Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

Posts for 2017

05 Apr 2017, 17:49 p.m.

The Rumpelstiltskin Fallacy

I sometimes sum up the lesson of a liberal arts education as: socially constructed things are real, too. And you are not immune from their effects, no matter how smart you are or whether you've …

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04 Apr 2017, 12:37 p.m.

How to Teach And Include Volunteers who Write Poor Patches

You help run an open source software community, and you've successfully signalled that you're open to new contributors, including people who aren't professional software engineers. And you've already got an easy developer setup process and …

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03 Apr 2017, 12:41 p.m.

A Small Language Note

I try not to say "don't get discouraged," because to me that sounds like telling someone not to cry or telling someone to calm down. It's a way of saying "stop feeling what you're feeling." …

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01 Apr 2017, 9:02 a.m.

Scifi Takes on Coen Brothers Movies

Leonard writes scifi novels, and one of them (that a publisher is currently considering) has the working title Situation Normal, a followup to the previous working title, Explosion of Honor. It's witty military scifi -- …

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16 Mar 2017, 17:37 p.m.

What Does An Award Do?

I posted on MetaFilter about the new Disobedience Award that MIT Media Lab is starting (nomination deadline: May 1st). And in the comments there, I stumbled into talking about why one might found an award, …

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07 Feb 2017, 10:18 a.m.

Upcoming Talks

I happened upon the New York state Assembly's website last week,* and noticed an upcoming hearing about "Government oversight of forensic science laboratories" (PDF), hearing oral testimony by invitation only. I wondered: Who's on the …

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