Photo by Trials and Errors

I've been a bit distracted for the past few weeks, so here's a bumper crop of links from my backlog:

How to install Ruby on Rails on a Mac – It's amazing how tough getting all the dependencies for a Ruby project can be on stock OS X, especially Postgres. It's a big reason why I'm now moving to Vagrant.

A vernacular web – A look back at the early web through an art history lens. I thought it would be cheap nostalgia, but it turned out to surprisingly revealing and insightful.

Making Maps – A wonderful guide to online map making from the Chicago Tribune.

Speak.js – The power of Javascript in modern browsers is amazing. Here's a speech synthesizer that relies on the new typed arrays addition, compiled from LLVM!

GFX – A 3D CSS animation library. Does exactly what it says on the tin, but it's another sign of how capable modern browsers are.

Email guesser – Email user names that are derived from people's real names, plus a clear MD5 hash used by a widely-used service, gives you an effective tool for guessing people's addresses. Thought-provoking work by Adam Loving.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest - Terribly wonderful first lines of imaginary novels, inspired by the writer who came up with "It was a dark and stormy night". The Darwin Awards of literature.