Don Havey

So I’m crazy busy again, but should have time to do some posting this coming week.

In the meantime, I’m making an open call for project ideas. If anyone out there has a good one that they want me to try my luck at, send me an email or leave a comment. I’m sick of building my own ideas. Think of this as a cheap alternative to going back to school for me, and a low-pressure alternative to being a research professor for you.

Curiobot is in the middle of a structural makeover and this morning I decided that the code needed a little condensing. Most popular Javascript applications simplify function and variable names to just a few letters, and some CSS-heavy pages use a similar unique identifier to cut down on bandwidth. This technique also obfuscates your code, if you’re worried about people stealing it and using it for their own (evil) intentions.

In a big old “Web 2.0″ (*gag*) application, condensing your code can reduce your page load times by a serious percentage. I think it’s especially important if you’re offering content for mobile users, where every kilobyte counts. Replacing 300 occurrences of 12-character variable names with 2-character names can save you 10*300 bytes = 3kb per download. That’s probably 5%, maybe 10% of your total script/CSS/HTML weight… so it adds up on high-traffic applications. Of course, as most web developers are quick to point out, I pity the poor bastard who has to try to understand and/or modify a function called “zx()”. Ever taken a look at Google’s scripts? Totally incomprehensible for that reason.

Technically, you could name up to 676 (26×26) functions, variables, or classes using a two-letter pair, but the problem you run into is that when your content is not perfectly isolated from your page’s structure, you can’t simply search-and-replace the page to find every occurrence of the classname “ea” without running into it in a sentence somewhere (”I went to the beach” or “Welcome to my neat-o website”).

For the minimum amount of content-structure collisions, I want to favor the two-letter combinations that are used least frequently in my content. So I wrote a quick Processing app to examine any given text and return an ordered set of letter pairs, sorted according to their frequency. Here are the results for a few sample texts:

• The first two chapters of War and Peace
• The front page of Boing Boing (including html)
• The first five chapters of The Little Prince (English version)

The pairs that are not in bold were not found at all in the sample text (use them for function/class/variable name replacements). Those that were found are displayed by frequency.

Here’s the code. Try inputting text that corresponds to your particular usage for better results.

So the next time you’re thinking of renaming “load_excellent_content()” to “le()”… don’t. Try “vq()”.

Bruce Schneier’s commentary on Wired today was pretty eye-opening. He discussed an issue that I had given no thought to: the remote “kill switch”.

OnStar will soon include the ability for the police to shut off your engine remotely. Buses are getting the same capability, in case terrorists want to re-enact the movie Speed. The Pentagon wants a kill switch installed on airplanes, and is worried about potential enemies installing kill switches on their own equipment.

Interesting. And fair enough, in the cases of buses (city-owned) and airplanes (airline-owned), so long as the riders are informed that such a technology exists before they choose that mode of transportation. I assume that OnStar’s engine shut off is marketed as a theft deterrent. Maybe it should lock the thief inside, too.

Of course, the terrifying part is that we’re approaching a Failsafe-esque condition.

When I get into my OnStar car, I want to be able to override the remote commands using a PIN that only I know. Maybe that works. As Bruce points out, however, the challenge becomes structuring the extremely delicate, critically-managed hierarchy of overrides: deciding who has the final say. I can’t even imagine a nation’s government handling the responsibility of something like this.

And then there’s Microsoft… apparently still trying to encourage users to switch to Linux:

Microsoft is doing some of the most creative thinking along these lines, with something it’s calling “Digital Manners Policies.” According to its patent application, DMP-enabled devices would accept broadcast “orders” limiting capabilities. Cellphones could be remotely set to vibrate mode in restaurants and concert halls, and be turned off on airplanes and in hospitals. Cameras could be prohibited from taking pictures in locker rooms and museums, and recording equipment could be disabled in theaters.

Incredible, isn’t it? An astounding lack of foresight.

First of all, let’s say that the bus and airplane overrides were marginally acceptable, assuming that someone finds a way to structure the system, and the public accepts it as a modern security measure. Microsoft’s concept targets consumer goods, not public transportation or corporate-owned airlines. It targets something that has been purchased. With money. Ownership transferred. Mine.

Secondly, the idea neglects the fact that such forms of post-purchase corporate influence have a history of dying slow and painful deaths. Case in point: cellphone hacking. Another one: the music industry.

I’m always amazed by large corporate notions of censorship and regulation. They think that they will win those battles. It’s like creating a map of the empire at 1 to 1, it’s like simulating the universe on a quantum computer. Unless the corporation becomes the population they are trying to manipulate, they fail.

I was digging through some Google Maps source code looking for a way to - ahem - repurpose the colors in the map images (cool project coming soon), when I came across this:
<div style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; z-index: 107; cursor: default;">
  <div style="position: absolute; left: 143px; top: 29px; z-index: -4364995; display: none;" class="gmnoprint">
    <div style="overflow: hidden; width: 25px; height: 25px; z-index: 1; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px;">
      <img style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; width: 690px; height: 786px; -moz-user-select: none;" src="/intl/en_us/mapfiles/iw2.png">
    </div>
    <div style="overflow: hidden; width: 25px; height: 25px; z-index: 1; position: absolute; left: 224px; top: 0px;">
      <img style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; left: -665px; top: 0px; width: 690px; height: 786px; -moz-user-select: none;" src="/intl/en_us/mapfiles/iw2.png">
    </div>
    <div style="overflow: hidden; width: 98px; height: 96px; z-index: 1; position: absolute; left: 76px; top: 101px;">
      <img style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: -690px; width: 690px; height: 786px; -moz-user-select: none;" src="/intl/en_us/mapfiles/iw2.png">
    </div>
    [...]

Anyone else get what’s happening there? They’re using only one image to create that little call-out marker bubble. It’s really quite brilliant. Just one large (but light) png file is repeatedly repositioned to create all of the borders and corners of the bubble, allowing for dynamic sizing without image stretching.

I felt like an archaeologist when I unearthed it… and of course, my first thought was “why didn’t I think of that?”

Compliments of Married to the Sea.

John Campbell must be one of the most loved people on the internet. He deserves it. Here is his comic guide to finding inspiration.

And in case you haven’t already tried it, it’s time you started reading Pictures for Sad Children.