:nth Child's Play

The Wolf General web SystemJS [github/systemjs] is a universal dynamic module loader — it can handle ES6 moduels, AMD, CommonJS and more. Mozilla has its own JPEG encoder project [github/mozilla], with the aim being to speed up JPEG transfer times, and thus page loading times. Some more info here [calendar.perfplanet]. Speaking of JPEGs, here’s how to check if one is progressive [hiddentao]. Gulp Fiction [gulpfiction.divshot] is a perfectly-named tool that offers visual editing of gulp files. Gibber [gibber.mat.ucsb] is a coding environment for audio composition and performance. Z3d [github/nathanepstein] is a JavaScript library that works with Three.js to create 3D scatter plots. This is a really impressive JavaScript/WebGL terrain flyover demo [zephyrosanemos]. Here’s Jeff Atwood with some interesting/great thoughts on log-in UX [blog.codinghorror].

:nth Child’s Play Design Here’s a guide to abusing CSS3’s :nth-child selector to do cool/useful stuff [grack]. And here’s an article covering typography in email [rodriguezcommaj]. The first edition of Adaptive Web Design, a book looking at progressive enhancement online, is now free [adaptivewebdesign]. Lastly for this section, maybe the feed model of presenting content is broken[medium/tyrale].

Less is More SitePoint Plenty of new stuff went up on SitePoint over the weekend. First, we have a great video showing how Less can speed up your development process. Then we have an intro to the Beacon API, a very useful way to send small amounts of data back to the server asynchronously. Our design editor Alex Walker has a great piece on how, although it’s fun to bemoan the decline of conversation, smartphones aren’t to blame for antisocial behavior. If you like Alex’s style, you can sign up for his weekly Design newsletter (or any other newsletter) here. Also, we launched a new course: Introduction to HTML! Very useful for a bit of grounding in the basics! And there’s also a look at Kinetise, a new platform for building complex mobile apps on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

False Startup News/business Widely shared last week, here’s an account of how one hopeful startup crashed and burned in Y Combinator  [medium/backchannel]. Silk Road is back, and more secretive than ever  [motherboard.vice]. Speaking of secretive, here’s a look at what a leaked document tells us about Palantir [techcrunch], the low-profile data-mining company whose clients include law enforcement agencies. Here’s a video giving a rare look inside Google’s data centers [youtube/googleforwork]. Warning: features a lot of fan noise. Pick [pick] is an app aimed at making scheduling meetings effortless.

Heardit Off-topic Upvoted is the official Reddit podcast [reddit/upvoted], which is either great news or horrible news, depending on your stance towards the site. Clearly bored, NASA is now just throwing robots into volcanoes [nasa], pretty much just showing off. hn_collapse [github/hn_collapse] is a Chrome extension to collapse all comments on Hacker News threads. The time you'll save!

That's it for us today — we're going to spend the rest of the day playing on our phones, 'cos Alex said it was OK. See you tomorrow!