mrclay.rg

Perks of Life in the Kingdom of Nouns

Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns is one of Steve Yegge’s most entertaining posts about the verbosity and noun-centricity of Java (and other strongly typed languages without first-class functions). His post paints a picture of life outside JavaLand, where things are simpler and more straightforward: There’s rarely any need in these kingdoms to create wrapper

[...read the post]

A Zend Framework App in a Single File

Most PHP micro-frameworks I’ve reviewed have some major cons: incomplete namespacing of functions/classes/global vars; doing too much/little; being under-tested; and the worst: forcing a unique (and usually under-documented) code structure that will make it difficult to “graduate” an app into a more full-featured framework. It also seems silly to rely on “micro-optimized” code if performance

[...read the post]

Minify update

Minify 2.1.4 is approaching release and will have several long-awaited features and hopefully easier configuration. Looking towards version 2.2/3(?), I recently committed the beginnings of a complete refactoring of the Minify API. The goal is to have a more flexible and extensible design that can include plugins like LESS and maybe handle @imports on the

[...read the post]

Plastic Sitars Intro for piano

I’ve been playing more music lately, but also trying to go back and learn the fundamentals of reading/writing music and keyboard playing—I can play chords and pop melodies semi reliably but suck at playing scales with either hand. Yesterday I created a free account at Noteflight, which lets you compose scores online (you have to

[...read the post]

Elgg Core Proposal: New Table “entity_list_items”

[This proposal has been superseded with ElggCollection.] As of Elgg 1.7.4 there’s no way to specify a specific list or ordering of entities for use in an elgg_get_entities query. E.g. one might want to implement: A “featured items” list for a group or user widget. On a group page this could be implemented in “left”

[...read the post]

About damn time, guys

Opera 11 will have extensions. Mozilla 1.0 had the first decent extension system in 2002, and since then Opera users have been begging for one and getting lame excuses and half-baked substitutes that offered none of the power of real extensions:  ”Panels” were just HTML docs beside the viewport, and “widgets” just HTML apps in

[...read the post]

Netscape 4 Source Code Hell

Netscape Navigator 4 was—very briefly—the best browser available, then the best available on certain platforms, then finally for the longest time a terrible wreck of a browser hated by every web developer. So it’s nice to see NN4′s programmers suffered working on it, because tons of people suffered working around it.

[...read the post]

Five years later a “new” French Horns recording

In 2005 I wrote a vocal melody and lyrics on top of a blissy keyboard instrumental by Slavagoh. I really liked the repeating three chord progression and had planned to incorporate his recording into the French Horns demo, but decided to keep it minimal. I kinda had always regretted that, so five years later I

[...read the post]

Cato on Cops and Cameras

[...read the post]

Maria Napoleon “Think of Rain”

Louis Philippe and Maria Napoleon put together a fine version of one of my favorite tunes. I usually don’t like covers that mess with the melody, but at the end of the choruses I really love how the vocal playfully jumps to what a high harmony might sing, if Margo Guryan had written one in.

[...read the post]

StackExchange folks, KeyMinor already exists

Why is there a StackExchange proposal in the works for a “Musical Practice and Performance site” when KeyMinor already exists on the SE platform? The proposed site is “for people who play musical instruments. On-topic questions will be about technique, practice, theory, composition, and repertoire.” KeyMinor already serves this purpose, it’s just not known about.

[...read the post]

Why the Pernice Brothers Don’t Tour

From “Will he/they tour?“: JP: We make any money if we tour for two weeks? JL: You mean ten days, if rehearsals are included. JP: Yes. JL: No. JP: Well then why would we do it? RM: Because Menck wants to rock. JL: Theoretically, the tour is just one piece of the things you do

[...read the post]

PHP UTF-8 string class

A couple years ago I put together a class for UTF-8 strings, kind of a smart wrapper around Harry Fuecks’s phputf8 string functions. All Utf8String objects—if I’m not missing bugs!—are guaranteed to house valid UTF-8 strings. The factory, make(), enforces UTF-8 validity, stripping non-UTF-8 bytes (default) or replacing them with Utf8String::$replacement (? by default). $str

[...read the post]

Research Chain E-mails in 30 Seconds

A friend or family member has just forwarded you a wonderful piece of propaganda: It’s filled with inflammatory bare assertions, stirring anecdotes, and a dare to pass it on to everyone you know! And no sources. 1. Find a phrase in the message that’s a) unlikely to appear in anything else on the web, and

[...read the post]

Programmer Steve Yegge’s return to blogging does not disappoint

His latest: Wikileaks To Leak 5000 Open Source Java Projects With All That Private/Final Bullshit Removed

[...read the post]

Chords: The Flaming Lips “All We Have is Now”

[Song on YouTube] All the tabs I could find were crap, so I wrote up a guitar arrangement. The inverted voicings in the choruses made it tough to figure out, but capoing the 2nd fret gets it pretty close. Capo 2nd fret. / = 1/4 note V1) A 3-5-5-4-3-x (2 bars) As logic stands you

[...read the post]

Reasons to Extend Unemployment Benefits

From the left, Ezra Klein: the Bush tax cuts certainly majorly increased the deficit [CBO], and it’s unfair for the GOP to demand that the unemployment extension be deficit-neutral. Further, if tax cuts don’t need to be paid for because they generate so much taxable economic activity that they pay for themselves, then neither do

[...read the post]

MVC: M != the Database

Great article on the misunderstood scope of the “Model” in the Model-View-Controller architecture. The takehome: Models are commonly thought of as wrappers for database access/stored objects, but application state and business logic need to go in them, too. Otherwise you get bloated controller and/or views that clumsily try to take care of these concerns. Earlier

[...read the post]

Some people can be beyond science

When presented with unwelcome scientific evidence, it seems, in a desperate attempt to retain some consistency in their world view, people would rather conclude that science in general is broken.

[...read the post]

Bass for Stereolab’s “Miss Modular”

“Miss Modular” has an amazing bass line. It’s probably looped on record, but they play it live…and usually faster than the recording. I’m fairly sure it’s capoed at the 7th fret—that’s how I’ve typed it up here. Stereolab “Miss Modular” Capo bass @ 7th fret. spaces/numbers/hyphens = 1/16th notes. / = 1/4 notes. Intro) /

[...read the post]