The Butt Ugly Weblog

Web apps. Widgets. Websites. All dispersed along a line, where at the other end you have static HTML and at the other end you have fully self-contained Javascript applications (widgets), that only perhaps contain a single <script> statement in their HTML. These are the building blocks of Web 2.0; stuff that was growing in the background while everyone else ogled over Google Docs and Wikipedia and oh-my-god-but-what-does-this-all-mean.

Without much ado, the browser has become the operating system. But at least my personal problem has been for a while that Javascript is a really lousy environment to work in: tools pale in comparison to commercial grade Java tools (try to profile your Javascript app - you've only got bad and worse solutions) and the language is, well, gnarly.

But if we treat the browser as the operating system, then is it not logical to treat the Javascript/HTML/CSS environment like a binary interface instead of a programming environment? You can see already how inadequate the environment is by looking at the dozens of libraries that have spawned, such as JQuery, Dojo, Mootools, etc. This all reminds me of my early programming days, when I sweated with the 68000 assembly language on the good ol' Amiga. Everybody wrote their own support libraries at the time, and the most popular became essentially the basis of later operating systems.

So would it be too far-fetched to call the HTML5/CSS/Javascript combo (call it JCH, pronounce like you're coughing) the new x86 assembly language? They're both fairly sucky environments but if that suckiness is hidden by more rich environments and languages on top of them, they can simply become the workhorse on which all major development will occur in the future. And much like most current programmers don't understand about x86 assembly language, perhaps future programmers won't know diddly about Javascript closures?

The logical next step would therefore be to port well-known languages to create JCH instead of their own bytecode or assembly. Not surprisingly, these tools already exist: Google Web Toolkit creates JCH from Java; ScriptSharp from C# and Pyjamas from Python. And who web developer hasn't used an HTML editor ever to design their HTML/CSS page? Also, look at how Java Virtual Machines turned from the sloths they were into the performance monsters they are today - and then consider that all those lessons are almost directly applicable to Javascript engines. The development of JS engines in Chrome and Safari has been mindboggling over the past couple of years, just the same way JVM performance and x86 performance has beaten all expectations.

Perhaps the secret to the next web (and if you call it Web 3.0, I will break your legs) is the realization that there's now, finally, a unified binary interface for all developers which is already deployed on every desktop. It's, again, going to be the developer playground just like the original web was.

We ain't seen nothing yet.

I bought yesterday a used iMac (the Aluminum kind, if you're interested). I figured that since the technology in iMacs hasn't changed in the past year-two significantly, a used iMac is better value than buying a new one. Recycling is good.

Anyway, I bring it home and start playing with it. Wife comes in, looks at the iMac standing on the desktop.

"What? A new monitor? I thought you were supposed to be buying a new computer?"

"That is the computer. See, DVD drive slot, USB..."

Stunned silence. Jaw dropping.

Such are the moments that every engineer and designer should live and strive for.

Pythagoras Switches (aka Rube Goldberg machines) are wonderful contraptions in which one small thing leads to another which leads to another, etc. One of the most cool examples is this Honda commercial a few years back.

Now, some old friends from Berg and The Oslo School of Architecture and Design put together this really awesome "Nearness" video demonstration, in which nothing actually touches each other. Everything is done with the power of Near Field Communications (NFC), magnetism, radio waves, and other unseen phenomenon. It demonstrates the point that I've been saying for quite a while: The power of NFC is its inherent hackability. Be happy it's not secure, because secure often means "locked down unless you agree to play by the rules". Security happens at application level, and it's the worry of the big boys.

If only we could see better, so we might better appreciate the unseen.

Just go have fun with the technology. That's how all the cool stuff always gets born.

Ever since the kid started on non-breastmilk, life has become rather fascinating. It's one of the major steps out of babydom, and the journey of discovery is fascinating for, well, the whole family.

Here are some of the things I've learned recently:

• Porridge is as much as a paint as it is food.
• Everything tastes better when eaten directly off the table
• Any food can be bounced off the floor. Even oatmeal.
• Blackberries turn the poo, well, black. No need to call 911.
• Any food tastes better with a song.
• Best songs consist of a single syllable and no melody, repeated ad infinitum. E.g. "LOL"
• Though Imperial March and Star Wars main theme work fairly well too to open "the docking ports".
• Rotating the spoon while humming Blue Danube might not work, but at least it amuses the father. Requires viscosity and adhesion of the food to the spoon to be above a certain level.
• My accuracy at hitting randomly moving objects has improved radically over the past few months. Even though the mouth of a child can seemingly rotate to the opposing direction of the head, I can still hit it. Most of the time.
• Feeding behind the corner is surprisingly easy, after you have had a bit of practice.
• All foods are suspicious at first. Especially the ones you've had before.
• Eating is an equipment sport. The sheer amount of anatomically formulated baby spoons outnumbers the amount of possible body configurations by at least a factor of four. Makes you wonder.
• A hand can be faster than the eye. No magician required.
• Shoes are a food group. As are soft puppet animals.

(Updated on 15th - forgot about shoes.)