Some more gubbins for you to peruse once you've poured the sand out of your shoes:
Happy invoicing!
- The Pac-Man Dossier - This is awesome. Jamey Pittman brings us the most exhaustive study of Pac-Man yet published, based on analysis of the original machine code confirmed by experimentation with the original game. Find out how to get round corners faster than the ghosts, why you can sometimes pass through a ghost unharmed, and just why Clyde spends so much time in the lower-left corner of the maze. "...the purpose of this guide is to give the player a better understanding of Pac-Man without the use of patterns by taking a closer look at gameplay, maze logic, ghost personalities, and the mysterious “split screen” level... you will definitely feel much better about recovering from a mistake in your ninth key pattern once you have a good understanding of how the ghosts “think”."
- How panhandlers use free credit cards - "What would happen if, instead of spare change, you handed a person in need the means to shop for whatever they needed? What would they buy?... Over the past two weeks, I wandered Toronto’s downtown core with five prepaid Visa and MasterCard gift cards, in $50 and $75 denominations, waiting for people to ask for money."
- The Asshole's Guide To Ordering Wine - "Let's get the obvious out of the way. No one wants to be a dick. But despite our intentions to the contrary we somehow succeed. A lot. Especially when it comes it ordering wine and that surrounds it." Helpful advice from Steve McIntosh's Winethropology. (Tiny font though; Ctrl-+ [or Cmd-+ on OS X] is your friend.)
- How to write unmaintainable code - "In the interests of creating employment opportunities... I am passing on these tips from the masters on how to write code that is so difficult to maintain, that the people who come after you will take years to make even the simplest changes. Further, if you follow all these rules religiously, you will even guarantee yourself a lifetime of employment, since no one but you has a hope in hell of maintaining the code." Roedy Green's classic essay never loses its relevance
- Why working from home is both awesome and horrible - another nail-on-the-head comic from The Oatmeal.
- Icons of the Web - "A large-scale scan of the top million web sites (per Alexa traffic data) was performed in early 2010 using the Nmap Security Scanner and its scripting engine... Our original goal was just to improve our http-favicon.nse script, but we had enough fun browsing so many icons that we used them to create the visualization below." Interesting use of favicons (those little icons that appear by the site URL in the browser's location bar), and yes, CUK is there "...at (7.220, 14.660) and is 48 × 48 pixels"
- A letter to my students - Michael O'Hare, professor of public policy at Berkely, addresses the class of 2010: "The bad news is that you have been the victims of a terrible swindle, denied an inheritance you deserve by contract and by your merits. And you aren’t the only ones; victims of this ripoff include the students who were on your left and on your right in high school but didn’t get into Cal, a whole generation stiffed by mine. This letter is an apology, and more usefully, perhaps a signal to start demanding what’s been taken from you so you can pass it on with interest."
- A More Royal Royal Opera House - Excellent study of the recent redesign of the Royal Opera House's branding. "The previous lion and unicorn looked as if Bambi had eaten their families and had nothing but droopy, sad eyes to show for it. The updated versions are proud and strong. And probably ate Bambi."
- Placebo Buttons - "The Misconception: All buttons placed around you do your bidding. The Truth: Many public buttons are only there to comfort you." As you probably suspected, the green man at many junctions doesn't come at your bidding after all.
- 25 Vintage Ads That Would Be Banned Today - Excellent collection of old ads from Bored Panda ("The only magazine for pandas"): "Don’t Worry Darling, You Didn’t Burn The Beer!"
Happy invoicing!
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