Optimizing Ubuntu to run from a USB key or SD card

Fortunately, by following the tips below, you can make your USB or SD card based linux system fly!

How wide should you make your web page?

Based on 22500 unique IP addresses over the past week.

20 lines of code that will beat A/B testing every time

A/B testing is used far too often, for something that performs so badly. It is defective by design: Segment users into two groups. Show the A group the old, tried and true stuff. Show the B group the new whiz-bang design with the bigger buttons and slightly different copy. After a while, take a look at the stats and figure out which group presses the button more often. Sounds good, right? The problem is staring you in the face. It is the same dilemma faced by researchers administering drug studies. During drug trials, you can only give half the patients the life saving treatment. The others get sugar water. If the treatment works, group B lost out. This sacrifice is made to get good data. But it doesn't have to be this way.

[comic] Appreciation of xkcd comics vs. technical ability

Game Theory, Salary Negotiation, and Programmers

When you get a new job, you can breathe a sigh of relief, but not for long. You have an offer letter in your hand, and it is easy to miss one of the most important opportunities of your life: the starting salary. Here's what to do to increase your chances.

A little VIM hacking

qb.js: An implementation of QBASIC in Javascript

Play NIBBLES.BAS in your browser. I re-implemented a small part of QBASIC as a compiler in Javascript, so it runs in a webpage.

You can cheat so your web site seems faster than it is

You can make your web site seem faster without actually being faster.

0, 1, Many, a Zillion

It's common wisdom that there should only be three numbers in source code. But there's actually four. Here's why.

Compress your JSON with automatic type extraction

JSON is horribly inefficient data format for data exchange between a web server and a browser. Here's how you can fix it.