notes.husk.org

"I don’t like the idea of Instagram as a photo sharing service, and I don’t think it is. It’s very..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:41:05 +0000

“I don’t like the idea of Instagram as a photo sharing service, and I don’t think it is. It’s very much a communication tool, it’s a visual communications tool.”

- Kevin Systrom, quoted in Inside Instagram: How Slowing Its Roll Put the Little Startup in the Fast Lane at Gizmodo.

"Just the day before, President Barack Obama had signed on and begun sending out photos. This seemed..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:22:00 +0000

“Just the day before, President Barack Obama had signed on and begun sending out photos. This seemed like a real sign that Instagram had arrived. Obama already has accounts on Flickr and Facebook. He (or his people) must have seen something unique and wonderful in Instagram’s audience, some way to reach people via that channel that it couldn’t through others.”

- From Gizmodo’s piece Inside Instagram: How Slowing Its Roll Put the Little Startup in the Fast Lane.

It might be splitting hairs, but I think the Flickr account is for the White House, and is therefore in Obama’s role as President, while the Instagram account is more of a campaign piece, in his role as candidate for re-election. Still, that paragraph makes its point.

See also.

"We believe you should have control when it comes to sharing your personal information. We also..."

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:16:50 +0000

“We believe you should have control when it comes to sharing your personal information. We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers.”

- Dave Morin: Path: We are sorry.

Well, that’s not a bad response.

"More monitors cut down on toggling time among windows on a single screen, which can save about 10..."

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:28:50 +0000

“More monitors cut down on toggling time among windows on a single screen, which can save about 10 seconds for every five minutes of work.”

- NY Times: In Data Deluge, Multitaskers Go to Multiscreens.

I recently switched from a single 15” 1440×800 MacBook Pro display to three screens: the MBP and two external 1920×1080 monitors (whose diagonal sizes I’m uncertain of, but let’s say 21”). I think it’s helped, especially with having editor, browser, and dev tools on screen at once, with less important stuff glanceable at one side.

I suspect my next home setup will be an Air with a 27” Thunderbolt display acting as a hub. I’m looking forward to it.

Having said all that, 10 seconds for every five minutes of work? That seems like a micro-optimisation.

"I’m quite confident that London is too big and too anarchic to be seriously pasteurised by the..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:07:05 +0000

“I’m quite confident that London is too big and too anarchic to be seriously pasteurised by the games. It’s so big, so filthy, so nasty that it could probably eat twenty Olympiads for breakfast and spit out the Ferroconcrete bones.”

- Will Self: ‘The Olympics Suck’, an interview at Epigram, Bristol University’s Independent Student Newspaper.

"Before we get too overwhelmed by the abilities of modern computer vision it’s worth remembering that..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:17:37 +0000

“Before we get too overwhelmed by the abilities of modern computer vision it’s worth remembering that everything without overlaid graphics is functionally invisible to those specific algorithms, and what is visible has zero higher perceptual understanding. A pattern has been matched, no more.”

- AUGRE, commenting on Timo Arnall’s Robot Readable World video.

I did wonder how the video would look if the only things present were the computer’s “markup”: the boxes, arrows, and so on, on a field of white or black (or, possibly, with the backgrounds heavily faded). Although it wouldn’t be really how computer vision “sees” the world, it would be a little closer, and more indicative of how little these algorithms really perceive of the world.

"These visualizations are really for the human observer of the CV process. They’re akin to..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:22:00 +0000

“These visualizations are really for the human observer of the CV process. They’re akin to Rodney Brooks’s idea of language having been invented by god to make it easier to read our minds. In this case these graphics give a window on the extent to which the CV algorithms are seeing the world the way we want them to, whether their vision agrees with ours. It’s not an internal representation, it’s a performance for our benefit.”

- Greg Borenstein in a comment on Timo Arnall’s fascinating video compilation, The Robot Readable World.

"Under the rules in place today, any nerd, any withdrawn, bookish kid, can have Asperger syndrome."

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:20:05 +0000

“Under the rules in place today, any nerd, any withdrawn, bookish kid, can have Asperger syndrome.”

- Benjamin Nugent: I Had Asperger Syndrome, Briefly, from the New York Times.

This is one of a series of posts at the NY Times about the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the fifth (DSM-5 for short), which narrows the definition of autism (and Asperger syndrome) significantly. This particular post is well worth a read. (Thanks, Molly.)

"I’m someone who would rather return to a city that he’s visited many times before than visit a new..."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:49:06 +0000

“I’m someone who would rather return to a city that he’s visited many times before than visit a new city. I don’t know many people who are like that; I like going back to the same place over and over, for years. Because it yields a different experience. If I were the sort of person who went all over the world and only visited each city once, that would be a different sort of experience. I find to really get into a city, I have to go back again and again, and get deeper and deeper into the history and texture of the place.”

- William Gibson, interviewed at The Verge.

Whether it’s a sign of that same desire to burrow under the surface of the city, or just because I have a lack of imagination, I’ve found myself visiting the same places repeatedly: New York five times, now (and more to come, I’m sure), Berlin twice (and, again, I’d love to return), Paris perhaps four times (with more yet to see), San Francisco (three times before I moved here), and of course London (multiple times before I moved, and then ten years of infatuation). I like Gibson’s justification, anyway.

"I’m genuinely interested in seeing the human race escape the planet and go exploring. Speaker..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:47:05 +0000

“I’m genuinely interested in seeing the human race escape the planet and go exploring. Speaker Gingrich would like to be elected.”

- Warren Ellis on Newt Gingrich, Space Realism and Future America at Motherboard.