In depth: How Rovio made Angry Birds a winner (and what's next)

Rovio definitely struck gold with Angry Birds. It will be interesting to see how well their leading title merges with mainstream media in the coming months.

(Via Wired UK)

Amount of profanity in git commit messages per programming language

I'm a winner

March 1st, 2011

I recently gave an oral presentation of my senior design research for a campus wide student research day, and won for my category (Computer Science). It’s kind of a big deal to me. Participants in my category even included two graduate students, so I’m definitely feeling a huge since of accomplishment at the moment. It’s actually the second time I’ve given the presentation, the first being for my senior design class. But being judged by complete strangers made the since of accomplishment feel more legit. There’s actually a chance that I’ll be chosen to represent my campus at the statewide CSU research competition –  we’ll see though. Regardless, I’m good as it stands.

What We Pay For

See where your tax dollars are really going.

Richland Farms in Compton: Close-knit families farm in Compton's core

A true hidden gem in the entirety of Los Angeles County.

Better than human? What's next for Jeopardy! computer

Interesting read on Watson the IBM super-computer. It’s pretty amazing the technological achievement this is, and kind of crazy at the same time that’s this is only the beginning.

Use Applescript to copy files from a shared folder with ease and without duplicates

February 10th, 2011

Recently I’ve begun to share a folder on Dropbox with some friends in which the contents are constantly changing without notice. The problem that arose for me when I viewed the shared folder is that I often couldn’t remember which files I’d already snatched up and which one’s I had not. I initially did the logical thing which was to go my local folder and compare it’s contents against the contents of the shared folder. But as the contents changed more quickly, the task became just too tedious. As a result, I made this simple Applescript as a time saver – Enjoy.

tell application "Finder"
	
	#change the text between double quotes to the folder for which you want
	#your new files copied FROM
	#ex. "Macintosh HD:Users:your_name_here:your_folder_here"
	set srcLocation to "Macintosh HD:Users:jbattle:dropbox:music:"
	set list_all_srcFiles to name of every file of folder srcLocation
	set list_all_srcFolders to name of every folder of folder srcLocation
	
	#change the text between double quotes to the folder for which you want
	#your new files copied TO
	#ex. "Macintosh HD:Users:your_name_here:your_folder_here"
	set destLocation to "Macintosh HD:Users:jbattle:music:iTunes:iTunes Music:"
	set list_all_destFiles to name of every file of folder destLocation
	set list_all_destFolders to name of every folder of folder destLocation
	
	repeat with current_file in list_all_srcFiles
		if list_all_destFiles contains current_file then
			#do nothing
		else
			tell application "Finder" to duplicate srcLocation & current_file to folder destLocation
		end if
	end repeat
	
	repeat with current_folder in list_all_srcFolders
		if list_all_destFolders contains current_folder then
			#do nothing
		else
			tell application "Finder" to duplicate srcLocation & current_folder to folder destLocation
		end if
	end repeat
	
	say "Your local copy is current"
	
end tell

Instructions for installation and configuration:

1. Download the script to a location on your computer you can remember
2. Open the script file
3. Modify the line that reads “set destLocation…” per the comments in the code
4. Modify the line that reads “set srcLocation…” per the comments in the code
5. Click File > Save
6. Close the script
7. Move the script to the ~/Library/Scripts

You’re done. To run your script, select the script from the script menu bar icon and you haven’t wasted any time.

Note: For this script to work, folders for the srcLocation and destLocation must exist.

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Get Your Music Off of Your iPod - Wired How-To Wiki

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This is the web right now - The Oatmeal

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