This week, my MC Masala column talks about the trouble with directness. In software development, you find certain pairs of goals are aligned, like localization and internationalization. And some are opposed, like permissions systems and …
Make (the magazine) could have sister publications Do and Think, with a yearly compilation entitled Be. I have a huge constellation of thoughts about initiative, harshness, arrogance, stereotypical geek qualities, and vulnerability rolling around in …
The Domenech plagiarism scandal has been a field day for Salon, and a more hilarious one than its other recent scoop (censored torture photos from Abu Ghraib (in which they made efforts to protect the …
When you are insulting a piece of software in the "it is ugly" or "it sucks" manner, does it make sense to say "it has diabetes"? Or -- as a colleague suggested -- is mere …
"Welcome to the Internet UPC Database! One reason this site exists is for me to practice my own web development & database skills, experiment with new things, and to get a good laugh."
Not as tough as I'd feared. This is probably because I already took my GREs years ago, at my mom's and sister's insistence, and because I'm applying to various Executive Masters programs and not, say, …
"If you don't like it, file a bug with God." "That's it! The reason that bad things happen is that God doesn't have a copy of FogBugz."
"You could use Dissociated Press to generate the string and then reverse the tokens. Is 'tokens' the right word?" "Yes, it is." "YES!" "What's the singular of vermin?" Since people who arrive new and befuddled …
You know what's really depressing? When I could have been learning Lisp or Kannada or organic chemistry or the piano, I was watching multiple episodes of Full House Family Matters Punky Brewster Small Wonder Perfect …
Some peers of mine have been wondering whether any of the YCombinator startups actually cure pressing user needs. Leonard points out that reddit and infogami are cool, and that two successes out of eight attempts …
