April 2012
2 posts
Anonymous asked: Hi Tim! How are you?
Apr 6th
Anonymous asked: Im sorry but was unable to get this code running i.e. extracting 6 lines of python code. Do we need to enter anything else apart from the code and the text.
Apr 6th
March 2012
1 post
SendHub: Single Page Web Apps with Backbone.js →
sendhub: About a month ago, we decided that we needed to give the front-end of sendhub.com a face-lift. The site looked a bit dated, and it just didn’t feel as snappy as we wanted it to. All pages were rendered almost entirely on the server, and only a couple of places used Ajax to pull in data…
Mar 15th
17 notes
November 2011
1 post
Nov 8th
1,301 notes
June 2011
1 post
7 tags
Dropbox, Wuala, Spideroak - Free online backup...
This post, we’ll be comparing three online backup providers: Dropbox, Wuala & Spideroak. Dropbox has recently encountered security problems, so what else is there? If you notice any inaccuracies, please send through any corrections and I’ll update the post. Overview  DropboxWualaSpideroakFree tier2GB1GB2GBOS...
Jun 25th
11 notes
May 2011
3 posts
5 tags
Three easy ways to get into the Semantic Web
So, you’ve been curious about this whole Semantic Web thing. Perhaps you would like search engines to put useful things up next to your links when someone searches for you. Maybe you’re interested by the possibility that smart bots could track down information from across the web via Linked Data to provide Internet users with the most up-to-date information possible from its original...
May 27th
1 note
6 tags
Easy Competitor Analysis with Twitter
Twitter has Search To get a sense of a competitor’s level of engagement, http://search.twitter.com is a great tool. To begin, just add a user’s name in the search bar. You’ll be greeted with every message to and from that account within the last 3 or so days. The search interface makes it very simple to see exactly who is talking to your target company, what they are talking...
May 2nd
3 tags
How could the Left come back this year?
I’ve noticed lots of angst in New Zealand’s Left. I don’t agree with it all. However, I’m really concerned that the next Parliament will be close to dysfunctional with lots of splinter parties. A strong Opposition will be vital to ensuring that the powers have recently been granted to the executive for Christchurch’s recovery are limited. I haven’t heard hear...
May 2nd
April 2011
13 posts
Apr 28th
31 notes
Worried about peer-to-peer file sharing? Here's a... →
Apr 17th
Apr 17th
Apr 15th
204 notes
http://unsuck-it.com →
If you hate jargon and want a laugh, this is for you.
Apr 15th
31 notes
Apr 14th
28 notes
Unconfirmed reports of 12 car pile-up in the...
jackyan: henrycooke: Fuck. More on Stuff soon. If true, I am not surprised. The sign says 60 but I frequently get tailgaters or overtakers there. Folks, it’s 60 for a reason. Someone might have started a chain reaction, and that is not cool for the innocent, careful motorists who got caught up in this.
Apr 14th
4 notes
6 tags
Getting content to properly display in Facebook...
One of the strangest bugs I’ve had to deal with was ensuring that content was “likeable” and “shareable” on Facebook. The Ushahidi platform is an amazing tool for sourcing data from the crowd in crisis situations. However, when we deployed it for eq.org.nz, there was a problem. When someone tried to share the link on Facebook, the blurb looked something like this: ...
Apr 14th
benhealey asked: Hi Tim,
I saw your presentation last night on NLP and Python. I had to leave straight afterward, but thought you'd be interested in these related sites I found recently (I'm not involved in either, just sharing).
- http://extractiv.com/
- http://topicmarks.com/

Cheers,
Ben
@BenHealey
Apr 13th
5 tags
Quick Tips for Developing for the Mobile Web
Here, we’re looking at building websites that can cater for both ‘normal’ users as well as mobile devices. Prepare for interruptions Your application is not the only thing that your user will be doing. The most basic element of crafting a GUI application, that’s different from the web is making sure that there is an effective pause mode. Make sure that your code and data...
Apr 11th
2 notes
“There were more people who believed in the English Crown at the time of the...”
– Lawrence Lessig
Apr 10th
4 tags
The Cloud: what it is, where it came from & why it...
This post focuses on broadly why people are telling you that the cloud is the future of the world. I want to clarify things for you. I feel that there’s lots of confusion around this area. I can’t speak for others, but when I first heard it, I wondered whether the term “cloud computing” sounded like some form of euphemism. What is the cloud? There are two senses of...
Apr 9th
“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose...”
– JFK
Apr 3rd
March 2011
8 posts
Mar 30th
9 tags
Mar 24th
9 notes
ListenMission Accomplished http://eq.org.nz will be...
Mar 10th
3 tags
http://eq.org.nz is helping, here's proof
I received an email this evening from a group called Wifi for Humanity. It left me speechless: Tim, please pass on to volunteers just how incredibly helpful the eq.org.nz recovery map site has been. Since I arrived back in Christchurch on Monday, I was pointed to this site directly from any Christchurch search on Google and have continued to check the maps innumerable times when looking for...
Mar 6th
1 note
3 tags
Christchurch - A personal overview of 5 March 2011
Morning The day started with a delayed flight. I wasn’t sure whether that was an omen for things to come. However, the flight itself was great. I was given great service from Air New Zealand staff, a wonderful seat and because I was on a smaller, slower, lower-flying plane (that had been put on to deal with the extra capacity), I had some time to take in the wonder of the South...
Mar 5th
19 notes
Mar 4th
Officials Briefing: Christchurch Recovery Map
This morning, Land Information NZ is hosting an information and training session. The first 15mins will be an overview of the system, whereas the last 15mins will provide a nuts-and-bolts look at how the system operates. Officials are welcome to depart after the first segment. Session details: Level 11, Lambton House 160 Lambton Quay Wellington 10:30am - 11am Please RSVP to John Forne...
Mar 2nd
Fair Go promoting http://eq.org.nz! →
Mar 2nd
February 2011
9 posts
3 tags
Want to help keep Christchurch residents...
Training for http://eq.org.nz/ at Optimal Usability’s office tonight from 5pm Last week’s earthquake has caused terrible havoc. You can be a small part of restoring normality to people. The Christchurch Recovery Map, at http://eq.org.nz/, allows people to send in status reports via txt, email and SMS. With the help of many others, the site has reached 100,000 page views in a week and...
Feb 28th
Project Update for the Christchurch Recovery Map
This update contains lots of information. That’s because it was a great day for the project. It was our first face to face meetup, which was really cool. http://eq.org.nz continues to strengthen. Thanks again to all of the volunteers for making this such a great service. Contents Nat Torkington Interview Tearfund NZ approaches us TV 3 news as admins Development changes Printed maps...
Feb 25th
4 tags
“http://eq.org.nz volunteers have processed 138,446 tweets for #eqnz so far”
Feb 23rd
3 tags
http://eq.org.nz what it is, how to help
I’ve been coordinating http://eq.org.nz/ a site supporting Christchurch’s earthquake recovery. This email explains what the site has been doing and how to help if you would like to. About the site Things that we have received feedback on: a diabetic has thanked us for telling her where to get her insulin parents finding out where they can buy food reporting that some petrol...
Feb 23rd
1 note
3 tags
Christchurch Earthquake - How to Help
New Zealand has been hit by an event so severe that it has triggered something that used to be thought of as a theoretical possibility. A state of national emergency has been declared for the first time. We have several international USAR/US&R teams providing support. However, the city’s infrastructure is in a terrible state. If you would like to keep in touch with developments - here...
Feb 23rd
6 notes
4 tags
Help Needed for #eqnz: media monitors & moderators...
We’re building a map of the city & would love status updates. We’re collecting tweets & emails. What we need is to find people willing to read through material. If there’s a fact & a location in there, to put it on the map. The system supports If we can get sufficient numbers of people to read & update them, we can open up a txt code for people to report info...
Feb 21st
4 tags
Debugging regular expressions in Python
Regular expressions are annoying. I just discovered a gem within NLTK (the Natural Language Toolkit) for the Python programming language. It has it’s own regexp debugger: >>> import nltk >>> nltk.re_show("a", "I hate regular expressions") I h{a}te regul{a}r expressions
Feb 11th
Me talking about #OLPC XO & the Sugar Learning... →
Feb 3rd
2 tags
"Tourist's guide to natural language processing"
I’ve put together a proposal to talk on natural language processing with Python. Would love your views on what should be included as content. If you’re in Wellington and would like to attend, feel free to turn up to the Wellington Python user group meeting on Thursday next this week. I’ll have some time to build the talk together over the weekend. I want to know what’s...
Feb 3rd
2 notes
January 2011
12 posts
Kiwi PyCon 2011 →
Keep up to date with Kiwi PyCon announcements via LinkedIn.
Jan 24th
Jan 17th
1 note
5 tags
“/usr/share/dict/web2”
– A file with 234,936 English words, from Webster’s Second International dictionary (1934).
Jan 16th
2 notes
3 tags
Even when the bank loses, it wins
I was initially surprised to see an increase in bank accounts that have zero fees. An example includes the National Bank’s Freedom Account. The account will waive all fees, so long as $2,500/m is deposited into it. You could put this down to competition or the reduced cost of business in an Internet-era. However, I don’t think it’s either of those. Perfect competition produce...
Jan 14th
Jan 13th
Jan 10th
3 tags
Jan 8th
4 tags
Extracting names with 6 lines of Python code
One of the tasks in natural language processing is identifying things like organisations, people and locations from text. In computational linguistics, this is known as “Named Entity Recognition”. Like most natural language processing, it’s a task that seems easy at first but quickly becomes really difficult. Here is a recipe that provides pretty good results in six lines of...
Jan 7th
4 notes
3 tags
Hot tip for YouTube
You can provide a link to specific seconds. Add a #t=[num]s suffix to the url: Here’s a demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keXW_5-llD0#t=2586s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keXW_5-llD0
Jan 7th
Jan 6th
4 tags
“Newsflash: You’ll be vegetarian in 20 years- meat will be too expensive”
Jan 4th
1 note
9 tags
Why JavaScript will rule the world
This article discusses a few reasons why JavaScript will become the programming language for everything. The main driver discussed is the move towards cloud computing. Depending on one’s perspective, users are either first or second class citizens as a result of this movement towards JavaScript. I’ll try to cover a few arguments and then come to some conclusions near the end. Reason...
Jan 2nd
3 notes