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An Embarrassing “Speech”

2

01.02.2010

I just stumbled across something horrifying in my closet …

When I was in grade 6 — which was exactly 10 years ago (’99-’00) I wrote a ‘speech’ on what I then called ‘Web Building’. I’m going to have to ponder whether or not I post scans of it or transcribe it, because after reading it I feel like ENDING IT ALL. I’m glad we weren’t marked on the factual content of this speech, because I would have failed, had the teacher decided to go to “geocity.com”.

“H.T.M.L. is everything! Literally everything! Its the whole website!”

Perhaps more rich than the atrocious written speech (which I probably read, word for word) is the peer feedback forms that are attached to it. One surprising highlight:

Would you like to learn more about this subject? If so, what?
“Yes I would like to learn more about how you advertise your site.” – Kevin

I wonder if he does anything with Marketing now …

There was also an anti-drug poem in the binder containing grade six stuff. This thing will never see the light of day again. “Do you think smoking’s rad? /  To think that you’ve got to be mad!”.

New Fav Book: The Visual Miscellaneum

2

12.26.2009

If you are a fan of infographics, graphic design, or need a fun book for a coffee table — this is the book for you. Frankly if I saw this in the store and flipped through it I probably would have bought it right then and there based solely on the bright and fun colours inside.

The Visual Miscellaneum

The Visual Miscellaneum

There are a few instances where gutters appear to have been ignored, so you end up with illegible text or a graphic might be harder to read. This is a fairly minor issue in an otherwise fantastic book.

I give it five arbitrary stars!

More at http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

Creating Instances from the Library with Strings

0

12.20.2009

Problem: while working on an AS3 document you uncover an unusual situation in which you have a string class name that corresponds to something in the library. How does one do it?

I’ve come across this a number of times and found myself dropboxing this snippet so I would always have it with me …

import flash.utils.*;

/**
 * Takes a string classname, returns an instance of that class, if it exists.
 */
private function newInstanceFromString(className:String):*{
    try{
        var classRef:Class = getDefinitionByName(className) as Class;
        return new classRef();
    } catch( e:ReferenceError ){
        trace('Error: there was a problem creating an instance of the "'+className+'" class. Check your library and linkage to ensure it\'s there.');
        trace(e+"\n");
    }
}

See the AS3 livedocs for more information about getDefinitionByName, the super helpful method that makes it all work.

Graphs

2

12.13.2009

Context

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