6, 97: Why scorpions?
A fascinating and inspiring meditation on aerodynamics.
Link tags: shipping
7
Progressively Enhanced Builds - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Rather than thinking, “how do I combine a bunch of disparate content, templates, and tooling into a functioning website?”, you might think “how do I start at a functioning website with content and then use templates and build tooling to enhance it?”
I think Jim is onto something here. The more dependencies you have in your build process, the likelier it is that over time one of them will become a single point of failure. A progressive enhancement approach to build tools means you’d still be able to launch your site (even if it’s not in its ideal state).
I want to be able to view, edit, and if need be ship a website, even if the build process fails. In essence, if the build does fail I can still take all the source files, put them on a server, and the website remains functional (however crude).
Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters
A short, snappy web book on product development from Ryan Singer at Basecamp.
Like Resilient Web Design, the whole thing is online for free (really free, not “give us your email address” free).
Coming to a browser near you - faster than ever before!
A great long-term perspective from Rachel on the pace of change in standards getting shipped in browsers:
The pace that things are shipping, and at which bugs are fixed is like nothing we have seen before. I know from sitting around a table with representatives from each browser vendor at the CSS Working Group how important interop is. No-one wants features to be implemented differently in browsers. This is what we were asking for with WaSP, and despite the new complexity of the platform, browsers rendering standard features in different ways is becoming increasingly rare. Bugs happen, sometimes in the browser and sometimes in the spec, but there is a commitment to avoid these and to create a stable platform we can all rely on. It is exciting to be part of it.
Shipmap.org | Visualisation of Global Cargo Ships | By Kiln and UCL
A beautiful visualisation of shipping routes and cargo. Mesmerising!
You can see movements of the global merchant fleet over the course of 2012, overlaid on a bathymetric map. You can also see a few statistics such as a counter for emitted CO2 (in thousand tonnes) and maximum freight carried by represented vessels (varying units).
Shipping vs. Learning » Mike Industries
Some typically smart thinking from Mike—what if success were measured in learning rather than shipping?
Organizations that learn the quickest seem the most likely to succeed over the long haul.
This really resonates with me, and it aligns so closely with our values at Clearleft that I think this is something we should be pursuing. Fortunately Mike’s post comes with plenty of examples and ideas.
BBC - Future - The invisible network that keeps the world running
Tim Maughan reports on the same container ship trip that Dan W. is sending his postcards from.
I like the idea of there being an Apollo-sized project all around us, if you just know where to look.
First, towering above and over the ship, are the loading cranes. Vast structures mounted on huge, four-legged frames, they resemble the naked scaffolding of unbuilt skyscrapers, and trigger nostalgic reminders of Saturn V rocket launch towers from the 1960s.
Once in port at night I saw one suddenly fire into life next to the ship in a stroboscopic explosion of lights, before it tracked slowly above my high vantage point, bathing me in the orange glow of a dozen small halogen suns.