A good while ago I started thinking about how best to optimise web pages, which led me to the Yahoo! Exceptional Performance team. The first recommendation was to minimise HTTP requests. One way of doing this is to combine all JavaScript and all CSS files used on a page into single files. This can make maintainability an issue unless you have good build and release processes.
Monthly Archive for January, 2009
I received a package at the office today and while I am expecting a new cardigan that my mum has been busy knitting for me at some point, this was obviously not it. It was far too small and heavy for a start. Secondly, looking up the postcode gleaned from the ‘Sender’ label on Google Maps placed the sender somewhere in a field in Hampshire. Thirdly, said sender was somebody who identified themselves only as ‘Donovan’. I briefly thought that an 80s musician was stalking me for some reason before deciding that was simply too bizarre.
I then started thinking that someone may have sent me something that may bring me harm. The next random thought was that my future as supreme being of the planet may just come to pass after all and that this was some kind of Terminator or Valkyrie type plot to get rid of me.
Not having access to a fluoroscope or fume cupboard in which to open it I decided to just proceed carefully. It turns out that there was no need to get carried away. It was a simply jar of Whole Earth crunchy organic peanut butter. I deduced that one of my Twitter followers must have taken pity on me after my rants the other week on the availability of decent peanut butter in the West End of Edinburgh (or lack thereof to be more exact).
This was indeed the case: a belated birthday present. Big thanks Ben!
Finally, Obama is president. The whole day long event is very different to the behind-closed-doors affair that goes on at Buckingham Palace here in the UK.
While some were plotting to take advantage I was watching the inauguration on Hulu having rearranged my application windows in order to carry on working hard (or hardly working) thanks to my secondary monitor being incapacitated. Other people were sat having coffee and watching things live on their iPhone thanks to the newly released Ustream application. The BBC traffic was up over 20% and CNN Live collapsed temporarily under the strain but that’s hardly surprising when you see the numbers. Akami was allegedly pushing out over 2Tbps at one point.
Maybe it was just me but John Williams’ new composition Air and Simple Gifts sounded suspiciously like Lord of the Dance in places. The captioning system had a bit of a fail moment, describing ‘Cheese and applause’ as Obama emerged from the Capitol building.
Obamas address itself was not without a small factual mistake and there was also a bit of a mix-up in taking the oath of office1 but on the whole it was a great example of a fantastic orator at work (despite his failure to mention a banana). Even I was finding hard to be a cynic. I thought it was a great speech – worthy of Jed Bartlet or David Palmer. I especially liked the part which stated that science would be restored to its rightful place.
Not everyone was as impressed though. One of my colleagues paraphrased the speech as he could hear it from across the room as:
Rhetoric rhetoric, Pander-to-the-masses. Dynamic statement dynamic statement, dynamic statement, righteous affirmation wait for applause.
Wordle tag clouds of this and previous inaugural speeches soon appeared. Video of Presidential inaugurations dating back over 100 years had also been tracked down.
It seems that some people have had trouble spelling Barack Obama. Some pranksters in San Francisco didn’t seem to have this problem though when Bush Street was temporarily renamed Obama Street. Not being able to spell his name isn’t too bad – several months ago DMX (the rapper) apparently had never even heard of him.
The rumours I heard in a couple of places of CNN creating a Photosynth of todays events were thankfully true. If you have Silverlight installed2 then check it out.
1 I did wonder if GWB took the “oaf of office” instead.
2 It is actually worth installing it just for this.
If, as expected, bus fares here in Edinburgh rise tomorrow to a flat rate of £1.30 then the £3.50 I paid to have my Tesco grocery delivery the other day appears to be an absolute bargain. I usually walk to a small Tesco near to where I live but every few weeks I will place an order online for the things I can’t buy there as well as any heavy or bulky items I need for the cupboards. A £2.60 round trip would mean that in effect I pay 90p for someone to shop for me and deliver to my kitchen.
I still go to local stores for my fruit and vegetables so I can chose my own produce and this also gives me the opportunity to buy from local farmers too and keep my food mileage down.
It’s the last day of my holiday before heading back to work in the morning after spending Christmas at home with family and Bergsilvester (New Year in Innsbruck). We enjoyed some live music, drank lots of Edelweiss and watched thousands of fireworks before I lost my friends but I ended up being adopted by some friendly locals and kept out drinking until 7am.
A colleague put me on to this presentation on SlideShare a little while ago. Indulge yourself in some amazing projections and statistics on population, education, work, language, information and technology.
