The Insider News

The Wirecutter[^]:

For most people, there’s no point in getting a smartwatch yet, as all the options have major kinks that need ironing out. Skip this generation of them. But if you absolutely must have one because you have nothing better to spend your money on (impossible) grab a Pebble. Amidst a sea of buggy devices, ugly design, concepts that never ship, and problematic pairing, it only gets the nod because it’s less than ideal, but workable, whereas much of the competition simply does not work, or is priced by crazy people.

mjg59[^]:

Secure Boot means different things to different people. I think the FSF's definition is a useful one - Secure Boot is any boot validation scheme in which ultimate control is in the hands of the owner of the device, while Restricted Boot is any boot validation scheme in which ultimate control is in the hands of a third party. What Microsoft require for x86 Windows 8 devices falls into the category of Secure Boot - assuming that OEMs conform to Microsoft's requirements, the user must be able to both disable Secure Boot entirely and also leave Secure Boot enabled, but with their own choice of trusted keys and binaries.

var sql = require('edge').func('sql.csx');

sql('select top 2 * from Products', function (error, result) {
  if (error) throw error;
  console.log(result);
});

CodeProject[^]:

In this installment we talk to Chris Pardo, a Senior Product Manager at Dun and Bradstreet.

The Old New Thing[^]:

The C language does not describe an actual computer. It describes a theoretical one. On this theoretical computer, it must be possible to do certain things, like generate the address of one item past the end of an array, and that address must compare greater than the address of any member of the array. But how the C language implementation chooses to map these theoretical operations to actual operations is at the discretion of the C language implementation.

Dr Dobb's[^]:

In effect, the optimizing allocator has added a performance breakpoint: The program's performance is sharply different for sizes larger than the threshold than it is for smaller sizes. My colleague argued that such performance breakpoints are evil, because when people who use the code learn about the breakpoints, they will change their own behavior to compensate for the breakpoints. Once they do that, the people who use their code will change their own behavior, and so on. The original performance breakpoint may well result in ripple effects that complicate entire systems. As a result, my colleague argued that it is more important to design systems so that their performance changes smoothly with input size than it is to make them run very quickly on particular input sizes.

Tinfoil Security[^]:

Sometimes, the state of your website’s security can be affected by resources and services outside your control. The topic of today? Browser extensions.

michellebu.com[^]:

Programming is hard. Don't ever feel bad because you aren't as good at 'just googling it' as the person next to you. Don't ever let hackathon snobs talk you out of creating the next Twitter for cats or Yelp for public washrooms. Even the dumbest ideas (like trying to make animated polygons disappear and reappear) will help you improve as a programmer. Learning to program is largely about learning to learn--and the best way to learn is to do. At the end of the day, being a competent programmar isn't about how many hackathons you win or how many novel ideas you can come up with--it's about execution, attention to detail, and relentless dedication and passion for building and breaking.

golang.org[^]:

Go was designed and developed to make working in this environment more productive. Besides its better-known aspects such as built-in concurrency and garbage collection, Go's design considerations include rigorous dependency management, the adaptability of software architecture as systems grow, and robustness across the boundaries between components. This article explains how these issues were addressed while building an efficient, compiled programming language that feels lightweight and pleasant. Examples and explanations will be taken from the real-world problems faced at Google.

Jonathan Sampson[^]:

I’m going to use Internet Explorer 10 as my primary browser for one week. That’s one week without browsing, tweeting, or listening to turntable in Chrome (current “Browser of Choice”). That’s one week deep inside the bowels of the browser that burned me, and so many of my peers, so badly over the last decade. One week in the heart of the beast. Why? Isn’t Internet Explorer supposed to be a thing of the past? A bad phase in the history of the web that we’re slowly recovering from?

Creative Bloq[^]:

There’s a common mathematical ratio found in nature that can be used to create pleasing, natural looking compositions in your design work. We call it the Golden Ratio, although it’s also known as the Golden Mean, The Golden Section, or the Greek letter Phi. Based on the Fibonacci Sequence... the Golden Ratio describes the relationship between two proportions. Fibonacci numbers, like many elements found in nature, follow a 1:1.61 ratio - this is what we refer to as the Golden Ratio, and as it forms such a common sight in nature, it feels pleasing to the eye when we use this same ratio in our design work.

Computerworld Blogs[^]:

Microsoft's Windows Blue update to Windows 8 makes it increasingly clear that Microsoft wants to kill the Desktop. That may seem self-defeating, but there's method in Microsoft's madness. Here are three reasons I think it wants to eventually kill the Desktop.

Gizmodo[^]:

You might've read some headlines today—in very reputable publications—saying that there's an online attack underway. The biggest in history. Enough to slow down the internet. This would be exciting and scary, except it's just not true.

Locklin on science[^]:

The SAGE system was designed to solve a data fusion problem. Radar installations across North America kept watch against Soviet bombers. These needed to be networked together and coordinated with air defense missiles and interceptors. Seems simple, right? In the 1950s and 1960s, this was not simple.... No group of people could really make the decisions in time to mount an effective defense. You needed some kind of computer to make the decisions. These giant electric brains took up an acre or so of real estate, and were encased in huge windowless concrete pillboxes all over the country.