Holy crap.

Speaking of kids and programming, the KidsRuby app (for Mac and Windows) lets kids write and run real, working code in the Ruby language and draw graphics using “Turtle graphics“. When I first learned to program, one environment used Turtle graphics. It’s a great way to introduce kids to the idea of structured commands and rules.

Speaking of getting more engineers, if you have any interest in learning to program, check out Codecademy, where you can learn the basics at your own pace. Encourage a kid to try it, and she may build the next iPhone, Facebook or Angry Birds.

Silicon Valley has a problem: not enough women or Black engineers. Black Girls Code is trying to kill both birds.

“Mystery Meat” refers to on-screen elements and features that are hidden until you click, tap or hover on them, or actions you have to perform without the help of on-screen guidance. Think right-clicking or tap-and-holding on an link in Safari to open it in a new tab ¹, or the pinch-and-zoom in iOS: until you learn about it, you don’t know it exists.

The new iPhoto app for iOS, released with the new iPad, as beautiful as it is, is filled with mystery meat UI. Lukas Mathias at Ignore the Code summarizes his iPhoto experience:

Touching and gesturing in different ways would make seemingly random things happen. I regularly unintentionally activated features, changed views, opened or closed pictures, and got iPhoto into states I wasn’t sure how to get out of again.

He gives several examples where the UI is simply inscrutable to new users, including my favorite:

There’s some on-screen help, but it’s mostly useless. For example, Apple’s help tells you to «touch and hold with two fingers to use the magnifying loupe.» But once you do that, there’s no further help or information! The loupe seems to support different zoom levels. How do you access them? I don’t know. Are there other features the loupe supports? I don’t know. Can you access the help system again, to get additional information? Nope, trying to do that just closes the loupe.

After experimenting and figuring it out (two fingers on the edge and rotate, like focusing a camera lens), it was a cool feature, but how was anyone supposed to know this ahead of time? As Lukas concludes:

It’s okay to have a few gestures that aren’t easily discoverable, if they are simple, universally applicable, and fun enough that people will teach them to each other. Pinch-to-zoom is one such gesture. Most people probably won’t discover it on their own, but it’s such a fun gesture that the people who know it will show it to those who don’t. It’s also easy to learn and remember, and it works pretty much everywhere, so pinching pictures quickly becomes second nature.

Unfortunately, iPhoto’s hidden gestures aren’t particularly fun, and they only work in iPhoto.

Asked whether Obama is Christian or Muslim, some 45 percent of Alabama Republican respondents picked Muslim; 14 percent correctly identified him as Christian. Another 41 percent said they were unsure. In Mississippi, a majority of Republicans, 52 percent, identified Obama as Muslim; 12 percent said he was Christian and 36 percent were undecided.

Brilliant extension arm keeps your iPad aligned with your iMac or Cinema Display screen.

With a trip to Kauai coming up soon, I may need to grab one or two of these. Might be perfect for underwater photos.

Indulge your fantasy to live somewhere else.

Silicone case in a rainbow of colors.