WebTorrent

WebTorrent is an implementation of the BitTorrent protocol that you can use in the browser via the magic of WebRTC. Kind of crazy, and 100% cooler than the frequently very cool chat and video chat apps I usually see when someone decides to do something neat with WebRTC. I listened to an interview on JSJ with the author Feross Aboukhadijeh, and ideas about what to do with it ranged from a peer-to-peer CDN to decrease bandwidth costs and load speeds for webapps to large file sharing via the browser.

The Secret of Kells

The Secret of Kells is an animated movie by Thomas Moore, following a fictional story about the creation of the famous Book of Kells. I actually saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College Dublin four years ago, so it was nice to get a bit more historical context around the time of it’s creation. I love Moore’s aesthetic as usual, it’s really enchanting.

18f

18f is a goverment entity (agency? department?) doing software developement, with open developement and assorted software developement best practices. You can actually view and contribute to their codebases on GitHub - the ones I’ve looked at have had pretty great contribution documentation and lots of GitHub issues to tackle. This is everything I have ever wanted out of public sector development of software; transparency to stakeholders (the general public), plus the opportunity to let the citizenry help make to software tools that benefit government effectiveness & efficiency.