Derek wanders the Internet

Spongepulp Fictionpants: Storage (by InnagadadaDBZ) This is...

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 20:13:50 -0400

Spongepulp Fictionpants: Storage (by InnagadadaDBZ)

This is uncanny.

Recipe Time: Non-Guacamole Avocado Dip

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 14:52:00 -0400

I found myself in a situation today in which I had one perfectly ripe avocado, yet only a few of the other ingredients for my guacamole (the best guacamole). So, I winged it and tried something different.

Ingredients:

One avocado
One red bell pepper (in place of roma tomato)
One-quarter of a small yellow onion (in place of red onion)
Cumin, salt, powdered ginger, and rice vinegar (in place of lime juice) to taste

Mash the avocado. Dice the onion and pepper. Add them to the mashed avocado and combine. Add the seasonings and vinegar to taste.

That’s it. My thinking was that I would make something vaguely Asian (Japanese, specifically, as a topping for rolls), using rice vinegar in place of lime juice alongside the ginger. But, to really follow through on that would mean replacing the yellow onion with green onion, adding an East Asian pepper in place of the missing serrano chili, and coming up with a better replacement for tomato than the bell pepper (for consistency, not because of poor performance). This tastes pretty good on this hot and humid summer day, though.

Long-distance running and evolution: Why humans can outrun horses but can’t jump higher than cats. - Slate Magazine

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:42:34 -0400

Long-distance running and evolution: Why humans can outrun horses but can’t jump higher than cats. - Slate Magazine:

Proof that yet another of my habits indicates that I am more evolved than the rest of you.

(via Pro Combat Goes B1G: Michigan Edition - Black Heart Gold...

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 22:22:34 -0400

(via Pro Combat Goes B1G: Michigan Edition - Black Heart Gold Pants)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!

(I have to emphasize the laughing in order to help minimize the chance that something like this actually happens. Stupid Dave Brandon.)

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Firefox 15 nightly received two new exciting developer tools, Responsive Mode and Layout View | Iloveubuntu: Ubuntu blog

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 17:44:15 -0400

Firefox 15 nightly received two new exciting developer tools, Responsive Mode and Layout View | Iloveubuntu: Ubuntu blog:

This is awesome. So, so, so awesome. I’m glad I’m on the Nightly channel.

FlintLand: Hey, Fat Girl.

Thu, 31 May 2012 21:17:04 -0400

FlintLand: Hey, Fat Girl.:

As a runner, I co-sign this so hard. So hard.

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. (by San Francisco...

Wed, 30 May 2012 10:54:15 -0400

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. (by San Francisco Creative Mornings)

I’m only just getting started on this web development and kinda sorta freelancing route, and this was a fantastic video to watch as a newbie. Getting and interacting with clients is an intimidating prospect. It helps to have a community elder to describe exactly how things should happen, what to do when they don’t happen that way, and the confidence that you have to have in your own work.

"In the six years since the Border Patrol began expanding its presence on the peninsula, the number..."

Tue, 29 May 2012 20:53:36 -0400

“In the six years since the Border Patrol began expanding its presence on the peninsula, the number of apprehensions has declined by 27 percent — from 811 in 2006 to 591 in 2011 — in the agency’s Blaine sector, which includes Western Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Border Patrol officials have said the decline is a success that validates their presence.”

- Hard by Canada Border, Fears of Crackdown on Latino Immigration - NYTimes.com

This article perfectly illustrates the concepts of mission creep (how is the U.S.-Canadian border an issue in any way?) and of bureaucratic self-justification. There of course is no logical reason for Border Patrol to expand its operations along the Canadian border, but the bureaucracy will never fail to find reason to justify itself. It happens that apprehensions have declined, which provides evidence of USBP’s success, but apprehensions just as easily could have increased, providing just as useful evidence that USBP is needed now more than ever. No matter how reality plays out, the bureaucracy wins. It’s true of the DEA and the War on Drugs, of BP and the War on Immigration, and of the security apparatus and the War on Terrror.

"You never forget how to be from Michigan when you’re from Michigan."

Thu, 24 May 2012 17:19:56 -0400

“You never forget
how to be from Michigan when you’re from Michigan.”

- A Primer : The New Yorker

This is an excellent poem about my now-and-forever home, no matter where I go from here. This line in particular rang true for me, a Michigander throughout Europe and the United States and butting up against the Canadian border.

"University presidents, once seen as the strongest forces for limiting athletic expansion, are now..."

Sun, 13 May 2012 10:00:48 -0400

“University presidents, once seen as the strongest forces for limiting athletic expansion, are now promoting it. As state funding for higher education has plummeted, presidents have become their schools’ head cheerleaders. They have learned that nothing raises a school’s profile, attracts out-of-state students and rallies alumni like a winning football team. A playoff might enable more schools to take turns on the biggest stage.”

- BCS: Why the Big Ten and Pac-12 Should Secede - WSJ.com
The article is forgettable, but I had never considered this point before. It puts university presidents’ actions into perspective.

How I Work: Yahoo!'s Doug Crockford On JavaScript | Smashing Coding

Thu, 03 May 2012 20:11:55 -0400

How I Work: Yahoo!'s Doug Crockford On JavaScript | Smashing Coding:

This is a fantastic interview with Douglas Crockford (author of “JavaScript: The Good Parts”, not that I have to say that) about how he works. Read it! A small pull-quote:

Virtually every programming language is too big. Language standards have difficulty removing unnecessary features but as users we can choose not to use it. I would say you can do 100% with knowing 50% of the language.

About » Penguicon 2012

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 08:15:14 -0400

About » Penguicon 2012:

Awesome. It’s got science fiction. It’s got FOSS aficionados. It’s in Dearborn. It’s also happening this weekend.

A Pure CSS3 Cycling Slideshow | Smashing Coding

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:31:41 -0400

A Pure CSS3 Cycling Slideshow | Smashing Coding:

Saving this for posterity. Cool example of CSS3’s built-in animations.

"A programmer will eventually tell you to use Mac OSX or Linux. If the programmer likes fonts and..."

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:40:25 -0400

“A programmer will eventually tell you to use Mac OSX or Linux. If the programmer likes fonts and typography, they’ll tell you to get a Mac OSX computer. If they like control and have a huge beard, they’ll tell you to install Linux. Again, use whatever computer you have right now that works. All you need is gedit, a Terminal, and python.”

- Exercise 0: The Setup — Learn Python The Hard Way, 2nd Edition

From the “Warnings for Beginners” section of “Learn Python the Hard Way”. I know my way around Vim, am familiar with Linux, work on Mac OS X, and have occasionally been known to wear a beard, but this made me laugh.

(via Demography: China’s Achilles heel | The Economist) It will...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:26:01 -0400

(via Demography: China’s Achilles heel | The Economist)

It will be bumpy in the next decade or two, but the United States should ultimately be fine thanks to the data explained by this chart. Even with ridiculously strict immigration restrictions, we have an overall fertility rate around the replacement rate. While the rest of the developed countries, plus China, struggle with their own demographic crises, we’ve got this decently covered.

code · How to Centre and Layout Pages Without a Wrapper

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:10:58 -0400

code · How to Centre and Layout Pages Without a Wrapper:

This is an excellent tip and something for anyone doing CSS styling to keep in mind: the html and body tags can be stylized. They may be optional in HTML5, but that does not mean that you shouldn’t use them. Take advantage of these semantic tags for styling so that you can cut down on the use of non-semantic div tags.

(h/t Megan)

CreativeJS for non-coders (by Seb Lee-Delisle) This is...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:47:20 -0400

CreativeJS for non-coders (by Seb Lee-Delisle)

This is fantastic and quite well produced.

ASCII Art Signatures In The Wild

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:40:23 -0400

ASCII Art Signatures In The Wild:

These are amaz- ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD.

Secure PHP Authentication Revisited | BLACKBELT

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:18:23 -0400

Secure PHP Authentication Revisited | BLACKBELT:

Something to hold onto for later: using blowfish encryption (bcrypt) for more secure PHP password salting.

Ira Glass on Storytelling (by David Shiyang Liu) Ira Glass...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:39:01 -0400

Ira Glass on Storytelling (by David Shiyang Liu)

Ira Glass offers advice to beginning creatives about fighting through our taste’s objections to the work that we produce. We have to let our skills catch up to our taste, and that takes time.