may have heard, Facebook recently announced its own App Center, not exactly a full store like iTunes or Google Play or the upcoming Microsoft Store, but more a centralized location to discover mobile and web apps that use Facebook as primary identity for users. Of course, like any decent recommendation engine, it will need a way to promote quality apps and that’s where the massive user base comes in: they should provide a sufficient volume of ratings for the apps they use.

Most likely related to this launch, I noticed the other day a new box in the right sidebar, where Facebook usually displays ads and friend suggestions. Fittingly titled ‘Rate Recently Used Apps’, it lists a couple of apps – accurately, I would say – and asks users to rate them with a five-star system. Curiously, the usual place where you manage apps on Facebook (under ‘Account settings’) doesn’t have the option to rate the apps you are currently using, but that will probably be added soon, after the App Center is opened. The new box is displayed more or less randomly, every 3 to 4 new page loads, but goes away after you rate all apps listed there.

The Mozilla Blog: “Windows on ARM Users Need Browser Choice Too”

2012-05-10T15:42:00.000+03:00

It’s reported that Windows RT (the name Microsoft has given to Windows running on the ARM processor) will have two environments, a Windows Classic environment and a Metro environment for apps. However, Windows on ARM prohibits any browser except for Internet Explorer from running in the privileged “Windows Classic” environment. In practice, this means that only Internet Explorer will be able to perform many of the advanced computing functions vital to modern browsers in terms of speed, stability, and security to which users have grown accustomed. Given that IE can run in Windows on ARM, there is no technical reason to conclude other browsers can’t do the same.Harvey Anderson

I guess I missed the post where Mozilla complained about the very same practice from Apple with iOS. Or where they announced they will be supporting Internet Explorer on their Boot2Gecko platform. Or where Google announced the same level of support on ChromeOS.

Counterpoint: for ideal browser inclusiveness, do we also want Firefox on Chromebooks and WebKit on B2G? I think not. WOA is an embedded OS.
— Ryan Paul (@segphault) May 10, 2012

The fact of the matter is this isn’t about having choices. User will always have a choice, to buy an WinRT tablet or not – or to buy an iPad, as they will probably continue to do. It’s about Mozilla’s place in the browser landscape and the fact that they are being slowly, but surely, squeezed out, on the desktop as on mobile – where they weren’t that relevant to start with.

Browser inconsistencies with ‘transparent’ in CSS gradients

2012-05-03T22:26:00.001+03:00

A while back, as I was working on my custom user style for Google Reader, I noticed a peculiar behavior when I tried to apply a CSS gradient to the feed title section, specifically something like “starting from solid white to 20% transparent, to 80% transparent and finally back to a solid shade of blue”. The result was not was I expected: the transition from solid colors to transparent was murky, mixed with grey. I started experimenting with different combinations of colors and gradients and in different browsers. Finally I discovered that there is a difference in the way browsers interpret ‘transparent’ in relation to gradients: Chrome and Firefox actually treat transparent as ‘black transparent’, causing gradients to add dark shades where none should appear according to the CSS coding; Opera on the other hand makes a smooth transition from the starting solid color to transparency (Internet Explorer doesn’t support gradients at all in the stable channel yet).

During this troubleshooting I built a small example on jsFiddle to illustrate the difference: on a red background two boxes filled with vertical gradients: on the left a solid gradient going from white to red and then back to white; on the right white – transparent – white. In my opinion the rendering should be identical, as the right gradient should simply reveal the red background underneath. Instead, Chrome and Firefox add grey strips to the transition from solid to transparent, as you can see in the screenshots and if you visit the test fiddle in those browsers. You get similar results with both the transparent keyword and the RGBA() function with alpha set to zero or some small value.


Resulting rendering in Chrome (identical with Firefox)	Opera rendering – what I actually expected

Of course, the CSS3 specification for linear gradients is still in draft, the browser support is still experimental (i.e. with browser-specific prefixes) so there are bound to be rendering differences. Going through specs, I noticed an example closely resembling mine, as well as an explanation for the strange results you get in Chrome and Firefox (it seems to me that Opera has implemented the specs correctly in this case):

The following example illustrates the difference between a gradient transitioning in pre-multiplied sRGBA and one transitioning (incorrectly) in non-premultiplied. In both of these example, the gradient is drawn over a white background. Both gradients could be written with the following value:
linear-gradient(90deg, red, transparent, blue)
In premultiplied space, transitions to or from "transparent" always look nice:

On the other hand, if a gradient were to incorrectly transition in non-premultiplied space, the colors near "transparent" would noticeably darken to a grayish color, because "transparent" is actually a shorthand for ‘rgba(0,0,0,0)’, or transparent black.

Which ties again into the debate over Opera starting to support some –webkit-prefixes: even if the Opera’s rendering engine picks up the –webkit property, the designer should still test the result in Opera, because it could well be not what he expected (although in this particular case it actually looks better than what you would get in WebKit). The end user should get a better experience anyway, closer to the original design, instead of the fallback for older browsers.

There are other quirks in the linear gradients spec; you can read some very interesting examples in this article.

Automatic message translation graduates from Gmail Labs

2012-05-01T20:00:00.000+03:00

When I opened my Gmail inbox today I got a little surprise: Gmail prompted me to translate the message from Romanian into English. Not particularly useful in this case, since Romanian is my native language and most of my email communication is in a language I an fluent in, but maybe at some point… The quality of the Romanian to English translation is pretty bad as well.

I searched to see if this was a new feature I missed; turns out this was released back in 2009 in Gmail Labs. It’s not listed in the ‘Labs’ section of Gmail settings anymore and I never enabled it, so I guess automatic translation graduated from Labs and will be available to all Gmail users. Unfortunately, the more advanced options mentioned in the documentation are no longer available: there are no options in the general settings to turn the feature off or to set your ‘Default translation language’, no interface for ‘Translate conversation’. If you turn the automatic translation off, you can re-enable it only from the message context menu: there is a new entry for ‘Translate message’ under ‘Reply’.

Nice, published a full 20 min before the official announcement!

Dev.Opera: “Opera Mobile Emulator build with experimental WebKit prefix support”

2012-04-30T21:47:00.000+03:00

Opera, along with Mozilla, announced at a CSS Working Group meeting (minutes) that we would support some -webkit- prefixes. This is because through our site compatibility work, we have experienced that many authors of (especially mobile) sites only use -webkit- prefixed CSS, thereby ignoring other vendor prefixes and not even including an unprefixed equivalent. This leads to a reduced user experience on Opera and Firefox, which don't receive the same shiny effects such as transitions, gradients and the like, even if the browser supported those effects. Bruce Lawson

Another pragmatic, sensible move from Opera.

I saw a lot of commentary on the web and especially on Twitter how this decision will break the web and encourage lazy web developers to ignore non-WebKit browsers even further. Personally, I don’t see this happening. For one, Opera is only supporting a small subset of WebKit-specific extensions, specifically those with wide-spread adoption and already supported by Opera, albeit under the –o- prefix. As far as I understand, the way this works is, when Opera encounters a compatible –webkit- property it behaves as if the code used the corresponding Opera-specific property.This shouldn’t prevent designers to test sites in Opera, because a) while some –webkit- prefixed CSS properties will be recognized, the rendering will be done according to Opera’s implementation, which may or may not be identical to WebKit’s and b) once you step out of the narrow selection of cross-compatible extensions the rendering will differ just like before. This is just a defensive move to ensure a better experience for Opera users, closer to the original intent of the designer. Ultimately, the end-user doesn’t know or care about the reason why the site looks nicer in a WebKit-browser than in Opera; if he encounters reduced functionality he will probably switch and never come back. This way Opera – and presumably Firefox and Internet Explorer at some point – will have a better competitive chance.

This article explains the causes and the current problem much better, impartially, I recommend you read it as well.

Regardless of this decision, Opera is doing fine in mobile.

Revision history for Office files synced through SkyDrive

2012-04-30T11:45:00.000+03:00

The previous week was full of launches and upgrades in the online storage segment, including the desktop app for Windows SkyDrive and Google Drive – which didn’t impress me much. Since I was a SkyDrive user for a while (probably right after it was launched) I was able to retain my 25 GB storage space, a definite plus compared to the competition. Although I’m not exactly fond of the idea to put all my important files inside a single folder in order to have them backed up to the cloud, I decided to try out the local integration of SkyDrive. I was especially curious whether Office files added to SkyDrive would have some sort of version history. The web version of the Office editors has it of course, but I prefer to work locally for the increased speed and better features.

It turns out they do, as you can see from the screenshot. If you have the local SkyDrive client running and place your file in the dedicated folder, every time you save in Word, for example, the current file is stored online as a new version and accessible from the web interface. The option is available from the folder list – select an Office file and click ‘Version history’ in the right pane – or after you open the file in the ‘File’-menu under ‘Previous Versions’. You can either ‘Restore’ one of the older versions or ‘Download’ it separately from the version list. I’m not sure how this is calculated towards your storage quota, but with 25 GB at your disposal that shouldn’t be an immediate concern. It’s a small feature that could prove a life-saver if you accidentally save unwanted changes in an Office document for example. And best of all it integrates with existing software, so there’s no need to start working in the browser exclusively.

Opera Add-ons: “Increased focus on Opera extensions […]”

2012-04-30T09:45:00.000+03:00

Today we are announcing the beginning of the end for two of our current Add-on platforms. Starting with the upcoming Opera 12 release, Opera Unite and Opera Widgets will be turned off by default for new users. The two Add-on platforms will be completely removed in a later release expected before the end of this year. Arnstein Teigene

Probably the best decision Opera made in a while. I never used widgets nor Unite, they seemed like second class features that never belonged in the browser in the first place. It’s preferable to focus on making the browser faster, more secure, than to maintain legacy code that has no foreseeable future in the current browser landscape.

It always baffled me that Opera couldn’t get a significant market share on the desktop – it does OK in mobile though. It’s in every aspect as good as Firefox, maybe even better if you count out the extension ecosystem that Mozilla built. Maybe it’s a case of ‘simple over too complex’ or the lack of press coverage, with Opera not being produced by an American company. I remember my first encounter with Opera pretty well – it was in fact my first experience with a browser other than Internet Explorer. It was back in my college years, circa 2003, when I did my browsing only on the public PC’s available for free to students. I just stumbled on it by chance (it was installed on a single computer) and I was amazed at the speed with which it loaded pages compared to IE6. Unfortunately, by the time I got my own PC and Internet connection, Firefox had stolen the crown of ‘alternative browser’, so I only returned to Opera from time to time as a secondary option when my main browser was acting up.

I think over time Opera has failed to recognize and capitalize some trends that propelled Firefox in the face of the stagnating Internet Explorer monopoly:

First of all Opera remained ad-supported for years – let’s face it, nobody likes to see ads all day long. The browser became free far too late to make any dent in Firefox’ market share.
Firefox became mainstream after it was unbundled from the Mozilla Suite – later SeaMonkey – which lingered on with negligible share, just like Opera. Focusing on a single task (browsing) made sense for both users, who get a smaller installer and a software less prone to crashes and security issues, and for the developers, who don’t need to maintain a bunch of features completely unrelated to browsing and can iterate more quickly. Instead Opera clung to the ‘bundled’ model and continued to add browser-unrelated functions instead of removing them. It offers an email and chat client, BitTorrent, Opera Unite, widgets and probably some other things I never heard of (oh, yes, voice control as well!).
While Firefox built upon the extremely successful extension ecosystem, Opera ignored the concept until about one or two years ago, long after Chrome and Safari introduced their own add-ons systems. Opera insisted on making a full-featured browser, packed with all the possible bells-and-whistles (a.k.a. the Apple model, which also resulted in a single-digit market share, although in the mean time Apple has embraced developers with the arrival of the iPhone and its app-ecosystem), while Firefox has cleverly offloaded much of this work to third-party extensions.

Let’s hope this decision is the start of a trend, I would love to see an Opera lite without the mail client and all the other stuff that nobody ever uses.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe mobile Opera doesn’t come with a bundled email client…

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett – Semne bune

2012-04-29T12:00:00.000+03:00

Cum ați reacționa dacă, după un armistițiu de șase mii de ani, timp în care v‑ați construit o viață de bine-de rău confortabilă pe Pământ și chiar ați ajuns la o oarecare înțelegere cu agenții inamicului, ați fi anunțat de la centru că Războiul Rece se va termina în curând, armele vor fi ridicate din nou pentru bătălia decisivă, la finalul căreia Pământul și tot ce apreciați la omenire vor fi distruse? Dacă ați răspunde că ați lupta să împiedicați declanșarea războiului n‑ați nimerit‑o: nici îngerul Aziraphale, nici demonul Crowley (inspirația pentru personajul omonim din Supernatural?) nu au de ales în această chestiune sau în oricare alta; liberul arbitru e rezervat exclusiv oamenilor. Din păcate pentru micile lor plăceri lumești – Aziraphale colecționează cărți în ediții princeps, savurează muzica bună și din când în când își încearcă priceperea de magician, în timp ce Crowley își îngrijește cu conștiinciozitate Bentley‑ul din anii ‘60 și plantele de apartament și savurează în general decadența secolului douăzeci, nu poate încăpea îndoială că momentul înfruntării finale se apropie. Crowley e însărcinat să‑l plaseze pe Antichrist – botezat paradoxal Adam – în familia unui diplomat american și să se asigure de educația lui demonică de‑a lungul celor 11 ani în care își va descoperi puterile. În ciuda condiționării lor fac o înțelegere – pact sună prea tare în context – să încerce să împiedice trezirea Antichristului și Armageddon‑ul. Dar poate că Dumnezeu are propriul său plan inefabil, necunoscut niciunuia dintre combatanți…

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players (ie., everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

Cartea se învârte în jurul conceptului de soartă, de destin prestabilit pus în contrast cu liberul arbitru uman. De o parte profețiile precise și exacte ale lui Agnes Nutter – vrăjitoare și cea mai corectă prevăzătoare a Sfârșitului Lumii; de cealaltă o bandă de tineri de 11 ani, gașca lui Adam din Tadfield, interesați doar de jocuri și descoperiri noi, dar care arată în momentul decisiv mai multă înțelepciune decât toți ceilalți implicați. Așa cum constată Crowley, înarmați cu libertatea de alegere și imaginație, oamenii ajung să facă mai mult rău – sau mai mult bine – decât ar fi în stare demonii sau îngerii să cauzeze prin influențele lor. Undeva în fundal stăruie și veșnica întrebare despre planul ascuns, despre adevăratele motive ale lui Dumnezeu când a creat lumea și omul, dacă a știut de la început sau orchestrat chiar Căderea din Eden și tot ce a urmat.

DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death, JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.

Fiind opera comună a doi autori, „Semne bune” are elemente din stilurile ambilor. Avem parte de umorul sarcastic al lui Terry Pratchett la tot pasul, după cum îl știți probabil din numeroasele romane despre Lumea Disc, dar și de talentul lui Gaiman de a integra mituri și religii străvechi cu lumea noastră modernă, așa cum o face excepțional în „Zei americani”. Cel mai bun reușit exemplu, după părerea mea, sunt portretele celor Patru Călăreți ai Apocalipsei. Război este o atrăgătoare corespondentă de război care nu ajunge rapid la fața locului, ci mai degrabă declanșează lupte pe oriunde trece; ca și în Biblie culoarea ei caracteristică e roșul și e chemată la lupta finală cu o sabie. Foamete (Călărețul Negru purtând o cumpănă) e un om de afaceri de succes după ce a lansat o dietă pentru slăbire și un lanț de fast‑food în care poți să mănânci oricât din alimentele sintetice și totuși să mori de foame. Poluare e Călărețul Alb cu cunună după ce l‑a înlocuit pe Molimă odată cu inventarea penicilinei și se plimbă neobservat prin lume declanșând dezastre ecologice.

Deși amuzantă în general, sarcasmul și ridicolul devin deseori exagerate, forțate, introduse mai mult de dragul cantității decât al calității. Tonul pare mai potrivit pentru un sitcom american decât pentru un roman, adică pentru consumare scurtă și rapidă – chiar, ceva planuri de ecranizare? La fel se întâmplă și cu personajele umane: multe sunt de unică folosință, apar doar într‑o scenă pentru o poantă și atât. Devine destul de repede obositor să te întrebi la fiecare nouă apariție dacă trebuie să o reții pentru că o să aibă un rol extins mai târziu sau o poți ignora liniștit. Astfel te trezești că în jur de un sfert din carte e format din asemenea cadre ușor de trecut cu vederea și te întrebi de ce au mai fost introduse… Finalul a fost și el destul de previzibil, deși nu poate fi acuzat de deux‑ex‑machina – cel mult un diavol ex‑machina. În concluzie nu pot să nu‑mi doresc ca povestea să fi conținut un pic mai mult Gaiman și ceva mai puțin Pratchett…

Twitter web shows rich previews for WordPress links

2012-04-26T21:55:00.000+03:00

With the second major redesign, the Twitter web site added inline previews for images and video – it should help turn the site more into a destination for media consumption rather than a simple referral to original content. I noticed a couple of days ago that the rich previews are now generated for some links as well, namely those pointing to the domain wordpress.com; just do a Twitter search and click on the link ‘View media’ under the individual tweets.

The previews include snippets from the blog posts – the first paragraphs by the looks of it – and a picture – again, likely the first. For now the previews appear only in the stream, not on the individual pages for tweets. They look positively – dare I say it? – Facebook-like, especially now that open tweets also display interactions (replies, favorites, retweets) underneath! I would prefer a slightly smaller picture, right now they tend to fill up the entire vertical space on the screen, which feels out of place for a service known for brevity. This sneak-peak should help build user trust that the links don’t point to some malicious site and that the page is worth visiting. I didn't discover other domains with similar previews, but it’s reasonable to assume that it will be extended in time for more sites – needless to say, no Twitter client supports this feature as of now, not even the in-house-maintained TweetDeck.

ReadWriteWeb: “Google Drive Doesn't Go Far Enough - But It Could”

2012-04-25T12:41:00.000+03:00

Collaborators can comment alongside any file, just as they could on Google Docs before. But Google Drive doesn’t allow editing of documents. Opening the files just launches Google Docs in the browser, whether on a desktop or mobile device.
We don’t even have an iOS app on launch day, but Google has shown it to us. It’s just a viewer, no different from the Dropbox app. Android users do have native Google Docs, but the rest have to use the browser. On the mobile Web, that experience is severely limited. Jon Mitchell

My experience exactly. The mobile version of Google Docs on iOS is a pain to use, it refreshes constantly (probably to store changes online) and keeps logging me out. From this report it looks like Google Drive isn’t going to improve on that, at least not for iPhone users. Not having the iOS app ready for launch at the same time as the Android version seems to be a trend lately with Google – the Gmail app for example, or the feature to instant upload photos in Google+ – going against what most other developers do, which is launch for the iPhone first. The only explanation I can think of is that Google is trying to support Android, to promote it as the best way to use Google services – an anticompetitive, Microsoft-like, approach, that will only hurt the initial adoption of Google Drive.

Why isn’t Google Drive for iOS out yet? How long does it take to put an negligible Cocoa wrapper around a webview anyway?
— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) April 24, 2012

In the end Google Drive doesn’t really offer much else that you don’t already get from the competition. I’m not a heavy Google Docs user, so the whole “collaborate and share” angle is lost on me. It also uses a single folder to store files locally – just like Dropbox and SkyDrive – which is weird in my opinion. Why should I adapt my behavior to an app instead of it integrating seamlessly into my existing workflow? The promised mobile app will be read-only, again like Dropbox and SkyDrive, which limits its usefulness greatly. The lack of a good cross-platform note-taking app (OneNote is not available in the Romania iTunes Store for some arcane reason) made me finally create an account with Evernote. As far as I understood, the biggest downside compared to other cloud-based services is the lack of local editing for Google Docs files – that’s another feature left for an uncertain future date; for me it diminishes the potential uses even further. Google Drive is simply too little, too late.

The Atlantic: “Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?”

2012-04-24T22:48:00.000+03:00

You have said that your book is meant to describe "the remarkable revolutions that have taken place in our understanding of the universe over the past 50 years--revolutions that should be celebrated as the pinnacle of our intellectual experience." I think that's a worthy project and, like you, I find it lamentable that some of physics' most extraordinary discoveries have yet to fully penetrate our culture. But might it be possible to communicate the beauty of those discoveries without tacking on an assault on previous belief systems, especially when those belief systems aren't necessarily scientific? Ross Andersen
Krauss: Well, yes. I'm sympathetic to your point in one sense, and I've had this debate with Richard Dawkins; I've often said to him that if you want people to listen to you, the best way is not to go up to them and say, "You're stupid." Somehow it doesn't get through.
It's a fine line and it's hard to tell where to fall on this one. What drove me to write this book was this discovery that the nature of "nothing" had changed, that we've discovered that "nothing" is almost everything and that it has properties. That to me is an amazing discovery. So how do I frame that? I frame it in terms of this question about something coming from nothing. And part of that is a reaction to these really pompous theologians who say, "out of nothing, nothing comes," because those are just empty words. I think at some point you need to provoke people. Science is meant to make people uncomfortable. And whether I went too far on one side or another of that line is an interesting question, but I suspect that if I can get people to be upset about that issue, then on some level I've raised awareness of it.

Short answer: No. And it will probably never do.

Long answer: I an wary of people who arrogantly believe they hold the final answer to every question. That’s the root of religious fundamentalism and to see a scientist go down that route is just sad – science should first and foremost be about keeping an open mind about the world around you. And even more wary of people lacking solid arguments and resorting to calling others moronic. More to the point: physics is as far away from an unified theory as it was about a century ago after Einstein introduced general relativity. There are a number of theories that look promising, but none of them has been completely proven or disproven. Even with a final theory in physics and cosmology, does anyone seriously expect that it will answer all the questions humans have been asking themselves since the dawn of civilization, up to the appearance of life on Earth and the emergence of intelligence and consciousness?! Science still has a long way to go and I’m not sure it will ever get there.

Update: An apology to the philosophers (sort of) from the book author, published in Scientific American.