Atmospheric Rivers

Here comes the rain!

If you find that image a bit hard to view, all you need to know is that my house is at the right end of that long yellow line.

Two Years for Randall Munroe

Here's one of the most touching and beautiful comics you could see: Two Years.

Congratulations and best wishes to Randall and partner!

WDW vs DL

It's one of those eternal debates: DisneyLand? Or Walt Disney World?

Myself, I come down strongly on the DisneyLand side, but that betrays my heritage, growing up in on the edge of Orange County in the 1970's.

Anyway, don't listen to me: go read FoxxFur's superb photo-essay on the subject: The Awkward Transitions of Disneyland!

As you may have noticed by now, rails, fences, planters, and flowerboxes do an unusual amount of heavy lifting of the transition-spots of Disneyland. This may because these crowd control barriers generally are felt more than carefully studied: we interact with them and they set a tone without really being noticed in specific detail. Disneyland has a huge and astonishing variety of simply beautiful railings.

As a child, I recall spending an absurd amount of time worrying about questions such as: is the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse in Adventureland? in Frontierland? or in New Orleans Square? As FoxxFur observes, this is no trivial question:

Nearby, these rails, part of New Orleans Square but also part of the Riverbelle Terrace visual experience - ie, belonging to both Frontierland and New Orleans Square but being actually inside Adventureland - abruptly terminate at the base of a tree

It's a wonderful essay, with lots to chew on. Don't miss the section where she discusses how careful foliage (non-)trimming can control the amount of light that reaches certain areas, governing the overall mood and atmosphere and sub-consciously giving you clues that you're leaving one "land" and entering the next.

On being a developer

Matt Sencenbaugh's terrific essay is getting some well-deserved attention: On Being a Junior Developer.

But the title is misleading: this isn't just a great regimen for a junior developer; it's a superb list of goals for a master developer as well. Here's Sencenbaugh's list:

1. Read other people’s code
2. Plan things out
3. Have an opinion
4. Ask questions
5. Explore new technologies
6. Embrace unit testing
7. Refactor

The essay is tightly-written, clear, and filled with choice nuggets such as:

Ask questions about peculiar things, there is often wisdom and learning to be had.

I wouldn't remove a thing; all his goals are admirable and wise.

My only addition would be:

1. Communicate. Developers find it easy to work with computers, challenging to work with other developers, and nearly-impossible to communicate with non-developers. You must constantly strive to improve your communication skills and overcome your natural desire to spend all day inside your cube, emitting nothing but code. Practice writing, speaking, and listening constantly.

Sencenbaugh, of course, clearly has the communication thing down pat!

The fourth bore

As the justifiably famous Caldecott Tunnel nears completion of its latest expansion, take this nice tour of the geology of the project from Oakland Geology's Andrew Alden: Rocks of the Caldecott Tunnel

It’s pretty crummy rock, and the tunneling was quite slow there. Every couple of meters, the tunnelers drilled a fan of holes over the roof of the upcoming dig segment, each one reinforced and grouted. That reinforcement allowed the tunnel roof to stay up long enough to spray it with shotcrete, which in turn held up the roof until the real concrete tunnel lining could be emplaced. The tunnel’s final shaft is round, as strong as an eggshell in its resistance to the earth’s weight. (To see what I mean, try gripping a raw egg firmly in one hand, fingers on all sides, and attempt to crush it. You can’t do it.)

Tis the season...

We have now officially entered the Catalog Season, that annual season of mail-order catalogs arriving in your mailbox.

As you sit down with your mulled wine or egg-nog for a satisfying catalog read, let Drew Magary be your guid: The Hater’s Guide To The Williams-Sonoma Catalog

While certain retailers like Hammacher Schlemmer are almost intentionally ludicrous ("Buy this personal hovercraft for $80,000!"), there's no wink to be found in a Williams-Sonoma catalog. The people at W-S aren't the least bit self-conscious about getting you to pay $35 for mailed gravy. So I thought I would go through this holiday season's catalog, which has spent a solid week atop my shitter, and point out some of the more ridiculous items. Because there are people out there who buy this shit. The question is ... who? And why? Let's try to figure that out now.

Warning: NSFW (language).

But extremely funny.

Zlatan's goal

The New York Times considers the question: Ibrahimovic’s Goal: Best Ever?

The reaction was immediate. Steven Gerrard, the captain of the English team, after the game called it the best goal he had witnessed. Twitter rattled with wonderment. Office computer screens toggled toward YouTube replays. All were astonished.

So where does this one rank among the best?

Great videos!

The Maradona goal is justifiably worthy of its title.

I love the video of Neymar, the young Brazilian. It's just remarkable how much faster he is than anyone else on the field.