Owain R Hunt

On privacy, hashing, and your customers

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:44:50 +0000

On privacy, hashing, and your customers:

Try not to be a dick; check that you’re not being a dick; be less of a dick.

Jeff Atwood leaving Stack Exchange

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:17:31 +0000

Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange have been wildly successful, but I finally realized that success at the cost of my children is not success. It is failure.

I doubt there’s a single developer out there today whose job - life - hasn’t been improved by Stack Exchange.

Inside Stripe

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:53:55 +0000

Inside Stripe:

Stripe’s aim, the cofounders agree, is to make accepting payments online as simple as embedding a YouTube video.

I’d argue Stripe don’t want to be the next PayPal. They want to be better.

I can’t wait till these guys launch in the UK.

Github's Zach Holman on The Apple Voice

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:48:54 +0000

Github's Zach Holman on The Apple Voice:

Most startups don’t have the luxury of meeting every one of their customers. They can’t explain the case for their product in-person.

Instead, we market our product with words. We craft those words with our voice.

Honeywell goes after Nest Learning Thermostat for patent infringement

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:17:22 +0000

Honeywell goes after Nest Learning Thermostat for patent infringement:

U.S. Patent No. 7,634,504 - this patent was filed in 2006 (issued 2009) and covers displaying grammatically complete sentences while programming a thermostat.

It is utterly incomprehensible that such a patent could ever be issued.

Race to drill into Antarctic lake

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:27:30 +0000

Race to drill into Antarctic lake:

Is this not how horror films start?

Apollo 11 Launch at 500 Frames per Second

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:38:16 +0000

Apollo 11 Launch at 500 Frames per Second

Apple developer documentation viewer for iOS

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:36:26 +0000

Apple developer documentation viewer for iOS:

Giving this a try. Seems quick and stable thus far. Downloads a copy of whichever docsets you choose, so it also works offline. It’s currently restricted to publicly available docsets, so no beta docs. Open-source and BSD-2 licensed.

Egypt football violence leaves many dead in Port Said

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:26:09 +0000

Egypt football violence leaves many dead in Port Said:

74 dead and the first adjective out of your mouth is ‘unfortunate’?

Terms of Endearment

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:19:07 +0000

Terms of Endearment:

Interesting that the Barnsley man’s greeting of choice - ‘cock’ - has been omitted from the BBC’s list.

Number of people going to university almost back to where it should be

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:14:33 +0000

Number of people going to university almost back to where it should be:

It’s not a right if you’re stupid.

iPlayer on Sky

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:09:30 +0000

iPlayer on Sky:

The BBC and Sky today announced a landmark partnership deal that will bring the BBC’s popular video-on-demand service BBC iPlayer to up to five million Sky homes in 2012.

Just as long as the BBC aren’t paying Sky for the privilege.

Improved line-height in Xcode 4

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Improved line-height in Xcode 4:

I have just one problem with Menlo, and that is its default line-height. Too cramped for my tastes. As there’s no way to change the line-height used in Xcode, I’ve just switched to a variant called Meslo - it’s essentially identical to Menlo, but with three variants of line-height.

EDIT: It also includes a tweak to fix a cannot-unsee issue with Menlo’s asterisks. Sample image.

Labour to force vote on RBS bonus

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:04:44 +0000

Labour to force vote on RBS bonus:

There are twenty ‘Opposition Days’ per session of Parliament, and Labour plan to use one of them to call on the government to break a contract Labour themselves negotiated.

Wiping iCloud bookmarks

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:14:26 +0000

Wiping iCloud bookmarks:

Saved for future reference.

http://j.mp/xGO1AN

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:59:22 +0000

http://j.mp/xGO1AN:

Since they’re so persnickety about licensing agreements, let’s amend all of our terms of use to require all movie moguls to use a special “Hollywood Edition” of our products.

All joking aside, this serves to illustrate just how ridiculous certain aspects of ‘typical Hollywood’ would appear to be in any other arena.

jtotheizzoe: Mind-Melter of the Day It turns out that if you...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:08:42 +0000

jtotheizzoe:

Mind-Melter of the Day

It turns out that if you divide 1 by 998,001 you get all three-digit numbers from 000 to 999 in order.

Except for 998.

(via Futility Closet)

RBS Chief's bonus criticised

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:32:19 +0000

RBS Chief's bonus criticised:

“How dare you summarily change what I am entitled to?” — Unions, three months ago

“I demand you summarily change what this man is entitled to!” — Unions, today

“Bonuses should be in shares and reward good performance.” — Everyone, two years ago

“This bonus, paid entirely in shares and rewarding turning a £1.6bn loss in this quarter two years ago into a £2bn profit last quarter, is utterly reprehensible.” — Nutters, today

Jubilee cooking contest 'illegal'

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:25:49 +0000

Jubilee cooking contest 'illegal':

The anti-monarchy group Republic is warning schools they may break the law if they take part in a cooking contest to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Of all the things to complain about, apparently kids can only take part if they’re simultaneously taught about republics.

Apple Outsider » Hollywood Still Hates You

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:24:28 +0000

Apple Outsider » Hollywood Still Hates You:

This is the sole reason piracy is up and profits are down: because doing it right totally sucks.