The Insider News

LEGO Turing Machine[^]:

In order to really show how simple the fundamental model of a computer is, we have developed a physical implementation of the Turing machine, using LEGO Mindstorms NXT.

{anonymous => 'hash'};[^]:

A friend recently tweeted a list of story basics from Pixar Story Artist Emma Coats. These basics are some of the story-writing guidelines Emma has learned from her colleagues and they’re pure gold for writers. As I was reading the list I was struck by just how many of the items on her list–with just a little modification–apply to programming as well. It’s all creative work. It’s all writing.

A Gray Beard Reflects[^]:

This is the first of a series of posts that explore functional programming in F#. My original intent in this post was to explore how to manage state in a pure functional program by implementing a very simple stack machine in F#. It turns out that this exercise illustrates, in a very short piece of code, several important principles of functional programming in F# and consequently provides a simple, succint general introduction to functional programming in F#.

Not insane[^]:

Not everyone knows that the SSL handshake is not encrypted. When you think about it - there isn't other way, before the keys are exchanged the communication must be unencrypted. But I doubt many people think about it.

OS News[^]:

It's been one of my major pet peeves on both Android and iOS: the total and utter lack of consistency. Applications - whether first party or third party - all seem to live on islands, doing their own thing, making their own design choices regarding basic UI interactions, developing their own non-standard buttons and controls. Consistency died five years ago, and nobody seems to care but me.

CNET[^]:

It's the end of an era. Or maybe the start of a new one. Microsoft is trying out a new business model with next Windows release. The company is going to offer two Microsoft-branded tablets of its own, both of which are branded as Microsoft Surface.

Gizmodo[^]:

Microsoft threw one hell of a party tonight; its pair of Microsoft Surface devices could be one of the biggest jumps forward in product design in recent memory. Could, because there's still so much we don't know. And Microsoft's not sharing.

Ralph Barbagallo[^]:

Is mobile dead? It appears to be a silly question given all the hype – but it seems like the majors have it sewn up. Now that the mobile market is large, mainstream, and mature it’s time to start monetizing lucrative niche audiences–narrow and deep.

LukeW[^]:

Close to three-quarters of smartphone owners in the United States use location services on their mobiles. Most of those interactions involve a map in some way. No wonder then, that both Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) recently held public events talking about the future of their mobile map products.