Author Archives: Josh

OmniNerd – Articles: Beating Traffic

Brandon U. Hansen tries to figure out if he can get to work faster – beating traffic.

The world is full of traffic and people who hate it. This article analyzes a year of data to determine if minor tweaks to departure times can significantly impact commute length – or if it is all out of the driver’s control.

Well, duh. Of course it does. But who’s going to go to work at 11:00 and return home at 19:00?

Anyways, looking at his opening figures is weird, because he says that driving to work soaks up 100 hours a year, and involves 15,000 miles – which implies an average velocity of 150mph. Even if he forgot the trip home, you’re looking at 75mph (120kph), which is unlikely unless your cousin is a cop or you live right on top of an Autobahn. Perhaps they’re driving to work in a rocket tractor – which I always thought was one of these, with one of these attached – but it seems most of the net thinks they’re one of these, and that would never work!

AJAX and Screenreaders: Screw the blind, this is the new web!

Sitepoint tries to figure out how well the Web2.0 works for blind people.

Basically, no US gov website, and none that loves blind people, will be able to implement a AJAX-only site – a noscript verson will have to be available. And this stems from the fact that it’s too hard to make the various screenreaders act in a standard way in response to changes to the document. Which sounds to me to be a perfect problem for World Wide Web Consortium standardisation.

Ajax = Chocolate = Happiness

FogBugz 4½ has been released, so that amazing new ajax features can ship:

In the last year or so a lot of web developers have been working hard on improving their applications using techniques now known as Ajax. These applications use JavaScript code so that when you click on something, you get immediate feedback, rather than waiting for the web server to send you a new page at its own leisurely pace. When they do need more information from the server, they often download the small fragment they need, rather than waiting for the server to build a whole new page. The net result is faster, crisper feedback that makes you feel in control and creates “subjective well-being,” a.k.a. happiness, a feeling that is biochemically NO DIFFERENT THAN EATING LARGE QUANTITIES OF CHOCOLATE.

Who doesn’t like chocolate?