Interesting reading

I found this article, Against Camel Case, interesting, if only because it makes you think about the way yourself read.

From 5 minutes to 10 seconds

So I did some work for our client that reduced the perceived time it takes their product to show a list of content to the user from about 5 minutes to 10 seconds tops. We also moved the "that's enough items to consider" maximum use case from about 1000 to 4000 items. Lots of useful performance optimizations and moving of operations to background tasks.

Sweet.

Hopefully the update comes out soon.

Yeah, it’s a big puzzle

I’ve been working on a puzzle. Cliché mapamundi puzzle; 4,000 pieces. Takes like 3 tables when complete, but at least we’ve got the borders done, and since it consists of vertical bands then there’s also aditional ‘inner’ borders. Sad thing is, the piece pattern repeats itself in very predictable ways. Boo. This is how it looked at July 22nd.

I ate a bug

I ate a bug once. Well I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten more than a few in my lifetime, but in this story I only ate one. Well, I’m not even sure I actually ate it. Just keep reading.

This all happened a long time ago, when I was still young, in one of my teacher’s office.

I don’t really remember the reason I was there, or the reason any of the many people there had to be there, but that’s ok since it doesn’t affect the story. There were quite a few people there, or at least it seemed that way since that office was rather small. I had a drink with me: one of those plastic cups with coke in it. I suppose a bunch of us students and the teacher were farting around, probably bargaining for a better grade or less homework. Most of the time the cup just sat on the desk. At one point a bug strolled by, just idling around the room. To be honest I just saw it walk by once on the desk and didn’t pay much attention to it. It was a harmless, stinger-less kind of bug; didn’t think much of it...

At some point I grabbed my cup to drink some cola and then I felt something bump with the inside of my mouth. It could’ve been a piece of ice, or something might’ve fallen into it. This is where I realized that ‘something’ might be Mr. Bug. What happened next was instantaneous, kind of like it does when something horrible happens, and it happens in slow motion and the only thing you can think of is cutting your losses. And by ‘cutting your losses’ I mean get royally fucked.

Big deal, I got something in my mouth? Just spit it out! Except that among the people there in the office was my then love-interest. Keep in mind this happened during the age when unrequited love is the most terrible thing on the face of the planet, unmatched by plague, famine and a hurricane all happening in the same place and time as an earthquake, a meteor crash and a killer bee attack. All that is just a way of saying I was pretty darn stupid at the time.

Spitting out a bug in front of the most gorgeous, sweet, adorable girl in the universe was totally unacceptable. The chances of getting a kiss from here were scarce as it were; I didn’t need her having an image of a bug being in my mouth. The rest of the other people present would ensure the story would not die down.

So I opted for the course of action that would draw the least amount of attention to my problem. I just cursed both heaven and hell. And swallowed. And cursed heaven and hell a couple more times.

It’s been over a decade since that happened. This is the first time I share this story. Had she found out it would’ve defeated the whole purpose. But hey, I’m older now, I suppose I could start moving into the ‘laugh about it later’ part. So there, I admit it: I ate a bug. Or some ice, whatever.

I like big books and I cannot lie

After having this puppy sitting on a shelf for a few weeks, the wrapper is gone and the awesome Fondo de Cultura Económica smell runs wild. It's got a lot of pages, lets see how long it takes me to finish it. I foresee a lot of unplanned and random order browsing, it's hard to not press the 'shuffle' button on this playlist.

Damn you Monday

Damn you for making visitors leave.

An operating system by any other name

Palm might have a few problems due to its webOS's name. How many people would want their phone powered by huevos? It's been commented on it before, so that goes to show people do notice.

Then again, it might be a hell of an advertising campaign: “Palm Pre, powered with balls!”

To combat the swine flu, time-traveling has been created

So I came across this advertisement banner (shown is a small section of it), with an alarming photo of people wearing surgical masks (do those even make a noticeable difference), and big, alarming, attention grabbing red letters which read, in Spanish, “16085 contagions, 125 deaths” and then in small letters “estimated through May 31st”.

Now, today is the 25th. I’m glad they managed to invent a time machine to travel to the future to collect statistical data, but that time machine could be put to better use going back in time to prevent the kid from licking that piggy.

The perils of using display: table for layout

When using display:table (with the related table-row and table-cell) to set up columns for a layout, don’t forget to set the vertical-align property. After a while it finally dawned on me why would the padding-top of both columns seemed to be linked to each other and to the margin-top of each column’s first element: say hello to vertical-align: baseline. Change it to something more appropriate for what you're trying to do, maybe top.

Chomp!

Those Chain Chomps. What a miserable existance. Constantly lounging towards something, never getting there. Everynow and then resting a bit, pacing back and forth just to try again and again and again and again. That’s what they do.

Makes you wonder.

Open letter to terrible drivers

Dear terrible drivers: If you feel that you must crash your car in the middle of rush-hour, at least do so in such a way that all the pieces of your car and the car you crash into remain in one single lane. Thanks