Twitter Archive: 2011

Twitter dot com was a microblogging and social networking service, where users could share short posts (commonly known as “tweets”) with text, images, and video.

This is an archive of all my tweets from 2008–2025.

These days, you can find me on Bluesky or Mastodon.

By year

…or see popular posts.

2011

"In the real world we’re all in debuggers and they’re pieces of shit from the 70s like GDB." --@BrendanEich in Coders at Work.
December 19, 2011 · 1
@gvwilson I loved Brendan Eich's comments in Coders at Work...
December 19, 2011
In particular, I'm getting really sick of seeing Gill Sans and Rotis, with their weird-ass letterforms.
December 15, 2011
A good typeface should be read, and not seen.
December 15, 2011
There are two kinds of developers: those who think threading is hard, and those who right buggy multi-threaded code.
December 12, 2011 · 1
@dubroy Of course I meant "write", not "right". Why does the brain do this??
December 12, 2011
Re: Air France 447, interesting discussion of the UX issues in the Hacker News comments: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3327202
December 8, 2011 · 1
Fascinating & terrifying story about the crash of Air France 447: popularmechanics.com/print-this/wha…. Interesting how UX factored into the problem.
December 8, 2011
Anyone who says that iOS never stutters or drops frames has obviously never used iOS 4.x on a 3GS, or 5.0 on an iPhone 4.
December 4, 2011 · 1
Unit testing and object-oriented programming: two things that are great when used at the right times, and disastrous when overused.
November 27, 2011 · 3
Oh, and Alan Kay regrets that he called it "object-oriented" because the most important part is the _messages_: lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/sque…
November 27, 2011 · 1
Every programmer should read Richard Gabriel's "Objects Have Failed": dreamsongs.com/Files/ObjectsH….
November 27, 2011 · 2 · 1
I just discovered ifttt (if this then that): ifttt.com. So cool.
November 25, 2011 · 1
The sketchbook of Susan Kare: blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/20… (via @timeoreilly). I love the 32x32 Steve Jobs portrait: blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/fi….
November 25, 2011 · 1
It's better to make it easy to do the right thing than to make it hard to do the wrong thing.
November 24, 2011
I'm becoming convinced that the single largest problem in computing is that most programmers are blind to accidental complexity.
November 23, 2011 · 1
"A computer shall not harm your work or, through inaction, allow your work to come to hard." --Jef Raskin in The Humane Interface. Read it.
November 23, 2011 · 1
Check out @mwichary's crazy cool Google doodle for Stanisław Lem: google.pl/?hl=en.
November 23, 2011
Race con·di·tion (noun): 1. Any attempt to get work done on a team with hundreds of committers working in the same code base.
November 18, 2011 · 1 · 1
Sifteo Cubes look really cool: fastcodesign.com/1664762/sifteo… (via @Pema). I wonder what non-game applications these might be good for.
November 17, 2011 · 1 · 1
It's disappointing that so many bloggers are adopting the "snark and vitriol" persona. The internet does not need more of that.
November 15, 2011
Straw poll: does the word "complex" have positive, neutral, or negative connotations to you? How about "simple"?
November 10, 2011
Last tweet was a quote from Gerald Sussman, from his great talk at Strange Loop 2011: infoq.com/presentations/…. Watch it!
November 5, 2011 · 1
"We're sitting here worrying about our type system, when we ought to be worried about how to get flexible machines & flexible programming."
November 5, 2011
UILayer (by @rsms) looks like a useful tool for prototyping in JS and WebKit: rsms.me/uilayer/.
October 17, 2011
Wow, this is worth a read. Up and Down the Ladder: A Systematic Approach to Interactive Visualization. worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstra… /by @worrydream
October 11, 2011
The git command line tools may be the best example of accidental complexity I've ever encountered.
October 11, 2011
Refactoring C++, a.k.a. "spot the missing include".
October 11, 2011
Does anyone actually like it when editors auto-complete the closing brace? Seriously, that shit drives me mad.
October 11, 2011
You can tell that someone doesn't understand design and usability when they say, "Apple is only successful because of their marketing."
October 7, 2011 · 1 · 3
"Focus is about saying no. And the result of that focus is going to be some really great products."
October 6, 2011 · 2
Hell is other people's abstractions.
September 23, 2011 · 1 · 1
"Debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers." gnu.org/philosophy/rig…
September 20, 2011
@jtaby Glad someone agrees with me that these custom javascript scrollers are generally a bad idea.
September 14, 2011
Nice article by @jtaby on common UI problems with mobile web apps, and how to avoid them: jtaby.com/2011/07/01/the…
September 14, 2011 · 7 · 3
Welcome to XCode! Here's a low-res image for you to look at.
Tweet image
August 19, 2011
@songcarver @atariboy Congrats! Just saw the article. You guys going to be moving to Mountain View?
August 19, 2011
Current status: laughingsquid.com/wp-content/upl…
August 17, 2011 · 1
Sweet! Pano, the best iOS panorama app, is now available for Android: market.android.com/details?id=com….
August 10, 2011 · 1
How Chrome's JavaScript Heap Profiler (similar to Eclipse MAT) can help track down memory leaks: gent.ilcore.com/2011/08/findin…
August 9, 2011 · 1
Some cool ideas from @henrik_eneroth for a new tabs & bookmarks UI in web browsers: blogg.antrop.se/interaktionsde…
August 8, 2011 · 1 · 1
If you care about software patents, you should read "A New View of Intellectual Property and Software": people.csail.mit.edu/davis/cacm96.p…
August 7, 2011 · 2 · 1
Anyone interested in the history of multi-touch UIs should read Bill Buxton's
writeup billbuxton.com/multitouchOver… and videos billbuxton.com/buxtonIRGVideo…
August 5, 2011 · 1 · 1
"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." -Steve Jobs, 1996 (youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg…). /cc @gruber
August 5, 2011 · 3 · 2
Remember when people used to *boycott* companies they didn't like? Now you just write a pissed-off blog post but keep using their products.
August 4, 2011 · 2
This is exactly how I feel about screen protectors and phone cases: basicinstructions.net/basic-instruct…
August 4, 2011 · 1 · 5
@kfury @BradSmi Or wait...never mind.
August 4, 2011
If you use IRC at all, you should check out @IRCCloud. It's awesome.
July 28, 2011 · 2
Introduction to Algorithms (aka CLR) is not only the best computer science book ever, it also introduced me to Calder. google.com/products/catal…
July 22, 2011 · 1
Today's Google doodle might be my favourite one ever -- an interactive mobile, for Alexander Calder's 113th birthday.
July 22, 2011
I also love that Lion has adopted the Android model for closing apps: arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/…
July 20, 2011
The part of Lion that I'm most looking forward to: autosave, built-in version control, save/restore app state: arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/…
July 20, 2011
If you ever felt that Git might be too complex, this 2800-word article on "git reset" will remove all doubt: progit.org/2011/07/11/res…
July 14, 2011 · 3
If you write in Markdown, markedapp.com looks like it could be handy. Definitely worth $2.99.
July 14, 2011 · 2
Anyone ever experienced long-term jet lag after moving? I swear I'm experiencing it SFO -> MUC. I don't feel fully awake until 5pm. #fb
July 12, 2011
Lots of cool features in the Sublime Text 2 Beta: sublimetext.com/blog/articles/…. Definitely worth checking out. The UI could use some work though.
July 1, 2011 · 1
Dear Git, I really want to do things "the right way", but sometimes you make it so hard.
June 29, 2011
@davewiner Just because you can't imagine how to make a better browser, or desktop OS, doesn't mean it's not possible.
June 28, 2011
@davewiner I'm curious when you think browsers became "feature complete". I have to disagree, BTW.
June 28, 2011
Finally putting my config files under version control, about 12 years after realizing it would be a good idea to do so.
June 28, 2011
Legit (kennethreitz.com/legit-the-sexy…) looks like it's worth watching. A CLI for Git inspired by the GitHub client.
June 28, 2011 · 1
Whenever I'm writing a utility app, I'm tempted to write it as a Chrome extension, so it'll be cross platform and synced to all my machines.
June 24, 2011
@chrismanley I think Eclipse is more like Emacs. Cross-platform and modular, but also complex and monolithic.
June 23, 2011
You know what I'd love? A set of cross-platform GUI dev tools built with the Unix philosophy. Simple, independent, and modular.
June 23, 2011 · 1
Impressive and very cool. Depixelizing Pixel Art: research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/peopl…
June 21, 2011 · 1
Warning! The people you hang out with may have similar opinions to you. It's called the Friend Bubble and it's totally creepy.
June 20, 2011 · 1
Thank god for Git. After you've decided on a language, framework, and NoSQL sol'n, you can still bikeshed about your "development workflow."
June 20, 2011
Is there a good reason why on iOS web pages scroll diff'tly than other content? Would be nice if we didn't have to reinvent. /cc @joehewitt
June 20, 2011
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they write long blog posts trashing you, then you win.
June 17, 2011
Those aren't ads on 43Folders and Daring Fireball, they're art. Sponsored art. Amirite @hotdogsladies @gruber??
June 16, 2011
I wish Gmail let you minimize an in-progress email into a panel (like the chat panels).
June 15, 2011 · 1
@LKM Surprised you don't understand why Apple added tabs to iPad Safari. Isn't it the same as tabs vs. windows on a desktop/laptop?
June 15, 2011
The new Heap Profiler in the Chrome dev tools looks great: http://goo.gl/lVMvv. Like Eclipse Memory Analyzer, but a simpler UI.
June 2, 2011 · 1
If you're interested in the software patent debate, you should read "A New View of Intellectual Property and Software": http://goo.gl/OXGGY
June 1, 2011 · 1
Works at Tim Horton's too. RT @Google: Make your phone your wallet: tap, pay & save with #googlewallet, coming soon http://goo.gl/Zk14a
May 26, 2011
Gotta love the future. Time between feeling an earthquake in SF and confirming it on Twitter: about 30 seconds.
May 22, 2011 · 1 · 3
Filed my first Chromium bug, then spent the afternoon spelunking through the WebKit source code. It's surprisingly readable.
May 21, 2011
Only at Google: "We weren't sure SSL FalseStart would work, so we tested every HTTPS site on the internet." http://goo.gl/yajWl
May 19, 2011 · 1 · 4
I've been translated into Brazilian Portuguese! Análise de memória para aplicativos Android: http://goo.gl/oGMwy #androiddev
May 19, 2011
In case you missed it on Friday -- video and slides of my #io2011 talk on Memory Management for Android Apps: http://goo.gl/3lYUB
May 16, 2011 · 22 · 8
I once lived in Canada, now I live in the US. Why are so many web sites unable to cope with this?
May 15, 2011
I wish I had a phone with a hardware camera button. Press to wake the phone (bypassing the lock screen) & click to take a photo.
May 14, 2011 · 1
"The fundamental question underlying all of computing is, 'What can be (efficiently) automated?'" http://goo.gl/MJkj2
May 14, 2011 · 2 · 1
Why can't Flash properly capture the mouse? It always gets screwed up when you drag outside the object's bounds. Is it an NPAPI thing?
May 14, 2011
Video of my #io2011 talk on Memory Management for Android Apps is up: http://youtu.be/_CruQY55HOk. Slides: http://goo.gl/TSPS5.
May 14, 2011 · 8 · 5
I think you could design a relatively complete Computer Science curriculum based entirely around building a compiler.
May 13, 2011 · 1
A perfect demonstration by @gruber of the classic "I'm rubber you're glue" technique: http://df4.us/hli. You have to hand it to him.
May 13, 2011
Android devs: check out @droidxav and @ tornorbye talking about great new stuff in the Android Dev Tools: http://goo.gl/wRwkB
May 12, 2011 · 1
Thanks to everyone who came to my talk on Memory Management for Android Apps at #io2011. I'll post the slides & video ASAP.
May 12, 2011
Most important news from the #io2011 keynote: the logo for the next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich: http://goo.gl/YelFn
May 10, 2011 · 1
Lots of I/O talks will be live streamed at http://goo.gl/XEUC6. Don't miss the opening keynote at 9am PDT tomorrow! #io2011
May 9, 2011 · 1
Google I/O this week! I'm doing a talk on Wed at 4:15 - Memory Management for Android Apps: http://goo.gl/rqha3 #io2011 #android
May 9, 2011 · 1
Used "cromulent" while practicing my Google I/O talk today and not a single person laughed. I guess Simpsons jokes are passé.
May 5, 2011
Did I miss something? What kind of Star Wars marketing campaign is everyone participating in?
May 4, 2011
Just discovered @mwichary's http://www.guidebookgallery.org...it's like the Smithsonian for GUIs. Awesome. (via @anandx)
May 4, 2011
Excel for Mac only has one level of undo. Thanks a bunch, guys.
May 3, 2011
Surprised (but happy) to discover that my blog post on pip (http://goo.gl/IGKGB) is the #4 result for "how to install a python package".
April 29, 2011 · 1
Do yourself a favour and check out @mike_matas' demo of Al Gore's Our Choice: http://goo.gl/IzTKC. Best reading UI I've ever seen.
April 29, 2011 · 1
Damn. Been using TextMate for years, and I'm only now realizing how great (and Unix-y) the extension system is.
April 29, 2011
Google I/O schedule is up: http://goo.gl/2cyqE. I'll be talking about Memory Management for Android Apps on Day 2 at 4:15. See you there!
April 28, 2011 · 6 · 5
I can never decide: malloc'd, malloc'ed, or malloced? Help! #nerdgrammar
April 22, 2011
Shocking revelation! "Cloud" computing is based on data centers, and is not 100% reliable. http://goo.gl/8Q2Q6
April 22, 2011 · 1 · 2
Damn ctags is fast. Less than 5 seconds to scan 1M lines of code in 3000 source files. http://ctags.sourceforge.net/
April 20, 2011
Gotta love the Google OneBox results for "nhl playoffs": http://goo.gl/uM0PM
April 14, 2011
Spent the morning riding beautiful bikes in Walnut Creek. Now sitting on a packed bus in traffic. Not as fun.
April 9, 2011
"How cool would it be if you could type 'flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May' into Google?" http://goo.gl/AdU8J
April 8, 2011
Hmmm, so Gnome3 is out: http://gnome3.org/. Looks like there are some interesting UI ideas in there, might have to give it a spin.
April 6, 2011
In the same vein as the Save icon discussion, I recommend @mpt's old article "When Good Interfaces Go Crufty": http://goo.gl/Bczus
April 5, 2011
Floppy disk for the Save icon is pretty silly, but @marcoarment is right, we should get rid of save altogether: http://goo.gl/dp8gx
April 5, 2011
"The first time I truly felt the need for a note-taking app was when I started researching note-taking apps." http://goo.gl/IeeT
April 4, 2011 · 1
Interesting thoughts from @ianbicking on PyPy: http://bit.ly/hADaUF. I haven't played with PyPy yet though I keep meaning to.
April 4, 2011
Interesting concept: PadKite (http://padkite.com) enables more precise pointing on a mobile device.
March 25, 2011 · 2
My post on the Android Developers blog is up - Memory Analysis for Android Applications: http://goo.gl/YKUnT #androiddev
March 24, 2011
I had almost forgotten how awesome @skitch is. So handy, and so many nice touches in the UI. Thanks @songcarver!
March 24, 2011
The new GitHub image diff feature looks awesome: http://goo.gl/Gy85b. This could be very, very useful.
March 21, 2011 · 1
Downloading @jamie_oliver's 20 Minute Meals for Android. Probably the first app my girlfriend will be excited about. http://goo.gl/n9hd5
March 21, 2011
@dcaunt Never mind, just tried a couple of times and it worked. Weird.
March 21, 2011
@dcaunt Just bought Jamie's 20m Meals from Market, and it says that it's not authorized. I installed via the Market web site. Any ideas?
March 21, 2011
Dear web devs, when I ⌘-click on a link, it should open in a new tab. Period. (Ahem...@twitter.)
March 8, 2011 · 1
"If your web app fails with scripting disabled, Jakob Nielsen’s dog will come to your house and shit on your carpet." http://goo.gl/lpxXP
March 8, 2011
Zepto.js seems handy -- jQuery syntax & features, but smaller (WebKit only). Could be useful for Chrome extensions too!
March 4, 2011
Hey, just noticed that we have a new 404 page! http://google.com/z. Much nicer than the old one.
March 2, 2011
Nice analysis by @cocoia of the differences in the notification UI of iOS, Android, and webOS: http://coc.io/notiui.
March 1, 2011
Favourite new German word: Inkompetenzkompensationskompetenz: http://goo.gl/lClM9. #fb
February 25, 2011 · 1 · 2
Java programmers should read this article on the Azul garbage collector: http://goo.gl/tjceu. Great intro to the finer points of GC.
February 24, 2011 · 1
Wow, browser benchmarks for the Xoom look impressive: http://goo.gl/NXF4h. It does seem fast, I didn't realize *how* fast.
February 24, 2011 · 3 · 24
Interesting, OS X Lion will have a versioning FS and an autosave feature: http://goo.gl/Yr1p. Curious to see how those will work out.
February 24, 2011
Featuritis Curve: "I'm so glad they added this" => "Where the f**k did they put that?" A classic post from Kathy Sierra: http://goo.gl/KJFj
February 23, 2011
Sweet, you can now write omnibox extensions for Chrome: http://goo.gl/avPC8. Interested to see what people do with this.
February 22, 2011 · 2
Waiting in the cold for the J Church. Can't wait to get home and try Flight Control on my Xoom.
February 20, 2011
I'm also digging Chrome's Exposé-like "Tab Overview" feature (3-finger swipe down). Turn it on in about:flags in a beta channel build.
February 19, 2011
Just discovered a *super* useful feature in Chrome: Cmd + 3-finger swipe left (or right) opens previous (or next) page in a new tab.
February 19, 2011
Interesting article on the design philosophy behind Windows Phone 7: http://goo.gl/OpH02. Even mentions @bumptop!
February 18, 2011 · 2 · 3
Uber gets $11M in funding: http://goo.gl/TZ0RQ. Only in Silicon Valley. The rest of the world can just, you know, catch a cab.
February 15, 2011
I hadn't seen this before, but the Palm OS "Just type" feature is really cool, especially for SMS & status updates: http://goo.gl/Vy7UX
February 11, 2011 · 1
@dubroy Obviously, I meant webOS, not http://goo.gl/SgOXB.
February 11, 2011
s/human/programmer RT @Kurt_Vonnegut Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance
February 10, 2011 · 1
I love that the Android Market site lets me install apps on my phone without taking it out of my pocket. http://goo.gl/Sb40 #android
February 10, 2011
Nice article by @LKM on problem with hardware buttons on a tablet: http://ignco.de/346. Exactly why Honeycomb has soft buttons.
February 10, 2011
It's quite embarrassing how much trouble I'm having processing a text file that contains accented characters. #angloignorance
February 8, 2011
I gotta say, it was pretty cool feeling to see a product I worked on in a Super Bowl commercial! Motorola Xoom ad: http://goo.gl/pUwMP
February 7, 2011 · 3
Ha, finally saw @anandx's cameo in the Honeycomb demo last week: http://goo.gl/KZL3a.
February 6, 2011 · 1
Wow -- 76 tablets were announced at CES this year. More than half of them will be running Android. http://goo.gl/CoLLD
January 29, 2011
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) platform highlights: http://goo.gl/GXY62
January 27, 2011 · 1 · 1
See what we've been hard at work on! RT @AndroidDev: Android 3.0 Platform Preview and Updated SDK Tools: http://goo.gl/VsbNg
January 27, 2011 · 1
Great post about the subtleties of the close tab behaviour in Google Chrome: http://goo.gl/MRxst
January 25, 2011 · 1
This is both crazy and awesome: CPython in the browser, via Emscripten (LLVM bitcode - Javascript compiler) -- http://goo.gl/aYKWN.
January 25, 2011
I can't go to an airport in North America without thinking of a million ways they could do this better.
January 22, 2011
@al3x Or was that the poor cook
January 18, 2011
Reasons not to go hiking in Louisiana -- a new bill allows people who are completely blind to hunt: http://goo.gl/gqkUU.
January 14, 2011
Amen. Slate on why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period: http://goo.gl/4IX4r
January 14, 2011 · 1
Is it unreasonable to think I could download a free app on my iPhone while in the US, even though I opened my account in Canada?
January 14, 2011
New multitouch gestures in iOS 4.3 (http://goo.gl/pfmRy) include "scrunch", as seen in @bumptop: http://goo.gl/Drfiw. Nifty!
January 13, 2011
Whoah, why didn't I hear about this before? The Microsoft Surface 2 (shown at CES) looks pretty amazing: http://bit.ly/hZDuPD
January 13, 2011
Apparently the new definition of evil is "not supporting technologies that your competitors hold patents on."
January 12, 2011 · 1
This is big -- Google Chrome is dropping H.264 support: http://goo.gl/lSkJY. Only Safari and IE9 (beta) are still supporting it.
January 11, 2011
Now that would be cool. RT @kentf: Mac App store hints at future sync plans http://post.ly/1RqdE
January 7, 2011
If Fitts's Law really mattered, we'd be using pie menus everywhere.
January 7, 2011
Could we just stop talking about Fitts's Law? I can assure you that the time it takes to point at things is the least of our problems.
January 7, 2011 · 1
It's a bit funny how many JS projects are just reimplementations of things written in (or built into) other languages.
January 7, 2011
My first blog post in quite a while: "So You Want to Install a Python Package" http://goo.gl/IGKGB. Back in the saddle.
January 6, 2011 · 1
Fact and Folklore in Software Engineering: http://goo.gl/NDveu. Well worth the read.
January 5, 2011 · 1
"What if your code and its documentation were one and the same?" Then your documentation is way too complex. http://goo.gl/cuPdO
January 5, 2011 · 2 · 2
The Clipper card is so convenient. All you have to do is put money on it 3-5 days before you travel. Much easier than paying cash! #sf
January 4, 2011