Articles

• What is a closure in JavaScript?

  Closure: It’s not a complex concept. Yet it’s hard to describe. I’ve compiled the best descriptions of JavaScript closures from authoritative sources on the Web.

• Share behavior between your Rails tests using modules

  If you’re using the Minitest framework with Rails, you can share common behavior between tests using Ruby modules. Find out the simple setup to make it work.

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  Photos from 2014 IMSA Laguna Seca Race Weekend

  Some super sweet race car photos from the 2014 IMSA TUDOR GTLM/GTD/Prototype practice, Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race & Lamborghini Super Trofeo race.

• An animated evolution of the Ferrari F1 car

  I spent a little time creating an animated GIF of Ferrari’s car over the last eight iterations. Because racecar.

• Measuring how Typekit Web fonts affect the user experience

  Typekit is a quick and easy way to add quality Web fonts to your site, but it can also significantly impact page load times.  “Ain’t care: I want cool fonts!” you say. Okay, if you’re willing to sacrifice a little speed for that, it might be a reasonable trade-off for your purposes.

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  Hosting Web fonts on a CDN? You’re going to need some CORS.

  Yeah, you wish this was about beer. So you’re using some trick Web fonts for your site or app. It looks awesome in development. Yay. You push to production, where your assets are all hosted on a CDN and suddenly your fonts stop working on Firefox and probably Internet Explorer (9+), too. You see crappy little squares where… Read more »

• Ten things I learned from Mobile Usability

  In the appropriately named book, “Mobile Usability,” human factors mac-daddy, Jakob Nielsen, and co-author Raluca Budiu, give us a primer on all the dumb mistakes it’s possible to make in your mobile apps and sites. Some of them are painfully obvious, some of them not as much. Here are ten good things I learned.

• So how does JSONP really work?

  JSONP is a way to fetch JSON data from a different domain, often in an asynchronous way, but without being restricted by the browser’s same-origin policy like you would be with XMLHttpRequest. But perhaps you only know it via a library like jQuery, which auto-magically handles JSONP URLs. Here’s a simple JSONP example and breakdown to show what’s really going on behind… Read more »

• BMW Vision ConnectedDrive concept roadster is just future-y enough

  This is the BMW Vision ConnectedDrive 2011 concept roadster. It’s old news — I just enjoy staring at this car. Unlike some of their other concepts, which look like yet another wacky “Car of the Future!“, this looks likes something you could actually drive and not get laughed off the road.

• How to think in the age of mass media politics

  Thinking is hard, and living in the modern age means processing more information than ever. Then you throw politics into the mix … Ow, brain hurt! Luckily for you, I made a simple flow chart to help you quickly process new information.