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Links for 2011-9-16 through 2011-12-1

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Links for 2011-9-16 through 2011-12-1:

Posted by Postilicious

Links for 2011-8-19 through 2011-9-4

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Links for 2011-8-19 through 2011-9-4:

  • A Jobs Program In America This is what Obama needs to do. Of course the Republicans won't allow it.
  • FoundSF San Francisco history.
  • Old S.F. Browse old photos of San Francisco by date & location.
  • productivity – What is your most productive shortcut with Vim? – Stack Overflow Nice overview of Vi commands.
  • What they’re "protecting" us from – Anil Dash It's a choice whether you, or anyone else, wants to accept the falsehood that liberal values are somehow in contradiction with business success at a global scale. Indeed, it would seem that many who claim to be pro-business are trying to "save" us from exactly the inclusive, creative, tolerant values that have made America's most successful company possible. I side with the makers, the creators, and the inventors, and it's about time that the pack of clamoring would-be politicians be put on the defensive for attacking the values of those of us on this side.

Posted by Postilicious

Links for 2011-8-2 through 2011-8-9

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Links for 2011-8-2 through 2011-8-9:

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Links for 2011-7-14 through 2011-7-31

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Links for 2011-7-14 through 2011-7-31:

  • Cocos2D Tutorial – Dynamically Coloring Sprites [Brandon Trebitowski, brandontreb.com] Have you ever seen a game (such as Tiny Tower) that contains similar sprites that only vary by certain attributes (coloring, shading, accessories, etc…)? I would often wonder how long it would take the artists to create each permutation of these sprites. After discovering that you can call a method on a CCSprite called setColor, I realized how most of this customization is done in code.
  • Muddying the Budget Waters With Social Security Many people misunderstand how the program operates. Payroll taxes stream into the trust fund that is used to pay current retirees’ benefits. When there is a surplus, that money is invested in a special type of Treasury bond that pays interest to the trust fund. At the end of last year, the trust fund had about $2.6 trillion. And though last year was the first year since 1983 that the fund paid out more than it received in tax revenue, it still continued to grow because of the interest accrued — and it is estimated to continue to grow through 2022.

    Since the money in the trust fund is held in Treasury securities, taxes collected are essentially being lent to the federal government to pay for whatever it wants (and this allows the government to borrow less from the public).

  • The Cult of Centricism We have a crisis in which the right is making insane demands, while the president and Democrats in Congress are bending over backward to be accommodating — offering plans that are all spending cuts and no taxes, plans that are far to the right of public opinion.

    So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that. And we have influential pundits calling out for a new centrist party, a new centrist president, to get us away from the evils of partisanship.

    The reality, of course, is that we already have a centrist president — actually a moderate conservative president.

  • Revamp of a game [Yuchen Wang, ClingMarks]
  • Cocos2D and ARC [Jerrod Putman, Tiny Tim Games]
  • How To Use Custom Classes With Core Data Without Fear [Doug Sjoquist , Sunetos]
  • User Testing in the Wild: Joe’s First Computer Encounter « Boriss’ Blog
  • Make a backup copy of the MacBook Air USB Software Reinstall Drive | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog Since it doesn't come with an optical drive, giving MacBook Air buyers a DVD of the operating system wouldn't be very helpful. That's why Apple's lightest laptop comes with the USB Software Reinstall Drive — a very small white USB drive. Sometimes USB flash drives are referred to as "Thumb Drives," but this one is more like the size of a baby's finger.

Posted by Postilicious

Links for 2011-5-18 through 2011-5-21

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Links for 2011-5-18 through 2011-5-21:

  • Google Prediction API – Google Code The Prediction API enables you to make your smart apps even smarter. The API accesses Google's machine learning algorithms to analyze your historic data and predict likely future outcomes.
  • Birtherism, the debt ceiling, climate change, evolution: Are Republicans losing their grip on reality? – By Jacob Weisberg – Slate Magazine Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial. He's an intelligent man, a lawyer, a fiscal rather than a social conservative. But Christie is also someone who might want to run for president someday, or be selected as someone's running mate. For those purposes, he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising, pro-Tea Party, GOP primary voter in rural South Carolina might object? By this standard, simple acceptance of the theory of evolution becomes a risky stance. To lie or to duck? Christie chose the option of ducking while signaling his annoyance at being put in this ridiculous predicament.
  • How to send messages safely to your server This post describes a general method of sending messages to a server in a way that prevents hackers from acting like your app. Specifically, I’ll tell you exactly how to add HMAC authentication to your app’s network messages.
  • Top 20+ MySQL Best Practices | Nettuts+ Database operations often tend to be the main bottleneck for most web applications today. It’s not only the DBA’s (database administrators) that have to worry about these performance issues. We as programmers need to do our part by structuring tables properly, writing optimized queries and better code. Here are some MySQL optimization techniques for programmers.
  • Use Daylight White Balance for Outdoor Shooting, Not AWB | Digital Photography insights Auto white balance sounds like it solves every issue regarding colors in your pictures, but it doesn't. For example, when you shoot at sunset or sunrise, AWB wants to 'correct' the golden tones that we love so much when the sun is close to the horizon. It desaturates the yellow and red portion of the spectrum, and the colors look weak and disappointing. By contrast, if you shoot with daylight white balance, you will capture the colors you see. The yellows, reds, and oranges will be saturated and dramatic.

Posted by Postilicious

Links for 2011-5-15 through 2011-5-17

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Links for 2011-5-15 through 2011-5-17:

  • Six unexpected uses for the Application Switcher | Business Center | Working Mac | Macworld You’ve probably got the basics of the Application Switcher down pat by now: press Command-Tab to see a bar full of running-application icons and keep Command down as you tap the Tab key to quickly switch to the application of your choice. But, as with everything on the Mac, the Application Switcher can do more than you might guess.
  • Oppugn.us: Where The Rants Go – Programming, M_____F_____ I think I'm going to create the ultimate software development methodology. It'll be revolutionary compared to others because it will focus on the one thing that gets software done. Its entire focus will be this one, glorious, completely useful activity for writing software. It's name even embodies the perfection of this programming methodology. The name is:

    Programming, Motherfucker

  • Free Faces This is a website dedicated to free fonts that are readily available on the web that I use regularly and would like to share. Of course free fonts aren't always the best option and good typography isn't just about pretty fonts, but there are a few out there that are more than worth a look, and I have featured some of my favourites here.
  • Lost Type Co-op The Lost Type Co-Op is a Pay-What-You-Want Type foundry, the first of it's kind.

    Founded by Riley Cran and Tyler Galpin, originally in a whirlwind 24 hour adventure to distribute a single typeface, Lost Type has blossomed into a full fledged foundry, distributing fonts from designers all over the world, with it's unique model.

  • Weekend project, 30 minutes marketing? Spend at least as much time marketing your project, as you did building it, if not more. Email bloggers, run contests, reach out to people on Twitter, etc. I'm no marketing guru, and I'm looking for great marketing strategies as much as everyone else, but I am convinced that the following is true: If you put in the time, the people will follow. If you build for two days, you should spend two days reaching out to people and helping them find out why your product, site, whatever is amazing.

Posted by Postilicious

Links for 2011-01-17 through 2011-02-02

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Links for 2011-01-17 through 2011-02-02:

Posted by Postilicious