Published
Weekend Reading — Shower Thoughts
Shower Thoughts I don't normally link to Reddit, but this is just too good.
This week we swap out the m-dot site for responsive one; we look in the mirror, an Android powered mirror; we dodge array holes; we learn to be content with technology; and we pair a digital tablet to mechanical keyboard.
Design Objective
If you haven’t already, now’s a good time to swap out that m-dot site for a responsive one.
The Psychology of Numbers in Design
We believe that understanding the psychology and science behind how people interpret information, make decisions, and take action enables us to deliver more effective designs that help us achieve our goal.
Designing Safer Web Animation For Motion Sensitivity Required reading if you have any input into product design/UI.
Serif TV for Samsung, 2015 TV as furniture, the Serif is both new and classic. And beautiful. I covet.
Tools of the Trade
Carefully Composing Logic: Functional JavaScript (Video) Quick playful introduction to functional programming with JavaScript and Immutable.js.
Introduction to Immutable.js Speaking of, I'm giving Immutable.js a second try. Favorite part is how it follows ES6 APIs (Map/Set/iterators) and general usage patterns.
Notion – Document Reimagined Closed beta, so I didn't get to try it, but it looks like an amazing tool for collaborating on, and organizing, your documents. And you'll be able to extend it with your own web components.
Dark corners of Unicode Unicode is NP hard:
So the “length” of a pair of these characters depends both on the display font (which may not support all flags), and on the current geopolitical state of the world. How’s that for depending on global mutable state?
HannahMitt/HomeMirror "Android application powering the mirror in my house"
Lingua Scripta
ECMAScript 6: holes in Arrays TL;DR
With regard to holes in Arrays, the only rule is now that there are no rules. Therefore, you should avoid holes if you can (they affect performance negatively, too). If you can’t then the table in the previous section may help.
__proto__ in ECMAScript 6 Ditto
It is nice how well ES6 turns proto from something obscure into something that is easy to understand.
However, I still recommend not to use it.
By npm's best estimates, 50% of node.js users started using node less than 12 months ago. We are a community of newbies.
Lines of Code
Joe’s code has 20 bugs. If Joe fixes 2 bugs per hour for 8 hours, how many bugs does Joe’s code have now?
Answer: 27.
Peopleware
Better interview questions
"Here is a QA employee. Have a ten-minute conversation without showing contempt for them occupying your time"
Techtopia
Apple Watch Satisfaction 97% satisfaction rate is nothing to sneeze at, but the key takeaway for me was this:
Then I talked with teachers, firefighters, insurance agents, and those not in the tech industry and not hard-core techies. These groups of people couldn’t stop raving about the Apple Watch and how much they loved the product. It was almost as if the farther away people were from tech or the tech industry, the more they liked the Apple Watch.
The "Sharing Economy" is dead, and we killed it You say "apathy", I say "not a real pain":
But most of these platforms soon discovered a discomforting incongruity between enthusiasm for the concept and actual use.
"Everybody loved the idea. It was like, 'Oh, this is great. I would love to use it,'" says Schwartz. "Then I launched the thing, and it was super-slow adoption."
Just doesn’t feel good Marco Arment takes down his ad blocker Peace after one day of top chart sales:
Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn’t feel good, which I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have. Ad blockers come with an important asterisk: while they do benefit a ton of people in major ways, they also hurt some, including many who don’t deserve the hit.
* If you can get hold of Peace, do so, just to learn everything you can from its UI, careful choice of features, and on-boarding experience. Remarkable.
Just took me five minutes to turn on my lamp because I forgot my password. HomeKit is the best!
Locked Doors
1Password 6 for iOS: The Extreme Makeover Edition is here! This is your yearly reminder to get yourself a copy of 1Password (no, they don't pay me to say this). And if you're already using it, you can now switch to Diceware passwords (easy to type, hard to crack).
None of the Above
Qwerkytoys Click this link if you need a mechanical typewriter keyboard for your digital table. Or you want to buy me one. Please and thanks.
Ahmed Mohamed swept up, 'hoax bomb' charges swept away as Irving teen's story floods social media This reads like an outlandish satire of race and fear in the US, except it's a thing that actually happened:
“We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.”
Miniature therapy horses are the cutest little heroes you'll ever see Miniature horses?
Vanish On August 13, 2105 Evan Ratliff vanishes and Wired invites readers to a bounty hunt. What it's like to disappear?
What We Learned From a Water Sommelier Not all bottled water is tap water, and not all water tastes the same, and I for one would love a chance to do some water tasting.