Peter Vidani: Archive

“Lap after lap a driver experiences g-forces comparable to an astronaut during launch (seriously!). Perhaps the best example of this comes at the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul, where drivers encounter the legendary quadruple-apex Turn 8 (translation: in racing, a driver will brake on his or her approach to a turn, swing wide before entering, then aim the nose towards the innermost spot in the turn before slamming down the accelerator and motoring out towards the wide side to make the fastest possible exit; that tight spot on the inside of a turn is the apex). Turkey's Turn 8 is 600m long and drivers take it at 160mph, pulling 5.2 lateral gs for 8.5 seconds, all the while getting hammered by back-and-forth by positive and negative vertical g-forces as the car bounces over the turn's bumpy washboard section before being promptly sucked back down on the track by the car's downforce (compare: astronauts max out at around 3gs during launch). And F1 drivers do this 58 times a race, all while maintaining the necessary concentration to pilot the most advanced pieces of machinery on the road.” —These Cars Turn Right! Become a Formula One Fan This Weekend by Matt Langer

“Start as close to the end as possible.” —

Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

I think this can mean “don’t create a journey” for yourself. Don’t be romantic about accomplishing your goals.

When someone says you should do voice work in cartoons, they’re politely asking you to leave.

This morning an asshole told me they’re turning my apartment into a restaurant when my lease is up in September. He said this because I asked him if we could put a water line in the downstairs closet for a washing machine, and he said no, because “We’re converting your apartment into a restaurant when your lease is up. When is your lease up?”

I haven’t been sad in a long time, fortunately, but this breaks our hearts. Since we first saw the place eight months ago we’ve imagined ourselves living there for a long time. It’s our favorite place to be.

On the train ride in this morning I could only think of things I could have said. Something to make my case, something to hurt him personally, something like throwing a chair at him.

Plainly, it hurts to have something taken away from you.

Michael Fagan was an intruder who broke into Buckingham Palace and entered Elizabeth II’s bedchamber in the early hours of 9 July 1982. The unemployed father of four children managed to evade electronic alarms as well as both palace and police guards.

It was the 32-year-old’s second successful attempt to break into Buckingham Palace. On his first attempt, he scaled a drainpipe, briefly startling a housemaid who called security, who subsequently decided not to act. Fagan entered through an unlocked window on the roof and spent the next half hour eating cheddar cheese and crackers and wandering around.

Seems alright.

My Prayer Roy Orbison

Roy Orbison - My Prayer

Peter: cool 8-)
Peter: PETER, OUT.
topherchris: @peter shut the fuck up

Can’t believe there still isn’t a children’s cereal with little cannolis in it.

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“People send a million rumors my way every week, so I only bust out the keyboard when I have information that I think deserves to be shared.” —This guy puts away his keyboard when he’s not using it.

“5. Messing with Tumblr themes is one of the best ways to learn web design.” —

The Tangential

Where else on the web can you get thousands of users overnight? Thousands of people distributing something with your name on it.

It taught me how to make scalable designs and how to handle support.

The Antlers - No widows (live at NPR's SXSW Showcase)

The Antlers — No Widows (Live at NPR’s SXSW Showcase)

Two years ago today I moved to New York to work at Tumblr. Easiest decision of my life. I get to work with the smartest people in the world and contribute to my favorite thing on the web. Thank you everyone :)

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cameronmoll:

Jonathan Snook:

CSS3 introduces a few new units, including the rem unit, which stands for “root em”. If this hasn’t put you to sleep yet, then let’s look at how rem works.

The em unit is relative to the font-size of the parent, which causes the compounding issue. The rem unit is relative to the root—or the html—element. That means that we can define a single font size on the html element and define all rem units to be a percentage of that.

This is golden. Sizing with em can be a nightmare because of how it’s sized in relation to the parent element. With rem being based on the root element, it’s the best of both worlds — the relativeness of em with the reliability of px.

Browser support includes Safari 5, Chrome, Firefox 3.6+, and even IE9. At the end of his article, Jonathan provides a fallback at the end for older versions of browsers.

This is what em should have been all along. I’ll stick to px though.