Yes, MQL really was an eloquent query language, especially when writing JavaScript for the browser. For the curious, most of the documentation seems to be gone, but there are a few examples here: https://github.com/nchah/freebase-mql#mql-and-graphql
(Note the graphd release doesn't include the MQL query engine)
My 4-year-old is really into The Foos app. In the beginning he was just messing around but after a month or two he's really getting it. I was wondering what to use next, thanks for the list!
The article presents some great 'explorable explanations' by (or inspired by) Bret Victor.
This really does seem like the future of communicating hard concepts.
At high school I would often write BBC Basic simulations of the dull problems we had been given as homework. I was so much more passionate when I was exploring and learning myself.
> This really does seem like the future of communicating hard concepts.
If we take into account that programming is considered as a way to communicate hard concepts, this should be seen as the future of software development as well. And of hardware tools, and design, and public on-stage performances...
Bret Victor's vision of active exploration is not limited to communication and learning, but all to all creative activities.
I highly recommend the Handmade Hero series referred to in this blog post. I've been following the archives on YouTube (at 2x speed). Casey Muratori is an engaging presenter and I'm rediscovering my love of low-level programming.
If you're interested in more gory details feel free to email me at mike at tophatmonocle dot com.
For what it's worth, we're an angel funded startup with some extremely bright hackers and we were signing praises about the App Engine until about 3 months in, when we started hitting it's various brick walls.
Click through the various items with green checkmarks to see the actual data that GAE considers "no significant issues." Including fun stuff like 80% datastore error rates.
There might be some problems but it's great to know that Google system administrators (instead of me) are taking care of it. When I hosted my application on EC2 twice I almost lost all my files due to hardware problems. I had to spend all night preparing a new server, not funny. There are no servers to fail in App Engine, I love that!
The slider serves as a simple privacy reminder on your home page. It only takes a few moments at youropenbook.org to make it clear that many people could benefit from such a reminder.
It's not the intention that you would interact with the slider frequently. If you drag it to a different setting a dialog box would popup and explain exactly what the consequences would be.
Most people would be happy with simple privacy settings, and there's still a customize link for the power user.
"Full disclosure" is a discussion about the ethics of publishing an exploit. Publishing exploits is customarily done in a descriptive manner -- I've never seen it done by publicly sharing the spoils of using that exploit.
Did you try publicizing it without the full identifying data available and measuring the response? Did you consider a strategy of escalating outrageousness, instead of going straight for this course of action?
What about automatically contacting the affected users first, and attempt to rouse them to action?
I'm sorry to be so harsh in a public forum, but when someone takes it upon himself to say that the affected lives are going to suffer for a good cause, then he'd better accompany the resulting campaign with a very thorough -- and thoroughly-vetted -- piece of argument explaining exactly why the ethical balance is in his favor. Two guys deciding they'd get more pageviews by going with plan A, and leaving the moral debate for blog commenters after the fact is not a thorough vetting.
There were already numerous forces at play which could potentially result in FB getting things straight. Your app won't have accomplished anything that wouldn't otherwise have been accomplished, except perhaps to cause a few more people to suffer.
(Note the graphd release doesn't include the MQL query engine)