Category: Links

Vim search Dash

I use [MacVim](http://code.google.com/p/macvim/) as my editor and [Dash](http://kapeli.com/dash) as my documentation browser. They’re great. Also, Dash has the best nag-screen mechanism I’ve ever seen.

If you use them, too, I wrote a bit of Vim script to make looking things up about 0.5 seconds faster each time. Imagine, _all that productivity!_ Just position your cursor on the word you want to look up, leader-d, and the script will try to search the right docset in Dash based on the filetype you’re editing. E.g. for JavaScript files, I have it configured to launch js:term in Dash, which searches both the jQuery and JavaScript docs for that term. (Source: a great tip from [Kapeli](https://twitter.com/kapeli/statuses/239927573096837123) himself. Herself? Itself?)

I’d love to hear suggestions on how to generalise this, without manually adding docsets each time. I tried passing in the filetype to Dash as the search term, but got tripped up by some asset files in Rails that Vim thought were ERB…

Ants invented TCP/IP

Stanford Engineering:

A forager won’t return to the nest until it finds food. If seeds are plentiful, foragers return faster, and more ants leave the nest to forage. If, however, ants begin returning empty handed, the search is slowed, and perhaps called off.

They’re stronger than us, more plentiful, and now we find out they invented the Internet. I’d start making offerings to our future ant overlords, but they already eat half the cat food in my kitchen now so what’s the point.

Failing Coursera

Tim Owens, on “failing” Coursera courses:

For much of the course I felt like a bystander. Here I was watching a set of videos chosen by my professor. I may or may not have a quiz at the end of the week to gauge my learning. The videos were interesting, but I left feeling like I hadn’t participated. […] I can’t tell you the name of a single other person that was in this course and it started with over 40,000. I think that’s a shame and something they could improve on.

I’ve yet to pass a single Coursera course myself–I’ve “failed” Algorithms and HCI so far. However, I do feel like I’ve really learned something from the parts of the courses I’ve taken, and I appreciate how Coursera and other [MOOCs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course) (what a great name) have encouraged all these subject matter experts to curate and present all this useful information in brief, easily digestible chunks for teachers and students.

Keyboard-only searching with Safari 6’s unified URL bar

A couple of months ago, I adapted a user script called [knogs](https://github.com/nqzero/knogs) (“keyboard navigation on Google Search”) into a Safari extension. knogs restores Google’s search page keyboard navigation shortcuts ([background here](http://yjsoon.com/2012/02/re-enabling-jk-keyboard-navigation-on-google-search)), so you can navigate between search results with `j` (down) and `k` (up), and get to the search field with `/`.

Unfortunately, Safari 6’s new unified “URL + search” bar behaviour _retains focus_ after a search. As a result, you have to click in the search page to use any keyboard shortcuts, rendering the extension fairly useless unless you like searching for JJ Abrams by mistake.

So I’ve updated the extension to remove focus from the unified search bar. (It’s an ugly hack, though–I did it by prepending an input field on the page, calling `focus` on it to remove focus from the search bar, and then removing focus with `blur`. [Let me know](http://yjsoon.com/contact) if you have any better ideas.)

Download the Safari extension [here](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/90126/GoogleJK/GoogleJK.safariextz), and the source (userscript version) is available [here](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/90126/GoogleJK/GoogleJK.user.js). If you were using the previous extension, it should have auto-updated, if I set it up right. Test it out by searching in Safari’s URL bar, waiting a few milliseconds, and entering `j`, `k`, or `/` to navigate.

A couple of notes on usage:

– You have to be searching with `google.com` for this to work, and not any country-specific domains. This is due to the way Safari handles extension whitelisting–I can’t get it to whitelist `google.com.*` URLs.
– Disable Google Instant search in your account settings, otherwise typing `j` will just append that letter to your search terms. Thanks to [Nick Farina](http://nfarina.com) for helping me find this issue.

The state of tech blog writing in Singapore

Posting without comment; emphasis mine.

e27, [Electronic Arts merges IronMonkey and Firemint to form Australia’s largest gaming studio Firemonkeys
](http://e27.sg/2012/07/25/electronic-arts-merges-ironmonkey-and-firemint-to-form-australias-largest-gaming-studio-firemonkeys/), 25 July 2012:

Good news aside, there are certainly expectations from the gaming community for the new Firemonkeys to perform, as they now eagerly awaits their first product.

e27, [OS X Mountain Lion upgrade now available in Singapore for S$25.98](http://e27.sg/2012/07/25/os-x-mountain-lion-upgrade-now-available-in-singapore-for-s25-98/), 25 July 2012:

Mac OS X can now grab the Mountain Lion upgrade at a price of S$25.98 in Singapore

[…]

The upgrade will come a the cost of S$25.98 and comes with over 200 innovative new features.

[…]

The Message app, which users had access to the beta version, will bring iMessage to the Mac and allows cross device communication across the iOS devices available in the market.

(The app is called “Messages”.)

Tech in Asia, [Run a Singaporean Coffee Shop with the Kopi Tiam Game](http://www.techinasia.com/kopi-tiam-app/), 26 July 2012:

I downloaded the free Kopi Tiam version to give it a shot, after reading many positive reviews. It’s reminiscent to many time-management games […]

[…]

We’ve also included a the game’s demo video below. Enjoy!

Tech in Asia, [TackThis Powers Donation Drive in Singapore’s National Day 2012](http://www.techinasia.com/tackthis-singapore-national-day-2012/), 20 June 2012:

As a Singaporean, I confess feel compelled to doing so as well.

That’s it, for now. I might do more of these, if I get annoyed enough.

Oh, here’s one more. In this case, the bad grammar and awkward phrasing aren’t necessarily the writer’s fault. e27, [The Demise of QR Codes](http://e27.sg/2012/02/28/the-demise-of-qr-codes/), February 2012:

QR codes will remain a curious oddity for the technically proficient geeks and bleeding adopters.

Here are the [search results](http://google.com/search?q=bleeding%20adopters) for the odd term “bleeding adopters”. Compare [this article](http://www.imediaconnection.com/printpage/printpage.aspx?id=30267) from October 2011, which also contains that phrase, to the above e27 article.

Update, a day later: e27 and Tech in Asia have acknowledged and corrected the above. Both note that they appreciate error reports sent through their comment sections.

Big Head Squirrel Feeder

Laughing Squid:

If you get a Big Head Squirrel Feeder, you’ll be able to feed and humiliate squirrels at the same time. Hang this vinyl 5-1/2″ x 8″ Big Head Squirrel Feeder in front of a window or near a porch, fill it with something squirrels like to eat and when they stick their head up there, the squirrel looks like he has a hilariously huge head with a goofy smile.

_So_ close to setting that picture as my iPhone wallpaper.