PeterBraden.co.uk | Updates

2011 Books I read a lot of books, and this year was no exception.

Compile To JS A lot of people have made some really interesting points regarding Isaac's post on javascript not being the assembly of the web.

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Earthquakes and the Bay The earthquake that hit Japan was incredibly big.

A Short Story My name is Doctor Ian McKinley, I am a scientist.

I've finally released my latest project, A collaborative evolutionary algorithm that aims to reproduce the Mona Lisa with overlapping translucent circles.

On a whim I took a night train out of Prague.

The truth about Scotland I'm back in Scotland to visit my family, and while I'm here I thought I'd clear up a few of the misconceptions and questions that my American friends may have.

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The Bygone Bureau

Last April, Atul Varma of Mozilla posted an article on an implementation of a local storage wrapper that mimicked CouchDB's map-reduce query interface.

Apple's new product, the unfortuately named iPad, became available to pre-order a few days ago, and sold 51,000 units in the first 2 hours.

Made this a few weeks back.

Dynamically including Github code SORRY: Github have changed their API and this no longer works.

I'm not particularly good at keeping people up to date with my life.

This only works in a modern browser that supports the element. > Despite a week of meetings, interviews and uncertainty as to where I would be sleeping at night, I managed to get a little coding done this week.

Well I think that clears up any worries I may have had… Courtesy of The Onion

Well my server is still running, which is a nice surprise.

Distributed Raytracer This was an experiment in distributing computation across browsers connected to a website.

I like coding.

I don't play a lot of video games, but my brother does, and every now and then I get hooked on one of his games.

Evil Green Plant Here's my first published font, Evil Green Plant.

Clouds - Fluffy, but not Particularly Permanent Today the URL shortener tr.im announced their demise.

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Via Wikipedia: Dr.

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Abstract It has become common practise to present hex encoded hashes to users.

Although I haven't posted it here, I've spoken to a lot of you about my hope to circumnavigate the globe overland.

Nightswimming It started, like so many stories, in the bar.

The Balkans Peter Braden 7th July 2009 Sarajevo, Bosnia In the early 1990's, as Yugoslavia fell apart, Bosnia became the scene for one of the ugliest conflicts in recent history.

Marseille → Geneva → Chamonix → Interlaken Marseille (12—13 June) Missed the last bus and had to walk a couple of miles to the hostel which is in the middle of nowhere.

So I haven't been very good at keeping my website up to date with my travels.

Monday morning I headed out to CERN.

Vegas I didn't plan to go to Vegas.

Last week I thought I’d try a media diet.

The Fountainhead I have just finished The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

Here’s a little piece of jquery/javascript that I find myself using frequently.

One of the great battles of computer science has reared its head again.

"Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" - A review I've just finished reading Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, a book by David MacKay of Cambridge University which takes a look at the actual numbers behind our energy consumption, and confronts…

2 weeks ago I gave a presentation on Django at my local techmeetup - it got filmed so here's the link: I think it went quite well for a first proper presentation, bar a few technical difficulties, but feel free to leave constructive criticism in my shiny…

Generation Change Watching the headlines tell tales of our global economic apocalypse, it is hard not to speculate on our future, and reflect on what is actually happening.

In solidarity with the comedians who have been lambasted over jokes about the former prime minister, I am not going to mince my words - Jaqui Smith, the home secretary, is a hypocritical disgrace to the country - so mired in corruption and fear-mongering…

Alcohol The headlines this morning broke the news that there is proposed legislation to prohibit drinking for pregnant mothers and raise the tax on alcohol.

Ah the internet, home of a million ways to waste time.

Liberty (This is an open letter to my family, friends, and any UK resident who is concerned about preserving the freedoms we enjoy) Dear Friends, In the last few years we have seen a worrying trend.

Thoughts on Gaza The situation in the Middle East seems to be worsening.

As a web developer I notice the flaws in websites more than most.

As I briefly mentioned before, I've been moving this website over to CouchDB, after Mikeal sold me on how awesome it is.

Our buildings will have fallen, our civilisation will be gone, we will have all disappeared, but we will have left a legacy.

Recently I was going through some old code that I had lying around, and found this little piece.