links for 2010-08-13

By popular demand, I'm here to present a little bit of a how-to on making realistic specimens in jars. Before we begin though, let me point out that this is not going to be a really cheap project. The materials and processes can get kinda pricey, but it definitely shows through in the finished product.

HTML5 Boilerplate is the professional badass's base HTML/CSS/JS template for a fast, robust and future-proof site.
After more than two years in iterative development, you get the best of the best practices baked in: cross-browser normalization, performance optimizations, even optional features like cross-domain ajax and flash. A starter apache .htaccess config file hooks you the eff up with caching rules and preps your site to serve HTML5 video, use @font-face, and get your gzip zipple on.
Boilerplate is not a framework, nor does it prescribe any philosophy of development, it's just got some tricks to get your project off the ground quickly and right-footed.

So I happened upon squaredesign site and was impressed by their trippy background squares that responded to mouse movement (tutorial here).

This is the result of all the weekend playing with various drawing algorithms an

Create a maze from a 8×8 LED matrix

Those of you who follow @EurekaWriters on Twitter might be aware that a hostage situation recently played out in our writers office.  Specifically, the last piece in our 1500 piece puzzle depicting a map of the night sky was stolen and cruelly held for ransom.  Now that the ordeal is over, the story can finally be told.

First, a little back-story.  Puzzles were introduced to the Eureka offices by our intrepid Executive Producer, Bruce Miller.  The idea is that when you're stuck on a story problem, sometimes a little brain break is just the thing you need to let a new idea shake loose.  Working on a jigsaw puzzle is a great way to spend a few minutes not thinking about story, but still keeping the brain active.  We almost always have a puzzle is set up in the kitchen so that anyone can wander through and spend a few minutes indulging their inner OCD.