Nick Robillard's Blog

The world needs some more Cunninlynguists

nick — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:18:34 -0800

The Cunninlynguists are now my favourite hiphop group. This is conscious / cerebral hiphop at its finest - and Kno lays down some of the most dynamic beats I've ever heard.

Some of their best:

Flash on the iPhone!

nick — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:26:19 -0700

Flash is coming to the iPhone - well kinda. The web player will not be supported - instead, and even better, Flash applications will be compilable as native iPhone apps. So really, for 99% of users, Flash for the iPhone is not coming in the way they had hoped.

Personally, I could care less about Flash player support. What titillates me, as a Flash developer, is that I'll be able to make full-featured native apps using something I already know intimately. And that's freaking awesome.

Afghanistan

nick — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:47:16 -0700

Sorry for re-hashing something that may seem old and repetitious. But seeing that my own flesh and blood, my little brother, will be heading to the "Stan" this year, I can't just accept what we're being told and not continue to question.

Canadian death toll: 115 139

Why is Canada in Afghanistan?

Here is a synopsis of the reasons we have been given since 2001:

The mission is necessary to protect Canadians from the threat posed by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

Prorogation!

nick — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 01:06:59 -0800

Now that the Canadian parliament is on a 6 week vaca, I figured I would share some observations. I'd love to get into how this all happened in the first place, and all the things that are wrong with the system, but that wouldn't accomplish anything.

The Politicians (aka: the circus clowns)

Let's be critical!

nick — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:54:43 -0800

The following are basic guidelines to critical thinking:

1. Ask questions; be willing to wonder.

Always be on the lookout for questions that have not been answered in the textbooks, by the experts in the field or by the media. Be willing to ask "what's wrong here?" and/or "Why is this the way it is, and how did it come to be that way?"

2. Define the problem.

An inadequate formulation of question can produce misleading or incomplete answers. Ask neutral questions that don't presuppose answers.

I love my iPhone

nick — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:35:21 -0700

Well I was finally able to really use the GPS capabilities of the iPhone and I'm really impressed. For one, I was really happy that the GPS features didn't literally need a straight shot to the sky. A car roof or something similar doesn't render the GPS useless. (i think it updates a little less) The Maps app updated very smoothly when I had a straight shot skywards (many times a second) and went down to maybe once every 2 seconds when a car roof was in the way.

Gerd Leonhard is a smart dude

nick — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:10:13 -0700

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about where the web is going and more specifically the complete shift that has occurred in digital distribution and advertising. I think of my parent's era and how different life would have been.
A coworker recently pointed me towards Gerd Leonhard's work, specifically an hour long presentation he made in London. Not only is it apparent that Gerd knows what he's talking about, but he brings some clarity and insight into what's happening right now in web culture.

Canada on Mars!

nick — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:23:18 -0700

Once again we have ridden the coat-tails of the US into space. This time, the CSA contributed this weather station to the Phoenix lander.
Lots more cool mission-to-Mars stuff here.

AS2 Utility functions

admin — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 20:18:40 -0700

I know this is late coming, but I remember wishing that as2 had php-like functions such as str_replace(), addslashes(), md5(), etc. Well now it does.
Just include this .as using the compiler directive and look through the documentation to see what functions are available. Of course this is a work in progress and could use some cleanup.