4+1: episode 9

I recently discovered that two more of my friends are actually reading (and — gulp! — enjoying) this blog series, so pressure is on :) Guess I have to start aiming for the 1000 first true fans.

Each visit to Tahoe is always a treat

1. Airbnb design team has made a system that converts pen + paper wireframes into code. Now, I really wish they open-source this, since one of the main bottlenecks I’ve found with building front-end apps is converting my notepad designs into layout code.
2. A question on HN made me think which CS papers are worth reading (and even more importantly, revisiting). For me, Lampson’s “Hints” paper is definitely in the top-3 and it’s a paper that all computer systems designers should revisit.
3. On a recent bachelor party trip to Tahoe, we discussed a bit about intermittent fasting (IF)(yeah, the trip was Hangover-sequel material). In short, in a very 80/20 fashion, IF tries to reap the majority of the benefits of actual fasting, without being overly imposing on the day-to-day lifestyle. Specifically, you limit the time window in a day that you eat (8–10 hours), which pushes the body to reach a “fasting” state in the remainder of the 24 hours. For more info, check out Dr. Rhonda Patrick, who has been discussing extensively the benefits of fasting. YouTube also has a bunch of good content on the topic. If you want to experiment with IF, checkout the Zero app (iOS only for now) by Kevin Rose.
4. A question from Wayne Chang on twitter is one that probably hits home for everyone. It appears that there’s a startup that’s already working on a solution to this. I’m sure more sophisticated blockchain-based solutions will arise for this, but this is a great first step. OTOH, doesn’t PayPal already do this (i.e. provide a level of indirection/virtualization)? Maybe if they’d introduced a familiar medium (physical card) earlier, they would have won this game.
5. Even though I’ve long been a huge fan of the Porsche 911, I only recently found out about the 40th anniversary version of the 911. To honor the model’s 40th birthday, in 2003 Porsche made a special edition of the (semi-hated) 996 model. They limited the production to only 1963 cars, as a symbol to the 911’s birthday in 1963.