Blog Posts

February 2012

• 2012-02-04

  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 argument which is quite intriguing. It goes something like this:

  All companies are becoming software companies, meaning they are driven by software whatever their business actually is. Hence a key resource to a successful business is an effective, efficient and scalable capability to create innovative computer driven systems. Programmers are scarce. Hence the way to invest in the future is to culti...

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  #software-engineering #business
• 2012-02-03

  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 industry with a software background. I studied math, physics, business, then finance. But over the past 12 years or so, I have learned quite a bit about how to pick a software… “friend”. So let me share with you 8 things I would want to know if I was starting afresh.” (from “8 Things You Ought to Know If You Do Not Know Anything About Hiring a Software Developer“)

  Can I be your friend?

  #software-engineering
• 2012-02-03

  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 really want? I have been on both sides of this relationship and experienced both successful and unsuccessful results. In this post, I will go through the typical aspects of these types of relationships and identify action items that I have used to forge effective and lasting customer consultant relationships for both parties.” (from “Effective Customer Consultant Relationships”)

  If you are a tech consultant or are thinking of hiring one, this article has some excellent advice.

  #business #software-engineering
• 2012-02-02

  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 pretty clever. What if they used the presence of a book on wish lists as a clue to where to inventory the books, in effect pre-positioning them closer to the probable shipping destination. Wouldn’t that be clever?

  Of course a book on the wish list may or may not be ordered. And also, you wouldn’t preposition a single book in Massachusetts because Pito might decide to order it.

  But let’...

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  #business
• 2012-02-01

  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 volunteers to attempt a repair, on the grounds that the odds favoring their survival were only 50 to 1. Such an officer would be court-martialed and regarded with universal contempt both by his brother officers and by society at large.” (from How Much is an Astronaut’s Life Worth?)

  If you agree with this logic, it would be ha...

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  #science

January 2012

• 2012-01-31

  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]

  #life #culture
• 2012-01-31

  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 🙂

• 2012-01-29

  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.

  

  #internet
• 2012-01-29

  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 the following thought. If women rabbis or omitting a blessing are greater threats to Orthodox Judaism, and thus more worthy of collective outrage than are theft, violence, corruption, and abuse, then perhaps the Orthodox society has outlived its halakhic usefulness.” (from The Selective Sanctimony of Orthodox Judaism)

  #life
• 2012-01-27

  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 little Android tablet (which I am spending lots of time with lately.)

  So this article is a good reminder of what’s happening up in Redmond. It describes the “next generation file system for Windows“:

  “Our design attributes are closely related to our goals. As we go through these at...

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• 2012-01-26

  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 that implies that I buy books that I don’t read. I don’t feel bad about that. I enjoy books.)

  Thirdly, I love, I mean, I LOVE Amazon.com. What convenience, what great prices, what free shipping. I even own some AMZN stock. In truth I bet in the last year I spent more money on books at Amazon than from local bookstores.

  See the conundrum coming?

  Whenever I am in a strange town, o...

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  #culture #business
• 2012-01-24

  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 shutdown the notifications. Check out this handy toy that I just came across: Notification Control.

  And in a related story, here’s a similar site if you want to review your security and permissions settings on all these sites. Another chore often put off to our own detriment! My Permissions.

  Yeah there’s really very little to these two sites but I think you might find them very useful!

  #blogging #internet
• 2012-01-23

  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 less well known. As I continue to study photography and art I came across this excellent article about that very topic:

  “Hopefully, this article has shed some light on a somewhat mysterious subject in the world of photography. Fibonacci’s Ratio is a powerful tool for composing your photographs, and it should’€™t be dismissed as a minor difference from the rule of thirds.

  While the grids look simila...

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  #science #design
• 2012-01-23

  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 out distractions. I’ve written about them before. Two of my favorites are so-called self binding (sounds weird but it’s not) and a utility app called Concentrate.

  A book just came out called “...

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• 2012-01-21

  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 (simply) from one mind or from a small number of agreeing resonant minds, but from sometimes hidden co-authors and the thing designed itself.” (From Designed As Designer)

  What can I tell you. The author is the Richard Gabriel, a luminary of the computer world. Here’s the article: Designed as Designer.

  #design #science #software-engineering
• 2012-01-21

  Secret trick for losing weight

  I am going to share my secret technology for losing weight. It’s a mental exercise that really works. It is inspired by the neuro-economics concept of “anchoring“. Here’s how it works:

  Every morning you step on your scale, right? I do. Well let’s say my weight yesterday was 171lbs. Let’s say my goal weight is 165lbs. Before stepping on the scale, I think “165” and visualize seeing “165” on the read out. Then I step on the scale. I

  see, let’s say, 170.5lbs. I am not surprised, but part of my subconscious is disappointed and I am re-motivated to keep working on it. My focus and motivation is pumped up. It works! (...

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  #life
• 2012-01-19

  Costa Rica Travel and Google 3D

  We are thinking of planning a trip to Costa Rica. Part of the trip is to get from Tabacon to Monteverde, which I gather is a very popular tourist route, being between two of the most scenic parts of the country.

  We are trying to gather information about that drive. Is it realistically 3 hours? Or is it more like 6 hours?

  Part of my research uses Google maps, right? Have you seen the Google maps 3D driving simulation thing? It’s amazing!

  Follow this link to the Google Mapspage, and then locate the 3D button in the white margin on the left next to the directions. Click the button and BE AMAZED!!

  #places #computing
• 2012-01-16

  “Gods of Carnage” – Huntington Theatre

  I Just came back from seeing “Gods Of Carnage” at the Huntington Theatre (in Boston) tonight. Couldn’t wait to post my recommendation.

  It’s short (about 80 minutes – no intermission), fast paced, well acted and funny. It’s a story about two couples who are thrown together to discuss a playground altercation between their two sons. That’s the set up.

  The story takes up an evening when they get together to discuss it. Huntington has been embracing the web and social media in excellent fashion of late. I just noticed the ingenious new bit, which is doing a “trailer” for a ...

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  #places #culture
• 2012-01-14

  Netflix in Curaçao: “The Hour”, the BBC, and content licensing

  I was recently visiting Curaçao and remembered that I had read that Netflix was now available in South America so I thought I would check it out. (Curaçao is not technically in South America but close enough!) Well, it worked.

  For one reason or another, I found a british program called “The Hour” which I also remembered having been positioned as the BBC’s answer to Madmen. Which it is not.

  What it is, is a compelling drama about the creation of an hour long news program on the BBC in the years following WWII.

  So compelling in fact, that we watched the whole mini-series (6 or 7 episodes) while we were ther...

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  #places
• 2012-01-12

  Words borrowed from horse racing

  I just finished reading the book Seabiscuit. I previously had no interest (and no respect) for Horse Racing. The book changed that. It was quite interesting in human and racing terms.

  Now that I think about it I am also a big fan of the Dick Francis mystery series. Unfortunately he’s no longer with us, and I think I’ve read all of them. They are more about British steeplechase, but still, about horses. So I guess there was a latent interest there 🙂

  Anyway, one take away was how many every day English words and expressions in daily use come from the Racing World. See how many surprise you!

  track record neck-a-neck by a nose also ran dead heat photo finish tongue tied down to the wire

  #culture