links.lmorchard.com

September 2013

152 bookmarks saved in September 2013

Imperfect Circles – Aesthetic imperfection with fractal subdivision | Rectangle World – HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript: Tutorials and Experiments

http://rectangleworld.com/blog/archives/413
Getting a computer to draw a shape in the way that a human would requires programming in some imperfection. The simple idea is to add in some randomization of drawing coordinates, which could be done in various ways. Below are two examples of imperfect circles drawn in an HTML5 canvas with JavaScript, where the imperfection has been added through the use of a fractal-like subdivision algorithm. The imperfection can be subtle, but it is enough to make the image appear to be human-drawn. Although the images are quite simple I find them quite nice to look at.
#canvas #fractals #graphics #html5 #imported:pinboard #math #webdev
archive.org #24242

Star Wars vs Star Trek Technology: Shields vs Physical Impacts

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Shields/Impact.html
As you can see, even if it was possible to build a deflector shield generator of virtually infinite strength, the overall effectiveness of the system would still be limited by good old-fashioned structural limits. Ultimately, the survivability of a shielded spacecraft against physical impacts could (and would, given sufficient shield strength) conceivably come down to a set of bolts holding a shield generator onto the ship's spaceframe. This example highlights the severe problem with most attempts to rationalize sci-fi technologies, which is that people tend to look for the strongest link in the chain, not the weakest link in the chain.
#imported:pinboard #physics #scifi #shields
archive.org #24238

My Son Wears Dresses; Get Over It - Matt Duron - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/my-son-wears-dresses-get-over-it/279333/
A lot of marriages don’t survive raising a gender-creative son who is, statistically speaking, most likely going to be gay or transgender as an adult. I wish I could to talk to those men. I wish I could be there for their kids. I've been a police officer for more than 15 years. via Pocket
#favorites #ifttt #imported:pinboard #pocket
archive.org #32139

My Son Wears Dresses; Get Over It - Matt Duron - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/my-son-wears-dresses-get-over-it/279333
A lot of marriages don’t survive raising a gender-creative son who is, statistically speaking, most likely going to be gay or transgender as an adult. I wish I could to talk to those men. I wish I could be there for their kids. I've been a police officer for more than 15 years. via Pocket
#favorites #ifttt #pocket
archive.org #24227

Poverty and cognitive impairment: Study shows money troubles make decision-making difficult. - Slate Magazine

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/09/poverty_and_cognitive_impairment_study_shows_money_troubles_make_decision.html
How much money do I waste in a given month by doing most of my grocery shopping at the Whole Foods that’s directly on my route home rather than taking the three-minute detour to Safeway? I have no idea. via Pocket
#favorites #ifttt #imported:pinboard #pocket
archive.org #24225

David Berreby – The obesity era

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/david-berreby-obesity-era/
Years ago, after a plane trip spent reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Weight Watchers magazine, Woody Allen melded the two experiences into a single essay. ‘I am fat,’ it began. ‘I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. via Pocket
#favorites #ifttt #imported:pinboard #pocket
archive.org #32141

David Berreby – The obesity era

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/david-berreby-obesity-era
Years ago, after a plane trip spent reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Weight Watchers magazine, Woody Allen melded the two experiences into a single essay. ‘I am fat,’ it began. ‘I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. via Pocket
#favorites #ifttt #pocket
archive.org #24224

Make a Neon Vector Shooter in XNA: Particle Effects | Gamedevtuts+

http://gamedev.tutsplus.com/tutorials/implementation/make-a-neon-vector-shooter-in-xna-particle-effects/
In this series of tutorials, I’ll show you how to make a neon twin stick shooter, like Geometry Wars, in XNA. The goal of these tutorials is not to leave you with an exact replica of Geometry Wars, but rather to go over the necessary elements that will allow you to create your own high-quality variant.
#gaming #imported:pinboard #tutorials #xna
archive.org #32143

Make a Neon Vector Shooter in XNA: Particle Effects | Gamedevtuts+

http://gamedev.tutsplus.com/tutorials/implementation/make-a-neon-vector-shooter-in-xna-particle-effects
In this series of tutorials, I’ll show you how to make a neon twin stick shooter, like Geometry Wars, in XNA. The goal of these tutorials is not to leave you with an exact replica of Geometry Wars, but rather to go over the necessary elements that will allow you to create your own high-quality variant.
#gaming #tutorials #xna
archive.org #24221

Introducing BladeRunnerJS

http://bladerunnerjs.org/2013/09/16/introducing-bladerunnerjs
Here at Caplin we’re in the business of building extremely complex financial trading GUIs as single page web apps. Over the past 18 months we’ve created a developer toolkit and lightweight JavaScript framework called BladeRunnerJS to help us do this more efficiently.
#bladerunner #frameworks #webdev
archive.org #24213

Announcing Artillery's Project Atlas, a Hardcore RTS for the Browser - The Artillery Blog

http://blog.artillery.com/2013/09/project-atlas-and-the-artillery-platform.html
The Artillery Platform, which Atlas is built upon, uses JavaScript and WebGL to deliver a high-quality, low-latency multiplayer gaming experience to anyone with a modern web browser. The platform is centered around 3D experiences with real-time multiplayer capability and strong community support. The JavaScript-based game engine features a component-entity design, a modern deferred rendering pipeline, and development tools designed to allow creative expression and super-fast iteration.
#gaming #html5 #imported:pinboard #nifty #to:twitter #webdev #webgl
archive.org #24207

How Atari box art turned 8-bit games into virtual wonderlands | The Verge

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/19/4716444/how-atari-box-art-turned-8-bit-games-into-virtual-wonderlands
The original Atari featured a wealth of games with box art that was quite a bit more imaginative than the “grizzled man holding a gun” template that’s so popular today. The concept of playing a video game in your house, on your television, was still in its infancy in the late 1970s, and Atari needed a way to market its games. One solution was to commission intricately detailed covers that sold the idea of a game much better than any simple screenshot could. “The game-playing experience wasn’t 100 percent of the experience,” says Tim Lapetino, an artist and designer currently working on a book about the history of Atari cover art. “Part of what made the world complete was the artwork that conjured up this other place. I wasn’t sitting in my living room anymore; I was on this desolate planet or in space. And it was mostly because of that art.”
#art #atari #gaming #imported:pinboard #retro
archive.org #24202

NextDraft: Adolescence in the Age of Pay-Per-Minute Porn

http://nextdraft.com/2010/09/08/adolescence-in-the-age-of-pay-per-minute-porn/
The four-finger method worked for seven days. And during that unforgettable week, my neighborhood shut down. Nerf footballs sat untouched on driveway blacktops, tumbleweed rolled across emptied bike paths, dust gathered on Intellivision gaming consoles, zero progress was made on bar mitzvah haftorah portions.
#cable #imported:pinboard #porn #retro #to:fb #tv
archive.org #32149

NextDraft: Adolescence in the Age of Pay-Per-Minute Porn

http://nextdraft.com/2010/09/08/adolescence-in-the-age-of-pay-per-minute-porn
The four-finger method worked for seven days. And during that unforgettable week, my neighborhood shut down. Nerf footballs sat untouched on driveway blacktops, tumbleweed rolled across emptied bike paths, dust gathered on Intellivision gaming consoles, zero progress was made on bar mitzvah haftorah portions.
#cable #porn #retro #to:fb #tv
archive.org #24196

Auto-Brewery Syndrome: Apparently, You Can Make Beer In Your Gut : The Salt : NPR

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/09/17/223345977/auto-brewery-syndrome-apparently-you-can-make-beer-in-your-gut?ft=1&f=1001
The patient had an infection with , Cordell says. So when he ate or drank a bunch of starch — a bagel, pasta or even a soda — the yeast fermented the sugars into ethanol, and he would get drunk. Essentially, he was brewing beer in his own gut. Cordell and McCarthy the case of "auto-brewery syndrome" a few months ago in the International Journal of Clinical Medicine.
#beer #health #homebrewing #imported:pinboard #yeast
archive.org #32150

Auto-Brewery Syndrome: Apparently, You Can Make Beer In Your Gut : The Salt : NPR

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/09/17/223345977/auto-brewery-syndrome-apparently-you-can-make-beer-in-your-gut?f=1001&ft=1
The patient had an infection with , Cordell says. So when he ate or drank a bunch of starch — a bagel, pasta or even a soda — the yeast fermented the sugars into ethanol, and he would get drunk. Essentially, he was brewing beer in his own gut. Cordell and McCarthy the case of "auto-brewery syndrome" a few months ago in the International Journal of Clinical Medicine.
#beer #health #homebrewing #yeast
archive.org #24195

In Search of Scanlines: The Best CRT Monitor for Retro Gaming - Tested

http://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/456719-best-crt-retro-games/
Your 1080p HDTV may be great for Blu-ray movies, but it sucks for SNES games. Adopting new television technology means saying goodbye to the advantages of older hardware. And yes, there are advantages. There's no such thing as a best TV for all eras of content. And for retro gaming, diehard gamers and collectors turn to old CRTs and specialty scaling hardware in search for that perfect picture.
#arcade #crts #gaming #imported:pinboard #monitors #retro #tvs
archive.org #32155

In Search of Scanlines: The Best CRT Monitor for Retro Gaming - Tested

http://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/456719-best-crt-retro-games
Your 1080p HDTV may be great for Blu-ray movies, but it sucks for SNES games. Adopting new television technology means saying goodbye to the advantages of older hardware. And yes, there are advantages. There's no such thing as a best TV for all eras of content. And for retro gaming, diehard gamers and collectors turn to old CRTs and specialty scaling hardware in search for that perfect picture.
#arcade #crts #gaming #monitors #retro #tvs
archive.org #24187

Our Lady Peace: Curve | PopMatters

http://www.popmatters.com/review/157172-our-lady-peace-curve/
And then Mike Turner left. And no matter how many times the band’s members insist his departure didn’t matter all that much, the group’s legacy has subsequently been divided into The Years With Mike Turner and The Years Without Mike Turner. To this day, it’s hard to put a finger on what exactly it is that changed. Gravity, the 2002 album that brought Our Lady Peace its most mainstream success to date behind the infectious “Somewhere Out There”, was guitarist Steve Mazur’s first go-around with the band, and combined with Bob Rock’s production tricks, the effort showcased a decidedly harder sound with a more polished edge. So, you can point to that when trying to figure out where the change came from, if you’d like. But after the disappointing and rushed (their words, not mine) Healthy in Paranoid Times, they erased Rock from the equation and yet Burn Burn, Our Lady Peace’s first DIY-fueled album, still didn’t quite measure up to those first four records.
#imported:pinboard #music #ourladypeace
archive.org #32156

Our Lady Peace: Curve | PopMatters

http://www.popmatters.com/review/157172-our-lady-peace-curve
And then Mike Turner left. And no matter how many times the band’s members insist his departure didn’t matter all that much, the group’s legacy has subsequently been divided into The Years With Mike Turner and The Years Without Mike Turner. To this day, it’s hard to put a finger on what exactly it is that changed. Gravity, the 2002 album that brought Our Lady Peace its most mainstream success to date behind the infectious “Somewhere Out There”, was guitarist Steve Mazur’s first go-around with the band, and combined with Bob Rock’s production tricks, the effort showcased a decidedly harder sound with a more polished edge. So, you can point to that when trying to figure out where the change came from, if you’d like. But after the disappointing and rushed (their words, not mine) Healthy in Paranoid Times, they erased Rock from the equation and yet Burn Burn, Our Lady Peace’s first DIY-fueled album, still didn’t quite measure up to those first four records.
#music #ourladypeace
archive.org #24179

Tuition Aid From a Zombie Elf - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/nyregion/tuition-aid-from-a-zombie-elf.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Last year, Mr. Johnson received one of the first two grants given by Gamers Helping Gamers, a nonprofit organization founded by a group of successful young New Yorkers to assist a very specific group of students: those who play the fantasy trading card game Magic: The Gathering.
#education #gaming #imported:pinboard #magic #mtg #to:fb
archive.org #32158

Tuition Aid From a Zombie Elf - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/nyregion/tuition-aid-from-a-zombie-elf.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all
Last year, Mr. Johnson received one of the first two grants given by Gamers Helping Gamers, a nonprofit organization founded by a group of successful young New Yorkers to assist a very specific group of students: those who play the fantasy trading card game Magic: The Gathering.
#education #gaming #magic #mtg #to:fb
archive.org #24170

A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering: On the NSA

http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/09/on-nsa.html
All of this is a long way of saying that I was totally unprepared for today's bombshell revelations describing the NSA's efforts to defeat encryption. Not only does the worst possible hypothetical I discussed appear to be true, but it's true on a scale I couldn't even imagine. I'm no longer the crank. I wasn't even close to cranky enough.
#crypto #imported:pinboard #nsa #privacy #security
archive.org #24162

Crypto prof asked to remove NSA-related blog post | Ars Technica

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/09/crypto-prof-asked-to-remove-nsa-related-blog-post/
Today, Green's academic dean contacted him to ask that "all copies" of the blog post be removed from university servers. Green said that the move was not "my Dean's fault," but he did not elaborate. Were cryptology professors at Johns Hopkins not allowed to say, as Green had, things like:
#academia #crypto #fairuse #imported:pinboard #nsa #security #tech
archive.org #32161

Crypto prof asked to remove NSA-related blog post | Ars Technica

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/09/crypto-prof-asked-to-remove-nsa-related-blog-post
Today, Green's academic dean contacted him to ask that "all copies" of the blog post be removed from university servers. Green said that the move was not "my Dean's fault," but he did not elaborate. Were cryptology professors at Johns Hopkins not allowed to say, as Green had, things like:
#academia #crypto #fairuse #nsa #security #tech
archive.org #24161

A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering: A note on the NSA, the future, and fixing mistakes

http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/09/a-note-on-nsa-future-and-fixing-mistakes.html
The question to me -- as an American and as someone who cares about the integrity of speech -- is how we restore faith in our technology. I don't have the answers to this question right now. Unfortunately this is a long-term problem that will consume the output of researchers and technologists much more talented than I am. I only hope to be involved in the process.
#academia #crypto #imported:pinboard #nsa #security #tech #to:fb
archive.org #24160

BrewPony Coffee Powers The Interwebs | BrewPony

http://brewpony.com/brewpony-coffee-powers-the-interweb/
If you’re in the United States and have ever contributed to a Free/Open Source project in any way, please email our hospitality Ponies telling them to which project(s) you’ve contributed and how and we’ll email you back with a coupon code worth 10% off any BrewPony product. For as long as you (or we) live.
#coffee #devs #discounts #imported:pinboard #opensource #to:fb
archive.org #32164

The Wonderbrewer of Nowheresville by Kevin Koczwara Narratively - Narratively: Local stories, boldly told.

http://www.narrative.ly/drinking-buddies/the-wonderbrewer-of-nowheresville/
I'm a bit nervous when I finally turn down the long dirt road to the brewery after a two-hour drive. The road doesn't seem to lead anywhere. I'm in the middle of nowhere and there is no brewery in sight. It certainly doesn't seem like the most logical place for one. There is no major city nearby. via Pocket
#favorites #ifttt #imported:pinboard #pocket
archive.org #32165

The Wonderbrewer of Nowheresville by Kevin Koczwara Narratively - Narratively: Local stories, boldly told.

http://www.narrative.ly/drinking-buddies/the-wonderbrewer-of-nowheresville
I'm a bit nervous when I finally turn down the long dirt road to the brewery after a two-hour drive. The road doesn't seem to lead anywhere. I'm in the middle of nowhere and there is no brewery in sight. It certainly doesn't seem like the most logical place for one. There is no major city nearby. via Pocket
#favorites #ifttt #pocket
archive.org #24125