Negative tide time of year for people in the SF Bay Area. This weekend, May 26th is a good day for seeing exposed ocean areas — anemones, crabs, starfish, octopuses — and birds feasting on all of this. Unfortunately the summer negative tides are early in the morning.
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
Do bacteria make it rain? Is our destruction of ecosystems affecting rain formation? Did bacteria invent rain in order to transport themselves around the world? Ok, maybe that last bit is science fiction.
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
"Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia?"
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
Klamath River Overlook. The first time I went there it was so foggy you couldn't see anything, but the weather was much better this time. It's a short drive off of 101 between Eureka and Crescent City, just north of the bridge over Klamath River.
I love that area -- haven't been for a long time. I stayed at the hostel near there twice, and had such a great time hiking in Redwood National Forest.
- Stephen Mack #TeamMomo
from iPhone
If you turn left just before the river, you'll end up on the road you can see in the photo. That's a good one too. For this view though you'll want to turn left a little bit after the river, on Requa Road.
- Amit Patel
I love this area; I try to visit at least once a year. I usually stay in McKinleyville.
- Amit Patel
I haven't been there since the '80s but I loved that part of CA. We were bike riding from Brookings, OR to LA and it was a helluva way to see it.
- Spidra Webster
One of my favorite places in the world. If Arcata isn't too far off your route, you have to go for a soak in the hot tubs here: http://cafemokkaarcata.com/
- Meg V. Meg
I love hot tub recommendations!!! *furiously notes down*
- Spidra Webster
"A flood of historic proportions hit this region just before Christmas, 1964. The sign here shows the high water level through this region. This point is 47 miles (75 km) upstream from the river's Pacific Ocean discharge near Ferndale, California. "
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
I drove by this sign, then looked it up on Google Earth. It looks like the river is 130 feet below the sign level, which would suggest that flood was truly epic.
- Amit Patel
Amit, I'd like to ask you something privately, but I can't because you're not subscribed to me.
- Cristo
Cristo, do you want me to subscribe to you? :-) Or you can email me at amitp@cs.stanford.edu…
- Amit Patel
I've never understood the subscribing of comments on friendfeed. It seems redundant, but maybe I'm missing something. Is it that you want the comments, but don't want the posts?
- Cristo
I subscribe to people, not comments, but then I filter out many of their posts (especially things auto-posted from elsewhere).
- Amit Patel
Me too, especially anything from Twitter. If I want to read tweets, I'll go there.
- Cristo
Yelp update mentions Arrested Development, Daft Punk, and Taco Bell Waffle Taco. That's one way to make me read your update notes!
It's using the same effect as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch... I'm guessing the show uses 5 gal. trash bags. And there is about a 50% increase in efficiency by taking advantage of the effect. I'd assume it would be even more pronounced when dealing with the restricted airflow and pressure requirement of a check valve.
- Jimminy IS Everybody
That's why scarecrows never shop at Old Navy.
- SteVe C
I tried to install a kind of scarecrow on my veranda, and that failed, too.
- Maitani
I have crows at my house, and they start squawking whenever I walk outside. They'll swoop down over my head and then fly back into a tree, then repeat. Instead of me being a scarecrow that scares them away, they're being scarecrows that scare me away. :-/
- Amit Patel
My first time visiting Crater Lake in a snowy month. So beautiful up there! (Click to see the 5856x1388 version)
It was truly lovely. And so quiet! I wasn't originally planning to go there but I'm glad I did. It was worth skipping a few waterfalls for this :-)
- Amit Patel
"It’s been just over a week since we launched WeatherSignal, we billed it as “the most ambitious Weather crowdsourcing project ever” – that’s a fine claim to make, let’s see if we’re managing to live up to it."
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
Doctor Who fans, beware. They want you to download the Atmos system onto your phone… everyone should have Atmos!
- Amit Patel
"They systematically sent thousands of letters out saying, "Hey, we own 27,000 patents, and here are some patents we think you infringe." They had a whole licensing group whose job was to monetize these patents, by threatening litigation, and in some cases litigating. It didn't actually matter if you did your own analysis and got back to them and said, "Hey guys, we actually think we don't infringe." The response was something to the effect of, well, we have 27,000 patents—and you probably infringe something, so give us a licensing fee."
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
I loved the live code update in your Hexagon post, as I changed the radio buttons between odd-r, even-r, odd-q, and even-q.
- Jimminy IS Everybody
Apparently I solved this with Friendfeed Top 20 (http://twentyfivehourlabs.com/friendf...), by creating a container appropriately sized width: 620px; to handle items of width: 300px; margin-left:10px; float: left; so every 3rd item get's pushed on below the bottom of the 2nd, while the 2nd remains in-line with A so long as A.width > 620, then it falls in below A. 3 items would never fit in a line between unless the container was larger than 930px. I'll see if I can do a write up tomorrow.
- Jimminy IS Everybody
Hm. Sounds like I should experiment more :)
- Amit Patel
Just centre everything. CSS loves centering. Then give up and use tables.
- WoH: Professor MOTHRA
Tables don't do what I want either :(
- Amit Patel
I'll see if I can get you an article in the next day or two, I spent the past few hours just describing a few issues and their causes. One thing I did notice, when trying to modify the hexagon article with developer tools, was it didn't follow progressive enhancement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... (elements were in different orders than visually defined), which...
more...
- Jimminy IS Everybody
I was trying to put elements in the order in which they'd be viewed on mobile or narrow desktops, and then rearranging them for wide screens, but I got a bit frustrated and started using various hacks. :(
- Amit Patel
Your article looks like just what I needed. :) Thank you! I will study this and then go back through my older articles and fix them up. I want something like "collapsed space" for the hex grid article but I want different things for older articles and I'll have to look at them all again to see what works best.
- Amit Patel
I understand how to avoid case 1 (descended float), by setting widths properly. But I don't understand how to avoid case 3 (misalignment of floats). I guess I just have to guess based on the sizes of fonts on my system, and hope it works on other people's systems.
- Amit Patel
Amit, what you do in that case, is either create a new article section (which has the property rule of clear: both;) or you can apply a special clearfix class [ .clearfix { clear: both;} ] to the objects that should always be in the left column. Depending on the structure, I'd probably default to the article definition first. Edit: Thinking about your case of wanting to reposition the 3rd element inline with the first, and such one-off cases like that it may be better just to use the .clearfix
- Jimminy IS Everybody
Also, text size shouldn't be a problem, scaling is generally handled for most elements, not just text. So for basic layouts, if it fits right on your screen, it should fit right on someone else's.
- Jimminy IS Everybody
Solar and wind and fuel cell powered container ship design
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
"Hello,
Hope all is well. I am a recruiter that would like to check in with you in 2013. How are things at Seven Networks? Would you consider making a move if an excellent opportunity presented itself? I have 17 yrs of progressive recruiting experience" [blah blah blah]
"So I went to Bret Victor’s session, arriving about fifteen minutes after he’d begun. There was an animated fish on the screen, and a worm on a hook, and sometimes bubbles, and sometimes a little wheel (that I later learned was a timing element). Bret was demoing the most recent iteration of his Dynamic Pictures research. The idea, as I understand it (and my understanding of it is just beginning, so this is all memory, exploration, interpolation, and probably full of mistakes and gross oversimplifications), is that math is not only about language, as in an abstract set of symbols, either mathematical symbols or programming code. Instead, math is also about geometry, visual representation that can move and be acted upon directly through a UI that nevertheless asks the user to think abstractly about what’s happening “concretely” in the visual representation one is manipulating."
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
"The session was mesmerizing and so … different … that I had a very strange sensation as I tried to take it in. I felt at the very edge of my zone of promixal development. That is, I could understand what Bret was saying as he was saying it, but that cognitive bubble was very small, so small that I found myself with no extra resources for deep metacognition. At the same time, I also...
more...
- Amit Patel
"What's at stake? Eager buyers are snapping up "vast warehouses—some are bigger than 30 football fields under one roof—where they can store, process and ship merchandise such as clothes, books and toys to ever more online shoppers and handle the rising flood of goods passing through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.""
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
"One of these warehouses, it turns out, is actually so huge it must be laser-leveled against the curvature of the earth. "
- Amit Patel
So many birds at Meiss Lake and Lower Klamath Lake. Too bad there were no eagles eating them…
"The hamburger, assembled from tiny bits of beef muscle tissue grown in a laboratory and to be cooked and eaten at an event in London, perhaps in a few weeks, is meant to show the world — including potential sources of research funds — that so-called in-Vitro meat, or cultured meat, is a reality."
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
and they're going to call it "soylent..." #iforget
- WarLord
This is why everyone should use "linksys" as their SSID: https://github.com/hubert3... … from what (little) I understand, you can listen to wifi traffic and find out, for each device, what SSIDs they've used. And since lots of people have unique/clever/funny wifi network names at home, you can find out where someone lives (somewhat) by...
Don't forget the _nomap suffix on your home access points (if you don't go with something generic) - at least Google honors it ;) http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011... But yeah, yet another reason I generally keep wi-fi turned off except for intervals where I specifially need it on. Grandfathered unlimited plans FTW.
- Tinfoil 2.0
I still smile whenever I see that someone's SSID is "FBI Surveillance Van"
- Brian Fitzpatrick
ELECT HEXAGONBOT FOR A PROSPEROUS AND HEXAGONAL FUTURE
- Amit Patel
from Bookmarklet
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of hexagons to the Elsewhere Philatelic Society. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Larry Hosken