Flicker Fusion

It’s completely unimaginative and even quite amateurish. The logo in perspective shown above? Ugh. That’s the first thing any design student would try if tasked with doing a logo for a blog about technology. And the pixels within pixels as seen in the variation next to it? Somewhat pretty but that’s about it. And pairing it all with Interstate? For some reason it does not work at all even though it probably should; it looks like a remnant of early 2000s design.

It’s completely unimaginative and even quite amateurish. The logo in perspective shown above? Ugh. That’s the first thing any design student would try if tasked with doing a logo for a blog about technology. And the pixels within pixels as seen in the variation next to it? Somewhat pretty but that’s about it. And pairing it all with Interstate? For some reason it does not work at all even though it probably should; it looks like a remnant of early 2000s design.

—Armin Vit is unimpressed with TechCrunch’s new branding.

When there are more than 200 tweets that need to be loaded in your timeline, you’ll see a gap with a plus button. This signifies that there are tweets that weren’t loaded there. You can control which way the gap loads depending on the position of the gap on screen when you tap on it. If you like to read tweets from old to new, tap on the gap button when it’s in the top half of the screen to correctly load without losing your place. If you read new to old, tap on the gap button when it’s in the bottom half of the screen.

When there are more than 200 tweets that need to be loaded in your timeline, you’ll see a gap with a plus button. This signifies that there are tweets that weren’t loaded there. You can control which way the gap loads depending on the position of the gap on screen when you tap on it. If you like to read tweets from old to new, tap on the gap button when it’s in the top half of the screen to correctly load without losing your place. If you read new to old, tap on the gap button when it’s in the bottom half of the screen.

—Good golly, those Tapbots folks are clever.

I love making the stuff, that’s sort of the core of it. I love creating the stuff. It’s so satisfying to get from the beginning to the end, from a shaky nothing idea to something that’s well formed and the audience really likes. It’s like a drug: You keep trying to do it again and again and again. I’ve learned from experience that if you work harder at it, and apply more energy and time to it, and more consistency, you get a better result. It comes from the work. I remember seeing this thing, a documentary about a Los Angeles coach [John Wooden], the guy who coached UCLA to huge wins, so they couldn’t be beat for three seasons. He’s a very legendary coach, but a very unassuming guy with thick glasses. They just won and won and won. They talked about the difference between him and, like, Bobby Knight and Vince Lombardi. He didn’t make winning speeches. He never made speeches about being winners and being the best, like, “This is our house,” that kind of horseshit. Never said it. He said that to focus on that, to win, win, win, is worthless. It just has no value. He’d address all his players in his little voice, “If you just listen to me, and you work on your fundamentals and you apply yourself to working on these skills, you’re probably going to be happy with the results.” I think about that all the time.

I love making the stuff, that’s sort of the core of it. I love creating the stuff. It’s so satisfying to get from the beginning to the end, from a shaky nothing idea to something that’s well formed and the audience really likes. It’s like a drug: You keep trying to do it again and again and again. I’ve learned from experience that if you work harder at it, and apply more energy and time to it, and more consistency, you get a better result. It comes from the work. I remember seeing this thing, a documentary about a Los Angeles coach [John Wooden], the guy who coached UCLA to huge wins, so they couldn’t be beat for three seasons. He’s a very legendary coach, but a very unassuming guy with thick glasses. They just won and won and won. They talked about the difference between him and, like, Bobby Knight and Vince Lombardi. He didn’t make winning speeches. He never made speeches about being winners and being the best, like, “This is our house,” that kind of horseshit. Never said it. He said that to focus on that, to win, win, win, is worthless. It just has no value. He’d address all his players in his little voice, “If you just listen to me, and you work on your fundamentals and you apply yourself to working on these skills, you’re probably going to be happy with the results.” I think about that all the time.

—I’m not 100% certain we deserve Louis C.K.

Then, along comes ProPublica to give me renewed faith in the power of data visualization by connecting it with your life through Facebook. I recently left the service, but this is one of the best integrations that I’ve seen. Using the Facebook API, ProPublica pulls your high school and then automatically compares it to the other schools in your area. Suddenly, data has all the emotional punch of a high school football rivalry as you scan from Columbia River to Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay. This is Big Data made personal, not through whizbang graphics but through demonstrated and automatic relevance.

Then, along comes ProPublica to give me renewed faith in the power of data visualization by connecting it with your life through Facebook. I recently left the service, but this is one of the best integrations that I’ve seen. Using the Facebook API, ProPublica pulls your high school and then automatically compares it to the other schools in your area. Suddenly, data has all the emotional punch of a high school football rivalry as you scan from Columbia River to Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay. This is Big Data made personal, not through whizbang graphics but through demonstrated and automatic relevance.

—

Alexis Madrigal smartly argues for personalized data visualization as a way to use people’s “social graphs” to better understand the news.

I couldn’t agree more. The goal of news, at its most basic, has always been how to help people understand the world that they live in. While Google, Facebook and Twitter seem most interested in using people’s networks to sell them more crap, it’s great to see more high-minded uses.

Of course, not all browsers currently in popular use (ahem, Internet Explorer) support the “pushState” function yet. Older browsers will continue to use hash-based URLs, and if hash-based links are shared with modern browsers, they’ll be transparently upgraded to the “pushState” version of the URL.

Of course, not all browsers currently in popular use (ahem, Internet Explorer) support the “pushState” function yet. Older browsers will continue to use hash-based URLs, and if hash-based links are shared with modern browsers, they’ll be transparently upgraded to the “pushState” version of the URL.

—The new Backbone release includes support for “pushState”, which lets browsers dynamically update URLs without forcing a page refresh and without using hacky hashes or hashbangs. And, it even does the right thing when fed a hashed URL, the exact opposite of what seems to be en vogue these days. Bravo.

Working in a café sucks. People are always peeping at your screen and it’s dirty and the wireless is dodgy and there’s some skank with a productive cough one table over who keeps yapping loudly on her cell phone to somebody named Andréas who you’re pretty sure is her ecstasy dealer and you have to pee and you can’t get up because somebody will steal your laptop and the bathroom is fucking rank anyway because it’s a coffee shop and everybody’s poopin’ and, oh! I really, really need an office!

Working in a café sucks. People are always peeping at your screen and it’s dirty and the wireless is dodgy and there’s some skank with a productive cough one table over who keeps yapping loudly on her cell phone to somebody named Andréas who you’re pretty sure is her ecstasy dealer and you have to pee and you can’t get up because somebody will steal your laptop and the bathroom is fucking rank anyway because it’s a coffee shop and everybody’s poopin’ and, oh! I really, really need an office!

—Mat Honan has some etiquette tips on working in a café. If you decide you really want to…