Joakim Nygård Archive Linked About

Making The Web Faster

4 Aug 2009 -

A collection of articles on how to speed up the web by Google. Yahoo also has a list of best practices for making websites fast

It Never Stops

3 Aug 2009 -

Maria Kalman muses on Benjamin Franklin and invention:

Don’t mope in your room. Go invent something. That is the American message.

Electricity. Flight. The telephone. Television. Computers. Walking on the moon. It never stops.

Beautiful. (via John Gruber)

Microsoft’s Long, Slow Decline

31 Jul 2009 -

John Gruber on the decline of Microsoft:

People who love computers overwhelmingly prefer to use a Mac today. Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts. Regular people don’t think about their choice of computer platform in detail and with passion like nerds do because, duh, they are not nerds. But nerds are leading indicators.

Cocksure

29 Jul 2009 -

Malcolm Gladwell, always interesting to read, on the psychology of overconfidence:

“In conflicts involving mutual assessment, an exaggerated assessment of the probability of winning increases the probability of winning,” Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard, writes. “Selection therefore favors this form of overconfidence.” Winners know how to bluff. And who bluffs the best? The person who, instead of pretending to be stronger than he is, actually believes himself to be stronger than he is.

Palin's Resignation, The Edited Version

28 Jul 2009 -

Vanity Fair asked its editor along with representatives from the research and copy departments to read through Sarah Palin’s resignation speech and it’s not pretty.

The Matrix, But With Money

28 Jul 2009 -

Experts guess that between 60 and 75 percent of the NYSE’s daily trading volume is just computers trading against one another using a variety of strategies. Recent HFT investigations by Donefer, Themis Trading, and sites like Zero Hedge have brought to light a lively ecosystem of algorithms, or “algos” in the parlance, that use ECNs in different ways to make money.

What the vast majority of these algos have in common is that they are not long-term, buy-and-hold “investors” in the classic sense. Rather, they focus on executing as many trades per second as possible and on turning a small profit (often pennies or fractions of a penny) on each trade. This combination of high speed, massive volume, and razor-thin per-trade profits adds up over the course of a day, week, or year to some very large numbers.

How the hell is this legal?

Apparently proprietary trading code was stolen from Goldman Sachs earlier this month. US Attorney Facciponti says

there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.

How is it any different from what Goldman – or any other trading company with similar software – could do?

Apple Has 91 Percent of Market for $1,000+ PCs

24 Jul 2009 -

Joe Wilcox:

Move over Microsoft. Apple can claim big, big market share numbers, too. According to NPD, in June, nine out of 10 dollars spent on computers costing $1,000 or more went to Apple. Mac revenue market share in the “premium” price segment was 91 percent, up from 88 percent in May.

Interesting what happens when you break down the market like this.

The Cost of Our Lifestyle

23 Jul 2009 -

Fake Steve Jobs (a.k.a. Dan Lyons):

We all know that there’s no fucking way in the world we should have microwave ovens and refrigerators and TV sets and everything else at the prices we’re paying for them. There’s no way we get all this stuff and everything is done fair and square and everyone gets treated right. No way. And don’t be confused – what we’re talking about here is our way of life. Our standard of living. You want to “fix things in China,” well, it’s gonna cost you. Because everything you own, it’s all done on the backs of millions of poor people whose lives are so awful you can’t even begin to imagine them, people who will do anything to get a life that is a tiny bit better than the shitty one they were born into, people who get exploited and treated like shit and, in the worst of all cases, pay with their lives.

Nobody Hates Software More Than Software Developers

22 Jul 2009 -

Jeff Atwood:

In short, I hate software – most of all and especially my own – because I know how hard it is to get it right. It may sound strange, but it’s a natural and healthy attitude for a software developer. It’s a bond, a rite of passage that you’ll find all competent programmers share.

Indeed a healthy attitude and an explanation why developers run the risk of endlessly improving code without external deadlines. Mark a realistic date and stick to it.

The Computer as a Burden

20 Jul 2009 -

Marco Arment on vacation:

Most people imagine their personal paradises as something like sipping drinks on a beach and doing nothing. To me, that would be hell. I’d rot into boredom and depression from mental atrophy.

That is very close to how I feel.

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