Linkfests

I used to put piles of links on the blog pages, so here they are, consolidated, for posterity. For currently updated links, visit my Google+ tech page.

2010-02-08

• Pranksters are using Google Maps to help Berliners track one of the camera-equipped vehicle Google has sent out to photograph Berlin's streets, after they attached a GPS device the car.
• Welcome to Torus, a cool HTML5 Tetris-ish game, and an example of what HTML5 can do.
• How Farmville Scales to 75 M Players Per Month, a short summary.
• Using a 1964 modem on the Intertubes.  No, not even I was born then.
• Source code for the book "Machine Learning: An Algorithmic Perspective". I haven't read the book and know nothing about it, but it looks like a good pile of AI code written largely in Python.
• How Erlang is used in Facebook Chat. I like Erlang.

2010-02-11

• How do we kick our synchronous addiction? Some talk about asynchronous coding, contains a clean JavaScript implementation and mentions Erlang.
• Creating a toy virtual machine with PyPy. The PyPy project is pretty cool.
• Visualising Sorting Algorithms. An approach different than that of Wikipedia, and I think maybe more clear.
• CopperLicht, a 3D JavaScript engine that uses WebGL. Looks cool, but none of my Linux browsers support WebGL, apparently.
• Design 0.101 for Programmers; just a tad to help you through the day.
• Excerpt from the Case Study of  The Space Shuttle Primary Control System. Story of an all-systems lockup in the Space Shuttle simulator and how it was debugged. No software impresses me more than the Shuttle's.
• My Favorite Liar; "One of my favorite professors in college was a self-professed liar." Kept the students well on their toes.
• Mnesia: A distributed database rooted in concurrency. Nice little intro to Erlang's built-in database.

2010-02-17

• Insanely deep fractal zoom in HD. If you're not on drugs, this relentless exploration of the Mandlebrot Set's periphery will make you feel like you were.
• A quick overview of OGRE 3D, a neat free 3D engine.
• A potentially interesting way of patching Python on the fly for asynchronous I/O; I didn't pursue it, but it seems like a not-bad idea on the surface.
• The Soundex Algorithm, a not-so-complex algorithm for categorizing words by their sounds. Good for finding words by sound.
• Recent Progress in Quantum Algorithms. Seems like one of the more approachable essays.
• Quick overview on making threadsafe functions.
• ACM Programming Competition World Final Problems for 2010. I participated in the contest a couple times back in school, years ago! Was never on the winning team, though, sadly.
• Bugfix for Phoenix, a 1980 coin-op arcade game.  Retro-awesome.

2010-02-21

• Chad's love of code reviews—and I agree. It can be tough to expose your code to better eyes, but everyone is improved because of it.
• Review Board—along those lines, here is an open source code review tool that was linked to in the comments for the code-review post.
• Building Flash Multiplayer Games—a somewhat extended tutorial that I haven't actually gone through, but looks decent.
• What Really Happens When You Navigate To A URL. Semi-technical, and informative if you don't already know it.
• Factorial Lookup. Ever wonder what 182,731! is? (You might have to give it several seconds to download before it renders.) Sometimes the most practical way to solve difficult (or impossible) problems is to just try to look up the answers in a massive precalculated table. Also see Reverse MD5 Hash Lookup.
• Arimaa—a modern game played on a chess board with chess pieces, specifically designed to make it difficult to write effective AI to play it.
• Making Computer Science More Enticing. A good inspirational 2-minute vid at the top, and information about how Stanford University's revamping of their CS program led to higher enrollment.
• Understanding Weak References, a Java-oriented article, but generally applicable.

2010-02-28

• Stack Machines, Expression Evaluation, and Reverse Polish Notation little walkthrough tutorial.
• Hot-swapping Binaries in C. Straightforward, simple, and nifty, but I wonder about gotchas...?
• Compressed Sensing. A Wired article, which suggests Blade Runner might not have been too far off.
• Genetics Basics for Programmers. Even the laziest programmers do this all day long.
• CSS-only Drop-Down Menus. No frills, but no JavaScript, either. Supports every single major browser (except Internet Explorer, obviously.)
• Writing the BubbleUp jQuery Plugin. A simple demo on how to write a basic plugin for jQuery.
• Functional Programming in Python. Intro; starts easy, and thickens a bit in the middle.
• Roulette Wheel Selection for weighted random number generation.
• The Collatz Conjecture—an intriguing example of how graphically plotting data can sometimes lead you to more easily recognize patterns in the data.

2010-03-09

• Forking vs. Threading—fight! Contains a quick FAQ about why you might choose one over the other.
• iPhone-friendly Websites—useful code snippets.
• HTML5 + CSS3—the future (and desired present) of website construction
• HTML5 canvas cheat sheet—to continue my collection of web-oriented links
• The Mechanical Computers of Hannibal Ford and William Newell—analog computers
• conc lists—organizing data for O(n log n) performance (this example in Erlang)
• Postmortem on the Google AI contest winner—lots of good information
• KOHCTPYKTOP: Engineer of the People—build integrated circuits... as a Communist. No, I'm not clear on the connection, but it seems like an in-depth circuit-building game!
• Sorting a Linked List with Selection Sort—a short-and-sweet blog piece
• The HTML5 Audio Element—quick demo

2010-03-17

• Relational vs Non-Relational DBs—most interesting part is the "why would I choose what" section; it's a good example of "use the right tool for the job"
• Data Compression Explained—quite a comprehensive article
• Simplifying CSS Selectors—one simple thing to keep in mind to keep CSS performance from deteriorating
• 5 Things You Need To Know About Raytracing—quick basic no-math intro to the raytracing process with groovy pictures and diagrams
• Neural Networks in Erlang—good refresher on neural net basics, too
• 12 Reasons to Learn Graph Theory—graphs are fun!
• Graph Theory and Algorithms—free online book!
• Google Chrome Extensions are Easy—with simple sample code
• Node.js intro—V8-powered server-side JavaScript
• Vector Clocks—a way to measure the relative timing of distributed events
• HTML5 on the iPhone—implementing a little Tetris game
• The Memory Management Reference—comprehensive memory management information

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