Nerdery

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The Kindle’s sweet spot

October 28, 2009 in Nerdery | No comments

Given all the hubbub about Kindles, Nooks and their utility, I thought this bears repeating to a wider audience:

The Kindle is great for books that are just a bag of words, but falls short for anything with important visuals.

I’ve really enjoyed reading on my Kindle over the past year. You can’t beat it for dragging a bunch of books with you on vacation or for reading by the poolside. That said, I don’t use it to read anything technical with diagrams or source code listings. I certainly wouldn’t use it to read anything like Tufte, which is exactly why his books aren’t available on the Kindle. Where the Kindle shines is with pop-science books like Freakonomics and Star Wars novels1.

If you love books and reading, the Kindle is a nice addition to your bibliophilic habit, but it’s no replacement for a well-chosen and varied library.

1 Did I say that out loud? Crap.

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Ghostbusters then and now

September 24, 2009 in Curated, Nerdery | No comments

What happens when you take scenes from Ghostbusters and see how New York used to look and how it looks today? Pretty awesome, actually. In two parts.

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Getting to know your bookshelf

August 11, 2009 in Curated, Nerdery | No comments

The Book Stalker - Rands figures you out by your bookshelf:

Where’s your bookshelf? It’s this awkward moment whenever I first walk into your home. Where is it? Everyone has one. It might not be huge. It might be hidden in a closet, but in decades of meeting new people, I’ve never failed in finding one and when I do I consume it.

Here’s mine from almost two years ago (plus more):

Bookshelf, after

I’ve since expanded to two shelves and look forward to the day when I can devote a whole wall to just reading. As I often tell myself as I sit down to start, “reading is the best”.

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My setup

August 10, 2009 in Curated, Nerdery | 3 comments

Shawn Blanc has been cataloging sweet Mac setups. Last week, he published a description of my own creative den. If you find this sort of thing as intriguing as I do, also check out The Setup.

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Balmer =~ Tarkin

August 3, 2009 in Curated, Nerdery | No comments

Steve Ballmer:

Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.

OK, maybe that’s Grand Moff Tarkin. Either way, I’m considering this my birthday present from John Gruber.

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Super Mario motors

June 23, 2009 in Curated, Nerdery | No comments

Too cool - Super Mario stepper motor music:


Of course, an Arduino is involved.

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LOST in-joke

April 18, 2009 in Curated, Nerdery | No comments

DUDE. Other phrases of common occurrence in LOST. (Via Heilemann.)

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Even the Dharma Initiative has to advertise

March 25, 2009 in Curated, Nerdery | No comments

Vintage Dharma Initiative Ads. Very excellent.

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On feeds: application posture

March 18, 2009 in Nerdery | No comments

This entry is part of 1 in the series feeds

EventBox. It’s a great idea - roll all the social/distracting applications in your life into one app so you can close it when it comes time to focus. Yesterday, I decided to give it a go.

I quickly felt that perhaps it was not for me. I think it comes down to posture - how is the app intended to be used? I’ve been using Twitterific and NetNewsWire for quite some time (5+ years in the case of the latter), so let’s compare with their posture:

  • NetNewsWire is meant to scan feeds, collect the interesting stuff, read it, repeat
  • Twitterific is (beautifully) optimized for scan tweets, reply to a few, post occasionally
  • EventBox seems to encourage scanning things, handling the occasional item in-situ, and sending the interesting stuff to your browser

I’m not saying that EventBox’s posture is wrong; it’s just different. I’m going to stick with it for a few days and see how I feel about it.

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Recreating that famous opening scene

February 5, 2009 in Curated, Nerdery | 1 comment

I would do the same thing. Brought to you by Alan Francis.

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