Essoteric Celebrity Moment II

February 2008 has been a whirlwind. Started off by going up to SF to work with Adaptive Path every Monday for four weeks where I got to brainstorm with Jesse James Garret and had lunch with Peter Merholz and a bunch of other people from AP. So that sort of set the stage for this being an extraordinary month.

Now, I knew he was in town (I’m guilty of reading his livejournal in addition to watching his video podcast, and listening to the podcast On Board Games that he participates in), but when I saw Scott Nicholson of Board Games with Scott in the cafe where LA Games meets I was pleasantly surprised.

I even got a chance to chat with him a little bit, congratulating him on his new game that’s out in the fall. He said it’s not going to be for everyone, it’s a people-oriented economics game simulating the Tulip bubble market in 1637, but he’ll definitely make a video about it as soon as he gets a copy. Scott asked my name, and actually recognized it from when we corresponded via email back in September 2006. His email signature is where I borrowed the idea of providing a label for each of the several domain names in mine. Scott almost joined us for a game of Diamant, but opted for slightly more substance with Ticket to Ride (Diamant, now sold as Incan Gold, feels a lot like blackjack, even has gambling built in) .

So, that was my leap year. Not sure if anybody else will appreciate how cool it was, but just thought I’d share.

JavaScript: Defining console.log for IE

Front-end web development these days centers around one tool: Firebug. So we go merrily building away in Firefox, and then it comes time to debug in IE, and we’re screwed. Short of installing Firebug Lite (which I have future plans of doing, on demand via Mootools.Asset), but short of that, here’s a little code snippet that defines console.log:

if (!$defined(window.console)) { //$defined() == isDefined()
    window.console = {};
    console.log = window.alert;
}

The bit I missed first time around was testing for window.console, not just console. And the bit of syntax that may look funky, window.console = {};, is an object literal definition. We’re defining window.console as an object with nothing in it. You’ll also see it in my favorite new bit of JavaScript syntax: var namespace = window.namespace || {};. (In JavaScript the OR operator treats the left hand side as a boolean, and then returns the value of either the left or right hand side)

Podcasts

About a month ago iTunes decided that it would be fun to drop all of my podcast subscriptions. I think I’ve remembered all of them, although it wasn’t until last weekend that I caught a Carl Kasell reference on Car Talk and remembered Wait Wait (never mind that he’s the one reading my morning news half the time).

So here’s the list of podcasts to which I currently subscribe, in case they get lost again. Maybe I’ll come back later to add subscription links and categorize them (Board Games, Language, Sex, News).

1. A Way with Words
2. Dawn and Drew Show!, The (we’re going to dawn-a-pa-drew-za)
3. Dice Tower, The
4. Garrett’s Games and Geekiness
5. Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips or Better Writing
6. Into the Gamescape
7. Legal Lad’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Lawful Life
8. Nolo: Your Legal Companion–Law and Business
9. NPR: 7PM ET News Summary
10. NPR: Car Talk
11. NPR: It’s All Politics
12. NPR: Marketplace (trial basis)
13. NPR: Science Friday (Mar 28, 2008 update)
14. NPR: Sunday Puzzle (update)
15. NPR: Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!
16. On Board Games
17. Onion Radio News, The
18. open source sex
19. Radio Blowfish Variety Show, The
20. Slate Explainer Podcast
21. Slate Magaine Daily Podcast
22. Spiel, The
23. Washington Week Podcast | PBS
24. WNYC’s Radio Lab
25. Word Nerds, The

Anything you guys would recommend I try out?

Snappy JavaScript Animation

All JavaScript animation should be this fast: Zipline Interactive.

…Looks like it’s Mootools. Not surprised. The more I use the library the more I’m impressed. It’s so powerful, and the syntax is so elegant. I’ve been writing a developer’s guide at work, have to see if some of it can’t be made available to the wider web (well, future prospective employers anyway).

The IE7 auto-rollout: fact and fiction

I’ve been hearing rumors about an IE7 push. Unfortunately it’s mostly just rumors, the only people rightfully forced to upgrade are those poor saps working in tightly controlled business environments. Still need to find some current stats on browser distribution to see what kind of effect it had.

Link: The IE7 auto-rollout: fact and fiction

No More Texas Sex Toys Ban

link: Federal appeals court overturns Texas sex toys ban

A sign of change for the better. Between this and the way the democratic primaries are going, there is hope for the country.

Mootools for Citysearch

Over at Citysearch, I’m going to be dropping the existing JavaScript library, which tries too hard to make JavaScript like Java, and switching over to using mostly mootools.  It’s light weight, has everything I might need from Array and String functions to Ajax and Animation, excellent documentation, and an active community building handy stuff like a Calendar and Slimbox (lightbox clone).

I’ve decided to keep Easy DOM (upgraded to the latest version of course), which allows for simple creation of DOM elements via an easy to read object literal syntax. I’ll have to dig up a sample…

UE Celebrity Moment

Jesse James Garret joined our discussion about bringing community to Citysearch. He had some particularly cogent things to say about the need to marry utility for the individual and contribution to the community, citing del.icio.us as an example of this.