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The silent rave: still good for dancing.
Can you imagine a more bizarre site than a full-on rave, complete with trippy lights, glow sticks, and X’d-out teens dancing — in silence? Me neither.
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Thank you, Microsoft, for IE5/Mac
As much as I wish we didn’t have to contend with it anymore, it’s important to realize that when Microsoft’s Mac team released Internet Explorer 5 for Macintosh, five years ago today, it was by far the most advanced browser on any platform — and it remains one of the most significant browser releases ever. It is to Tantek and his team that we owe a great deal, for IE5/Mac was the first browser to offer any really notable CSS support, as well as provide many innovations that are now commonplace in all browsers (DOCTYPE switching and PNG compatibility come to mind). Us standards advocates should remember, as we begin to drop IE5/Mac off the list of browsers we actively support, that if it wasn’t for this release, with its Tasman rendering engine, none of us would be where we are today.
Thank you, Microsoft, and especially Tantek Çelik, for showing us the way. IE5/Mac was truly one of the best and most important products Microsoft ever released.
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Mac OS X plus TiVo: Ideal Mac media center?
Many a blog post has been written about folks’ desire for a Mac OS X equivalent to Windows Media Center Edition, including a few here at jeffcroft.com. However, after receiving my Mac mini and pairing it up with my TiVo Series2, I wonder if I don’t already have a nearly ideal “Media Mac.”
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Want a PSP?
If you’re one of the many who are drooling over the brand new Sony PSP, released today, don’t forget that you can get on free (and help me get one, too), through Gratis’ FreePSPs.com. I’ll just leave it at that — no more begging, I swear. :)
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The transparent desktop illusion
Clever. You know you want to try it.
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Five Products Apple Should Create
Nice, fun mockups. I’ll take one of each (especially if I can get them from Gratis for free). But please, Apple, don’t make them in black.
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The New Joshuaink.com
John Oxton’s latest is stunning. Absolutely beautiful. Plus, it’s more love than a bus full of hippies.
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iTunes should allow multiple entries in artist, genre, etc.
Amen, brother.
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Alpha-PNGs as Overlays
While not revolutionary, it’s certainly clever and is put into easy-to-follow steps. I’ve done something similar for a project here at K-State. It works nicely (if not with valid CSS, thanks to our old friend Internet Explorer).
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Calculate the odds of making your hand — on the spot.
I’ve not made a poker-related entry in a while, and I just read learned a nice method to estimating the odds of making your hand in Hold ‘Em, so I thought I’d post it here. I’m not sure who credit for this method goes to, but I picked it up in an article by Clonie Gowen, a professional poker player from Texas (you might know her from her win on the World Poker Tour’s Ladies night a couple years back).
In order to determine the odds to your made hand, you must first know two things:
- What hand you are you are trying to make (straight? flush? trips? etc.)
- How many outs you have. An “out” is any card that can make your hand. For example, if you are holding K10, and the flop is QA2, then you have four “outs” to make your straight — the four jacks in the deck.
Once you know these two things, a very simple two-step process that any math flunky like me can do will get you a good estimate on your odds of making the hand:
- Multiply the number of outs you have by the number of chances you have to hit the card (so, if the turn and river are still to come, multiply by two. If only the river is left, multiply by one).
- Double that number.
An example: if you are holding QJ and the flop has a K and a 10, you have eight outs to make a straight (four nines and four aces). You have both the turn and river to come, so multiply your eight outs by two: 16. Then, double that number, and you have approximatley a 32% chance of making a straight.
Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that this is not the same as having a 32% chance of winning. A straight may not win. There could be a flush possibility on the board. Even if you make the K-high straight, someone could have made an A-high straight. Or, the board could pair and someone could make a full house. You get the idea. We’re only calculating the odds of you making your hand, not the odds of you winning the pot. It’s still up to you to figure out if your made hand is a winner or not.
But, it’s a fast and easy way to determine the approximate odds to making the hand you’re looking for. This method is typically correct to within two percentage points.
A couple more examples:
- If you are holding two clubs, and there are two clubs on the board after the turn, then you have 9 outs to the flush (nine more clubs in the deck). You’ve got only one chance to hit the flush (the river). You can skip step two (multiplying by one is rather pointless), and then double it (step three): you’ve got about an 18% chance to make your flush.
- If you have pocket threes, what are you chances of making trips? You’ve got two outs to the trips (two more threes in the deck). You’ve got five chances to hit one of them (flop, turn, river). 2x5=10. Double that: about a 20% chance of making trips with a pocket pair.
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Microsoft’s “Anotomy of a Flash Player”
Or, more aptly titled, “Why you should not buy an iPod.”
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PimpMySafari.com
Jon Hicks’ latest project, this is the place to find all kinds of sexy add-ons for your Safari browser.
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GoodPage
A new Mac OS X/WebKit HTML and CSS editor. I’ve not tried it yet, but it definitely looks interesting in the screenshots.
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Yahoo! buys Flickr
Well, you knew somebody was going to snatch them up, and Yahoo! seems like a good choice. here’s hoping Flickr doesn’t lose it’s vibe now that it belong to “the suits.”
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Microsoft to release six new web fonts.
But will we be able to count on them being installed on visistor’s machines?
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Nifty Corners
A nice technique for rounded corners with no images and no extra markup — DOM scripting to the rescue (again).
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Joe Clark blogs SXSW panels
Joe Clark blogs some of the SXSW sessions I most wanted to attend. Great notes, Joe. Thanks a lot.
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Ranchero Interview
A very long, but mostly interesting, interview with Brent and Sheila of Ranchero Software, makers of NetNewsWire and MarsEdit, two of the best shareware apps on any platform.
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Design Eye for that Knemeyer Guy
The HTML version of the SXSW panel by Andrei, Paul, Ryan, Keith, and Cameron. The final site is hot shit, chock full of that Ryan Sims goodness we all know and love. Sweet job.
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Rock Chalk.
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Rock Chalk.
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Napoleon Dynamite Soudboard
Don’t forget to put in the crystals. Via Jared.
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SXSW for the Absent
Since I was unable to attend SXSW, I’ve been enjoying vicarious living through Flickr, where there are quite a few photos posted of the event. It’s nice to get a good look at some of my online buddies in action, especially those that don’t often show up in pictures. Here are a few sets I’ve found from my Flickr contacts to tide over those of you who, like me, are stuck at work this week:
- Jon Hicks’ SXSW Photos
- D. Keith Robinson’s SXSW Photos
- Ethan Marcotte’s SXSW Photos
- Jeremy Flint’s SXSW Photos
- Richard Rutter’s SXSW Photos
- Andy Clarke’s SXSW Photos
- Jason Santa Maria’s SXSW Photos
- Nick Fink’s SXSW Photos
In particular, this photo by Jeremy give you a quick look at the mugs of a lot of standards-o-sphere folk. It also demonstrates that most of them are total nerds, and The Z is so nerdy that even the nerds are leaving him out of their clique. Poor guy.
I’d imagine there will be more coming. I hope so, anyway. If you’ve posted your SXSW pics, feel free to drop the URL in my comments. It’s quite a lot of fun to see you all!
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The Rare and Elusive Mike Davidson
Although rarely photographed in the wild, Ethan managed to catch this glimpse of the elusive Mike Davidson. He’s even cuter than Scrivs’s mom said he was!
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People who are at SXSW suck.
As most of my peers (or at least fantasy football competitors) spent their weekend traveling, blogging, getting their geek on, and partying in Austin, I was relegated to my usual: Aggieville. Not that I’m complaining. I had a great weekend, actually. I admit to being jealous of yous that are in Longhorn-land right now, but I’m making the best of it.
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Professional CSS
A new book by Christopher Schmitt, Ethan Marcotte, Dunstan Orchard, Mark Trammell and Todd Dominey. Sweet.
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The Elements of Meaningful XHML
Tantek’s SWSX presentation. Great stuff. Looks like SXSW is serious pimp juice for Eric’s S5.
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How to Bluff Your Way in CSS
Andy and Jeremy’s SXSW presentation. Quite funny.
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Mozilla to end development on suite.
They’ll focus on Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird etc. As well they should.
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MS Commits to Better Standards Support in IE 7
We don’t know how much better, but any improvement will be welcome.
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Flickr to offer printing services (finally)
Sweet. Now if only we had a more specific date than “later in 2005.”
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Catching up.
Hello all. Just wanted to drop a quick note to say that I apologize for the lack of updates recently. I’ve been pretty busy with client work, and frankly, haven’t had a whole lot to say. I’ll get back to the usual mad posting schedule as soon as possible.
My free Mac mini showed up today, proving once again that Gratis is legit. I’m still waiting on my free iPod shuffle, though — seems the supply is pretty low. Having gotten a free iPod and Mac mini, I’m confident I will get the shuffle, too — I just don’t know when.
Finally, since I’ve been getting e-mails about it, i want to let everyone know that I’m not going to SXSW. I really, really wanted to but it just didn’t work out with my work schedule. I hope everyone has fun there next week, and I hope to see plenty of party pictures in your various flickr accounts. Someone should take a picture holding a sign that says, “We wish you were here, Croft.” It would really make my day. Especially if the person holding the sign was naked. That would be funny.
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Joe Kid on a Sting-Ray
Documentary on BMX biking. Sweet. Reminds me of popping endos on my Diamond Back Mike Dominguez signature model.
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Shelter Animals
An great set of dog and cat photos on Flickr.
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Screen Grab Confab, Volume III
Still one of the most fun blog ideas I’ve ever seen. Great teasers in here…
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Intel’s innovative new “Mini PC”
Rip off? Of course not! I’ve never seen anything like it before!
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The Meaning of Semantics
The Molly has spoken. Now, if everyone would just listen already.
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Jeff Croft
I’m a digital product designer and developer in Seattle, WA. I currently work with Simply Measured, and recently co-founded Lendle, a Kindle book sharing service.
Some of my past clients include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Copious, The New York Review of Books, Django, The Lawrence Journal-World, and the University of Washington.
I’ve authored two books on web and interactive design and spoken at dozens of conferences around the world.
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