SVG Tweets and HTML5 Canvas Tweets are both a bust...
…A data: URL can hold everything fine, sure, but I can’t get ‘em under 140 characters (at least, not while doing anything exciting with them). There’s just too much boilerplate. I’m under 256, at least!
Canvas - Rotate and Scale
Paste this into your address bar:
data:text/html,<canvas id='c' width='999' height='999'/><script>c=document.getElementById('c').getContext("2d");for(s=1;s<99;s++){c.scale(1.1,1.1);c.rotate(4);c.fillText("☃",1,2)}</script>
Or, just click this link.
SVG - Animation
SVG animations are EXCITING! (Or, in the wrong hands, seizure-inducing.)
Paste this into your address bar:
data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'><g transform="translate(500,400)"><text x='-15' y='5'>SVG!<animateTransform attributeName="transform" type="scale" values="0;99;0" dur="0.3s" repeatCount="99"/></text></g></svg>
Or, just click this link.
Well, it was a fun experiment, anyway. And there may be techniques for shaving off a few bytes out there; I might cram something worthwhile into a tweet yet.
Read more...Time for the FAA to join the 21st century.
Sent at the encouragement of this LifeHacker article.
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 15:00:08 -0700
Subject: Please allow electronic devices during takeoff!
From: Jay McGavren
Dear sir or madam,
I will not claim to have data regarding whether non-radio-transmitting electronic devices (or even those that do transmit) interfere with aircraft equipment. I’m sure the research resources of the FAA and other institutions far exceed my own in that regard.
I can, however, tell you that what I hear as an ordinary consumer and citizen from reputable news outlets is that they do not, and so it’s really frustrating when I’m asked to stop editing code (I’m a web developer who bills by the hour) and sit idle in observance of a rule that I believe has no benefit for anyone. I can only imagine how foreign visitors to the U.S. must feel.
Please, revisit the issue of whether electronic devices during takeoff are safe - I believe the FAA will find that they are.
Sincerely,
Jay McGavren
Scottsdale, AZ
I encourage you to send your comments as well! Copy-paste my letter if you need to (though we’ll both have more effect if you personalize yours a bit).
Read more...SVG in a URL!
Some folks were messing around with a “data:text/html” URL in Campfire (paste it into your address bar to render the accompanying HTML), which I hadn’t known was possible… Well, of course I immediately had to see if other MIME types would work, and the first thing I tried was SVG…
Raw form (copy-paste in your address bar):
data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'><g transform="rotate(50),scale(9)"><text>SVG in a URL!</text></g></svg>
Link form (uses entities for the angle brackets):
Tested in Chrome, Safari and Firefox on OSX. If it doesn’t work for you (or is expected to be deprecated in the future), I’d be curious to know.
Read more...DeSmuME: Teaching programming skills by hacking Nintendo DS games...
I got my start in software development by picking up the resources I needed to solve the problems that were relevant to me. I figure the same will be necessary to capture my son’s interest.
Well, my son’s mainly interested in video games. So be it.
I spent a good part of my youth hacking NES games by re-writing small parts of the program via Game Genie. When I learned that the Nintendo DS emulator, DeSmuME, has a facility to search and write the game’s RAM to create new cheat codes, I sat down with Lenny for a hack session.
Here’s a video of him demonstrating our results, on New Super Mario Bros.
Almost everything in a video game’s code is controlled by numbers. Understand the numbers, and you begin to understand the program. We’re not there yet, but this is a great start…
Read more...Let's Play: Jay's ROM hacks!
When I realized kids were posting “Let’s Play…” videos of NES games on YouTube, I did a quick search… Yup! Someone did Ganon’s Revenge back in 2009. He slogs through 5 videos’ worth of the game, and at one point calls me a “jerk” for hiding the wooden sword. :) The whole series seems to have gotten about 200 viewers, too. I think he finally gave up after the fifth video, though. :( I was never proud of not being able to edit the dungeons, and it looks like he wasn’t impressed with that aspect. Ah, well.
So then I search for Metroid X…
Holy crap! A 12-video playlist!
With quotes like this in the comments!
Read more...it was the first time I ever played any metroid game so I thought that metroid X was a real NES game made by nintendo, like a sequel or something.
After the the long awkward first screen I got into it, and I think I liked it more than the original.