http://neil.fraser.name/ Log of Neil Fraser's thoughts and activities. http://backend.userland.com/rss 86400 http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/06/06/ Thu, 6 Jun 2013 12:00:00 GMT Everyone at work just came back from a screening of The Internship. Briefly, it is a comedy about a couple of middle-aged salesmen who talk their way into becoming interns at Google. There are some good ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/05/28/ Tue, 28 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT Last weekend's Maker Faire was a blast, as always. Quynh, Ellen, and I were there representing Google and demonstrating Blockly. Our stand was packed solid with visitors, from opening till closing. Definitely ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/04/28/ Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:00:00 GMT Six months ago I created a pair of interactive tutorials that demonstrate how to access and manipulate the DOM from JavaScript. Today I'm releasing a further two tutorials that demonstrate how to use events ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/04/22/ Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:00:00 GMT The procedure for obtaining a tourist visa for most countries is similar. One fills out a form, mails it to the country's embassy, then they mail back the visa. Some countries have the whole process be ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/04/15/ Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:00:00 GMT Sharp eyed readers have spotted a common face appearing in some of my website's posts. From self-driving engineers to Vietnamese schools, and more. Her name is Quynh Neutron. She's a geek, a data analyst ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/03/23/ Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:00:00 GMT Remember the Logo programming language? If so, here's your chance to win $100 of swag from Google. Draw something cool using Blockly's turtle graphics, then submit it to us this week. If you are related ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/03/16/ Sat, 16 Mar 2013 12:00:00 GMT During my recent trip to Vietnam I took the opportunity to visit some schools and see how computer science was taught there. Officially, foreigners require permission from the department of education to ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/02/23/ Sat, 23 Feb 2013 12:00:00 GMT Yesterday I was browsing the Computer Science shelf at a university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The selection was ... classic. Everything from "PC/MS DOS Fundamentals", to "MicroSoft BASIC", to "The ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/02/15/ Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:00:00 GMT A 'psh' and a 'pxc' file arrived on my computer from a family who had lost access to their photo album. I quickly determined that these originated from some software called ProShow. Not only is it apparently ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2013/01/14/ Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:00:00 GMT One of the advantages of living in the future is that one can do the things which were previously science fiction. Self-driving cars? Check. Terminator vision? Check. Private space stations? Check. Last ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/12/31/ Mon, 31 Dec 2012 12:00:00 GMT A surplus satellite dish unexpectedly entered my possession. Let's measure distances using the speed of sound. I secured my phone's microphone to the focal point. Next, I pointed the dish at an apartment ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/12/15/ Sat, 15 Dec 2012 12:00:00 GMT A friend visiting my apartment for the first time looked around and commented, "I was expecting more 'mad scientist'." While my apartment does occasionally feature cannon balls swinging from the ceiling[?] ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/12/07/ Fri, 7 Dec 2012 12:00:00 GMT While digging through some old VHS tapes, I stumbled across an interview I did in high school for a television program called "Tech 2000". This was back when "2000" was considered futuristic. The flight ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/11/30/ Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:00:00 GMT A friend got hired at Google and threw a party to celebrate. I was asked to bring a diorama of a volcano. Why, I have no idea. I've long since given up trying to understand Americans. But I'm an engineer, ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/11/23/ Fri, 23 Nov 2012 12:00:00 GMT Parents typically fail to assign UUIDs[?] to their offspring, instead relying on an inadequately sized pool of traditional names. Furthermore, parents are phenomenally poor at creating randomness, resulting ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/11/07/ Wed, 7 Nov 2012 12:00:00 GMT Six years ago I resolved to make the switch from QWERTY[?] to Dvorak.[?] A day latter Google called me and it became clear that learning a new keyboard map would have to wait. This week is devoted to a ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/11/02/ Fri, 2 Nov 2012 12:00:00 GMT After cross-referencing my symptoms with Wikipedia, it became abundantly clear that I had Tonsillitis. The recommended course of action was to get a Strep test. That determines whether the Tonsillitis ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/10/28/ Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:00:00 GMT Google's self-driving cars are an increasingly common sight around Mountain View. The spinning LIDAR[?] sensor on the roof makes them quite distinctive. Engineers take the fleet out every morning to test ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/10/21/ Sun, 21 Oct 2012 12:00:00 GMT Last month I attended the SVG Open conference in Zurich. It was a good conference, attended by Chrome, Mozilla, and Opera engineers, as well as the SVG standards committee. Although SVG is a wonderful ... http://neil.fraser.name/news/2012/10/15/ Mon, 15 Oct 2012 12:00:00 GMT Part of my work at Google involves teaching JavaScript classes to engineers who don't have much experience with front-end programming. JavaScript is a severely messed-up language. I liken it to a cat. ...