(via The guide to implementing 2D platformers)
“Put scripts and stylesheets in the ideal order (as much as we could). All external CSS go first. Then include external javascript. That way, most browsers will download CSS in parallel, which gives you a teeny tiny speed boost” — How we made Portent.com really freaking fast
In the 24-hour retest—where all subjects had a full night of sleep—those participants who went to bed shortly after learning the words did much better than those who went through an entire day before sleeping.
(Source: scientificamerican.com)
This is the scalability technique. Everything is about partitioning out work. Deciding how to execute it. Applies to many things, from web tier, you have a lot of web servers that are more or less identically and independently and you grow them horizontally. That’s divide and conquer.
(Source: highscalability.com)
“Vitess - a new project released by YouTube, written in Go, it’s a frontend to MySQL. It does a lot of optimization on the fly, it rewrites queries and acts as a proxy. Currently it serves every YouTube database request. It’s RPC based.” — 7 Years of YouTube Scalability Lessons in 30 Minutes
[video]
x86 Assembly Primer for C Programmers
“Every new choice she made in her life — whether it was to return to graduate school or move to the suburbs — was greeted with dismissive scorn by the friend. Ms. Johnson decided to end the relationship with a telephone call. “My main point was that life is very short and fleeting, and I value my happiness enough to eradicate the negative energy,” — It’s Not Me, It’s You - How to End a Friendship
“The notion that you’re trying to control the process and prevent error screws things up. We all know the saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And everyone knows that, but I Think there is a corollary: if everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It’s better to fix problems than to prevent them. And the natural tendency for managers is to try and prevent error and over plan things” — Inside Pixar’s Leadership « Scott Berkun
“When we are open with people, we avoid surprising them. We keep them in the loop.” — Community-building tip: surprise is the opposite of engagement « Dark Matter Matters