Blog Posts

Do you have a favorite mustard? I do!

Superbowl Social Media

Here’s a really interesting article about how the Superbowl used Social Mediato enhance the experience: > “An exclusive, in-depth look into the Super Bowl’s first ...

Selling course notes: a market solution

Should it be ok for students to take notes during a class and turn them into a marketable product that they make money on? If I am teaching the same class again this year, students could buy the course notes and potentially do better, or learn more. That’s a good thing, right? However is i...

Compelling: 23 and 1/2 hours

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo&w=560&h=315]

Elections: Hand counts are NOT the gold standard

There is always a good deal of controversy surrounding elections and in particular, whether an election is ‘fair’ or not. As I have been working on a project with the Open Source Digital Voting FoundationI’ve been exposed to this from time to time. This controversy arise...

Software Developer Meat Market

An interesting article in Forbes about Software Developers and Development in general, The Rise of Developeronomics. While here and there he is promoting old chestnuts which may or may not be true there is a core ar...

Is your software developer any good?

Are you thinking about hiring a software developer to build your system? Here are “8 Things You Ought to Know If You Do Not Know Anything About Hiring a Software Developer“. He says: > “I did not come to this in...

Customer vs. Consultant: Excellent advice

From an article called “Effective Customer Consultant Relationships”: > “As a customer, how can you get the most out of your consultants? As a consultant, how can you deliver what your customers rea...

Is Amazon using Wish List entries to pre-position inventory?

This happened: I had a book on my Amazon wish list for several months. Yesterday, I finally placed the order at around 3pm and today the book is in my hands, just about 24 hours later. And this is with regular Prime shipping, which is supposedly two days. I wonder. Amazon is **...

What is one life worth?

A fascinating article, which is hard to disagree with, although the conclusion is a little counter-intuitive: > “Imagine that the captain of a $5 billion aircraft carrier let his ship sink rather than allow seven volunte...

Funny: Shit they say in Sillycon Valley

Funny insider lingo. I am sure you’d be able to do a similar video for Washington DC (politics) and L.A. (movies) and Kendal Square (Biotech). My word is computers. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8zFANeBGQ]

What do you think of people who insist on saying “AN historic”?

I know (at least I believe) that, for example, “… Scott Brown and I reached an historic agreement…” is correct, and that “… Scott Brown and I reached a historic agreement …” would be incorrect. But I can’t help hearing it as “snooty” and “smarty pants”. I know, it’s my problem 🙂

Why is AT&T talking to me in Hebrew bullets?

I just received this notification from AT&T. Pretty innocuous, but, what’s up with using Hebrew letters as bullets? Odd.

Orthodoxy

I’d be the last one to wade into commentary on religious topics, so I just share this link because for me it was interesting reading: > “For those who are committed to being a shomer Torah, I leave you with th...

Windows 8: Getting a new filesystem

I don’t pay much attention to Microsoft and Windows these days. I admit it, I am a hardcore Mac and Linux user, more comfortable in the unix shell than I ever was at a Dos prompt. It’s easy to forget the layers and layers and layers of complexity that exist in any operating system nowadays, even a ...

Support your local bookstore

I have a warm spot in my heart for independent bookstores, as such a store paid for my college education. My family business was a bookstore. It is no longer around however, having gone out of business years ago. Blame Amazon? Secondly, I read lots of books, and own even more. (Yes ...

Keeping emails and security under control

Do you receive tons of notification emails form your various subscriptions or social sites like Twitter and Facebook and the others? Have you thought about the impact on your productivity all these teasers are? Well, you might have forgotten (or are you too busy to figure out) how to manage or shut...

Fibonacci series and Photography

You can’t be a self-respecting computer or science geek and not have heard about the Fibonacci series. You know, 1-1-2-3-5-8… etc. How about Fibonacci’s Ratio? How about the Golden Mean or the Divine Proportion? Not sure, right? Fibonacci, and its role in art, design and photography is a little les...

Information Diet: Focus

While I am in the mood to reveal some of my weaknesses (see post on Dietingtwo days ago) let’s talk about information overload. I employ various tools and tricks to make sure I can focus on what is important to me and shut o...

Designed As Designer

If you are interested in design and especially design and architecture of software, and you have a philosophical bent, you will enjoy this essay… I can’t even attempt to summarize it’s content, and even the abstract from the paper itself is quite inscrutable: > “Conceptual integrity arises not (si...