React Native at WalmartLabs

The engineering team at WalmartLabs has been switching their (hybrid) web views to React Native: The data we’ve gathered is promising. It has shown that React Native is indeed a viable solution for mobile applications big and small. In the areas of graphical performance, RAM usage, and CPU, every measure we took was comparable to …

Facebook Live Reactions

Facebook Live Reactions is a Linux script for creating Facebook Live Streams that contains interactive reaction counts. It also includes an interactive shoutout feature that gives live shoutouts to users who typed “shared” into the comment box. The livestreaming itself is handled through ffmpeg; whilst PHP takes care of the counting of all reactions and …

Text-wrapping, hyphenation, emojis and what not

Earlier today I ran some tests to see how text-wrapping/hyphenation of long uninterrupted strings works in browsers. I tested both “normal” strings and strings of emojis. The tests (and its rendering results per browser) are stored on Codepen and embedded below: 💩 and ⚠️ behave differently (click to enlarge): These tests left me with some …

How the Circle Line rogue train was caught with data

Singapore GovTech data scientists share how they identified a rogue train as the cause of the recent MRT Circle Line disruptions: Singapore’s MRT Circle Line was hit by a spate of mysterious disruptions in recent months, causing much confusion and distress to thousands of commuters. From prior investigations by train operator SMRT and the Land …

Why Super Mario Run costs $9.99

Because you’re not nagged with screens like this: Nor screens like this: I’ve been playing Super Mario Run the past few days and haven’t regretted paying $9.99 to get the full version. Yes, that’s above average when compared to other apps, but at least you get a real game in return for it: A game …

Polyfill.io

Interesting service by Polyfill.io. Just include their polyfill.js file and it’ll include a set of polyfills specifically for the browser used: <script src="https://cdn.polyfill.io/v2/polyfill.min.js"></script> Polyfill.io reads the User-Agent header of each request and returns polyfills that are suitable for the requesting browser. This one could come in handy for older projects that have gathered some dust …

JavaScript30 – Build 30 things with vanilla JS in 30 days with 30 tutorials

Great, and free, video course by Wes Bos (whom you really should follow on Twitter). So, you’ve done a few courses and read a few books but still don’t feel great about your relationship with JavaScript. How do you get better? Build things. Lots of things. Build 1,000 things. Keep it up and don’t stop. …