In answer to the question “What is Windows Azure?”, most explanations seem to trot out this layer diagram:
…but I find the explanation in this video produced by some of my developer evangelist counterparts in the UK to be far more satisfying. Note that this video was produced before Azure was announced to the public; in the video, the evangelists refer to Azure by its codename, “Red Dog”. Just think “Azure” every time you hear them say “Red Dog”.
My old co-worker Darren “Problogger” Rowse IM’d me to let me know about a new article on Digital Photography School titled Turn Ho-Hum Color into WOW! with Photoshop written by guest blogger Helen Bradley. The “before and after” photos show some pretty impressive results.
This technique makes use of the Lab colour space, which people tend to eschew in favour of the CMYK (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-blacK, which comes from the print world) and RGB (Red-Green-Blue, which geeks are comfortable with).
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Lab colour:
Unlike the RGB and CMYK color models, Lab color is designed to approximate human vision. It aspires to perceptual uniformity, and its L component closely matches human perception of lightness. It can thus be used to make accurate color balance corrections by modifying output curves in the a and b components, or to adjust the lightness contrast using the L component. In RGB or CMYK spaces, which model the output of physical devices rather than human visual perception, these transformations can only be done with the help of appropriate blend modes in the editing application.
Lab’s channels are:
Bradley says that “The process is ridiculously simple, it requires no selections to be made, and it can be recorded as a simple action. It’s my kind of fix – quick, easy and very powerful.”
Last night’s episode of The Simpsons made some pretty funny pokes at Apple, or as they’re referred to in the episode, "Mapple":
In three minutes’ worth of opening sequence, they manage to get in a fair number of jabs and gags, including:
There are many lessons that tech companies (and yes, that includes the empire of which I am part) could learn from Mapple – er, Apple – from differentiating yourself with good design to making an emotional and experiential connection with your users. It’s not just feature sets and price points. After all, even though we’ve had electric light for over a century, candles remain a $2 billion dollar industry and can be found in seven out of ten homes.
(As for Bart’s bit about Steve Jobs and Bill gates smooching on a pile of money, that’s been done before in the form of hot Steve-on-Bill slash fiction.)
Here’s a cute little puzzler I got from the blog hackification — why the does code below compile?
using System;
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
https://www.globalnerdy.com
System.Console.WriteLine("Hello from Global Nerdy!");
System.Console.WriteLine("(Press ENTER to continue)");
System.Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
Here’s what the output of the program looks like:
Why does the program compile even though the first line of the Main() method is a “bareword” URL? See if you can figure it out on your own rather than running it through the compiler – doing that gives away the answer.
I’ll post the answer in the comments.
Over at CBC’s Search Engine, Jesse Brown asks an important question: Is Canada Becoming a Digital Ghetto? I’m reproducing the article in its entirety below.
Here are three things that suck about being Canadian right now:
This growing list of backwards policies is already creating a sense of digital isolation: Canadians can’t stream the videos Americans stream, download the files Americans download, remix the media Americans remix, or tweet the way Americans tweet.
With the election of Barack Obama, digital culture in the U.S. hit a tipping point, where a robust online public sphere proved itself capable of changing the world. Meanwhile, here in Canada we’re approaching our own tipping point, where a series of ignorances and capitulations threaten to turn our country into a digital ghetto.
[Thanks to Mark Relph for pointing me to this article.]
Andy Brice has created some t-shirt designs for software developers and selling the shirts online for a good cause. The proceeds from sales of the t-shirts, some of whose designs are pictured below, will go to two worthy charities: jaipurfoot.org and sightsavers.org.
If you’ve got a programmer on your holiday list – or even if you just want one of these shirts for yourself, please buy one. The money’s going to some very good causes.
This organization pioneered the “Jaipur foot” (also known as the “Jaipur leg”) – an effective and easy-to-fit prosthetic lower limb that can be produced for a little as $30 and is provided for free by the charity. The prosthetic was first developed in the 1960s by an orthopedic surgeon and a sculptor. Since then the charity has provided over 300,000 limbs in 22 countries. In the television program a young boy arrived at the clinic hopping on one leg and left running on two, beaming. It was moving to watch. You can read more in this Time magazine article.
Sightsavers works to alleviate sight problems around the world. Last year Sightsavers and their partners treated more than 23 million people for potentially blinding conditions and restored sight to over 244,000 people. It only costs:
If you’ve got a colour printer with decent paper, scissors and glue, you can make these papercraft HAL 9000s:
You can download the kit here. The instructions are in Japanese and “Engrish”, but you’re smart people. I know you can figure it out.