Category Archives: #relevanttoyourinterests
The Micro Python pyboard Arrived!
The version 1.0 pyboard that I ordered from the Micro Python project arrived in the mail today. It’s amazingly small.
The board supports a REPL shell, accessible via the same USB cable that provides power, and has a number of LEDs, timers, a user-assignable switch, and an accelerometer framework. I’ll be putting together a review pretty shortly, but there are a million things going on, suddenly.
Stay tuned.
LEARN YOU SOME GIT! A git Resource List
If you’re working on code, whether you’re doing it on your own or collaboratively, you really want to be using a version control/source code management system, and the one most widely used these days is Linus Torvalds’ program git.
Git can be a little difficult to get your head around, but luckily, there are a lot of excellent (and free!) resources available to get you up to speed.
First, there’s TryGit, a collaboration between Github and Code School. TryGit walks you through fifteen guided experiments that will introduce you to the basics of git.
When you’ve worked through that, Code School’s “Git Real” course is available for free, no sign-up or credit card needed.
Another great resource is Git Immersion, from EdgeCase, a web-based guided tutorial that you can download to your own desktop.
Atlassian also provides an extensive set of git tutorials.
Finally, the text of the entire book “Pro Git”, written by Scott Chacon and published by Apress, is available online for free.
There’s no good reason not to use git, and lots of excellent reasons to do so. Do yourself a favor, save yourself some headaches, and check it out.
(SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)
It’s That Time of Year Again!
Mr. Benedict Tests Out a Hypothesis
This two-minute bit is basically the only reason I ever watch The Last Action Hero, but it’s worth it.
Saturday Linkfest
Work
A new survey conducted by the Freelancers’ Union has found that 53 million American workers, about one-third of the labor force, are freelancers. Get your own copy of the survey, or learn more about the Freelancers’ Union.
Want to participate in building a technological utopia for freelancers in whitest, coldest Canada?
Web Design & Technology
Rob McQueen and my friends over at Collabora have gone the extra mile to get us a high-quality browser for our Raspberry Pi systems! Thanks, guys!
Katherine Halek provides a good overview on the importance of establishing a coherent typographical hierarchy and ways to arrive at one.
Ever wanted your bicycle to sound like a galloping stallion? (You know you have.) Trotify — more than just “two halves of coconuts” — has the answer.
Web Designer Depot gives us a detailed walkthrough of the design effort involved in getting the Wired magazine web site to a responsive layout.
Use a Raspberry Pi to build an alarm clock that tells you what the weather is like and reads you the news.
Design
Moleskine has a show at the 2014 London Design Festival, and has enlisted the aid of a number of creative-types to destroy their notebooks in as artistic a fashion as possible. If the world isn’t the way you want to to be, change it.
Fast Company provides an excellent “oral history” of Apple’s design language from 1992 to 2013.
What’s designing a font from the ground up like? Steve Matteson tells us about it.
The Examined Life
Maria Popova reviews Barry Schwartz’s Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing over on Brain Pickings.
And even bears get philosophical.
Morgan Freeman Says…
“My friends need to be punished.”
Sunday Link Fest
Technology
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The Scratch “IDE”. You know — for kids! Scratch is a simple, graphic, sprite-based programming language developed at MIT to help kids as young as seven or eight start learning how to do programming. You can run it on the web site, or you can download standalone versions for OS X, Linux, or Windows (requires Adobe Air, deal with it).
Design
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All of this stuff only exists inside the Matrix™. Astoundingly, the bulk of the photographs you see in the Ikea catalog are CGI.
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Nendo’s Spiral Nesting Chopsticks Japanese design atelier Nendo has reimagined chopsticks.
Tomfoolery!
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Not-so-nonymous. Party van. Soon. THEY’RE SO “ANONYMOUS”! (via JΞSTΞR ✪ ACTUAL™)
