smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Jeff Atwood has a great piece on the relentless pace of programming change:

“It’s no longer unique for something to be new, no longer interesting when something is shiny. Eventually, you grow weary of shiny new things.”

The Magpie Effect — no sooner do we finally get a chance to check out some new programming platform, it’s already obsolete and out-of-favour.

Why should anyone invest time and energy developing in the latest craze, when even it’s biggest proponents and drum beaters change their minds on the current framework flavour every other week?!

There in, gentle readers, is the moral of the story and why it’s a rare thing indeed to see such technologies embraced by a wider audience or why they seldom seem to gain much long-term traction, despite the hype.

The pace of change is such that both platform and programmer alike become their own worst enemy, dooming the platform before it has any real chance of taking wing.

A conspirational hat wearer believes Rands in Repose is Garbage:

“I really don’t know how to approach this; I thought it was sarcasm until I read the rest of the article. Is it supposed to be profound?”

Profound? No.

Is it an interesting insight into “data on data”, that is, taking an existing data set and performing statistical analysis on it? Yes.

Indeed I’ve noticed the article cropping up in discussion already — along with some fascinating patterns regarding twitter usage.

Rands in Repose is a smart read as it’s author takes the time to break often-complex concepts down to a level the lay-person can grasp, not because it’s pitched as some esoteric Mecca.

Once again Jessica Hagy finds the mark:

“Please, give the writers whatever they want.”

Could not agree more, lest we suffer more reality show tomfoolery.

Shawn Blanc takes a fresh look at an increasingly popular herb and notes:

“And Shaun Inman’s Mint is a website analytics program for those kinds of people: The people who highly appreciate spectacular (and tasty) things.”

I’ve often wondered quite why folks are so wrapped up in this web statistics product. Sure, I’ve been aware for a while now that it’s a good application. But there are many good statistics applications out there. What makes this any different to the rest?

Mr Blanc answers that question in spades, tracing the progress of the tasty snack that has become an addictive narcotic for an increasing number of users. And it’s reviews like this that really make me — as a prospective customer — salivate at the thought of what it might do for my appetite in turn.

Mr Dunlop-Walters has recently redesigned:

“I have redesigned this ‘ere tumblelog.. Personally, I think it’s rather nice (though the header is a little boring).”

I’m an absolute sucker for a minimalist design.

Soft browns and large clear font choices for navigation and informational elements makes reading a joy — numblr is yet another fine example showcasing tumblr, and that it isn’t yet another haven of re-re-regurgitated scum and villainy.

If there is one thing you read today, make it this:

“Could a morbidly obese goalie shut out an NHL team?”

So begins a fantastically comical excerpt from the book “Andy Roddick Beat me With a Frying Pan” by Todd Gallagher.

Stumbled on a short article relating to that weird effect where stressful moments seem to happen in slow motion:

“To see if danger makes people experience time in slow motion, scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston tried scaring volunteers.”

“Scientists had volunteers dive backward with no ropes attached, into a special net that helped break their fall. They reached 70 mph during the roughly three-second, 150-foot drop.”

Interestingly the research done seems to suggest the unusual time dilation occurs based more on how memories are laid down, rather than as a result of reactions to body chemistry, such as adrenaline or dopamine.

An entirely fascinating read.

“Without further ado I give you: Airbag: As Seen from Around the World.” — Greg Storey.

Gorgeous design and interface to an inspired global experiment. A snapshot of Airbag readers over a period of 24 hours.

Cameron has just published a great article on adding your own post types in Tumblr:

“Tumblr’s recent update to version 3 of the service has made it possible to make your own post types with the custom theme tag TagsAsClasses and some fancy CSS, as I did with my review post-type.”

Proving that perhaps tumblr is far less a tool designed to regurgitate comment alone, rather it has embraced some pretty nifty features of late that open up a range of options for multiple types of content.

Not to belittle the Davidville and Tumblr crew, but it isn’t necessarily the technology itself that is important, rather it is how one makes best use of it that really illustrates it’s value.

The Tumblr engine is increasingly being exposed to users, the end result is some pretty smart stuff.

Joen writes that he has released Fauna 1.0:

“Several years of development by a committed team. All wrapped up and final. Compatible with all the best plugins, and the newest Wordpress.”

Fauna is a well engineered and smart theme by an amazing graphic artist.

Mr Hunt writes that he has refreshed his design:

“I’ve been publishing on cameron i/o for 8 months. I’ve gotten 18,000 unique visitors since I installed Mint in August. Cameron i/o has gone through five major designs, and today is the sixth. It’s going back to it’s roots; cameron i/o was originally light on dark.”

Simple meets dark. Web 2.0 be damned, this is 1.0 simplicity at it’s best.