Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

Posts for 2017

11 Oct 2017, 11:13 a.m.

Hello City Limits, I See Your Sign, Left Your Dystopia Way Behind

A joking-around conversation from a recent conference, from memory and condensed. A: "I saw the eclipse in Nashville." B: "Oh I'm from Nashville!" A: "Oh cool! Did you see it there too!" B: "No, I …

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02 Oct 2017, 16:45 p.m.

Code Review, Forwards And Back

This Friday, at PyGotham, Jason Owen and I are co-presenting "Code Review, Forwards and Back". This is not a standard technical conference talk. It's a 25-minute play, basically a one-act.   The setting: an office …

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21 Sep 2017, 8:16 a.m.

A Misheard Moxy Früvous Lyric, Corrected

Sometime around 1999 or 2001, I first heard "King of Spain" by Moxy Früvous. The UC Berkeley a cappella group DeCadence performed it during one of their lunchtime concerts near Sather Gate. (Four out of …

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18 Sep 2017, 13:35 p.m.

Supporting Int 1696-2017 for Source Code Transparency in New York City

The principle at stake in California v. Johnson: due process requires that we be able to examine the evidence used to convict someone. Kern County got a $200,000+ grant and started using closed-source software to …

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18 Sep 2017, 11:01 a.m.

On Noticing That Your Project Is Draining Your Soul

I was talking with a fellow consultant about what to do if you have a gig getting you down. Especially when you realize that the client isn't being helpful, and there's a bunch of learning …

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07 Sep 2017, 9:43 a.m.

In Black

Grabbing a book to read, thought I was grabbing Johnny Cash's autobiography, was actually grabbing Jonathan Zittrain's The Future Of The Internet And How To Stop It. I'd like to code a rainbow every day …

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05 Sep 2017, 15:38 p.m.

From Conversation

A few recent thoughts. The power of "instead": One of the transdisciplinary lessons from Agile is that it's harder for most people to specify "this is what I need" than to look at a suggested …

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26 Aug 2017, 13:37 p.m.

Choice, Habit, and Sunlight

Years ago, when advising me on how to change a habit, Mel Chua told me about the stages of behavior-rewiring. And the first step is noticing. Mindfulness. Not just about the reflex, but about whatever …

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27 Jun 2017, 14:52 p.m.

Learning To Get Around In Java

One of Changeset Consulting's clients is working on modernizing a legacy web application; we're improving both its structural underpinnings and its user interface and outgoing APIs. It is like we are Chief O'Brien in the …

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13 Jun 2017, 10:41 a.m.

Transparency And Accountability In Government Forensic Science

In February, I learned that the New York State Assembly was planning a public hearing on government oversight of forensic science laboratories, and then was invited to offer ten minutes of testimony and then answer …

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