All my blog posts and articles
Page 72 of 141 (2815 total posts)
This is a weird development. Java is a super well established language, why would Apple decide to stop developing it: “Apple’s announcement that they would be ceasing future development of their versi...
Read more →Two very contrasting ways of looking at our relationship with Pakistan. I don’t know where I stand, to be honest. If you are interested in the topic you owe it to yourself to read both articles, because I had a hard time finding an appropriate section to quote in each case. [Here is Johann ...
Read more →This article by David Brooks in the New York Times addresses a problem that I was wondering about too. New Jersey cancelled the building of a multi-billion tunnel into downtown New York City. Everyone without exception says that the tunnel i...
Read more →Here’s an insightful New Yorker article about procrastination. There are some useful ideas and techniques in this article. One of my favorites is the concept of ‘self-binding’ (not a form of masochi...
Read more →You may not follow the news, but Curaçao is undergoing major constitutional changes, as are all the Netherlands Antilles. In fact, as of this Sunday, Oct 10, (“10-10-10”) the Netherlands Antilles will cease to exist as a legal entity. The easiest way to explain this to Americans that I have come up ...
Read more →Check out Fort Knox vs. the Barking Dog(from Benlog: ** "The Barking Dog model is different. You still build fences. Maybe even a fancy lock. But more importantly, you get a well-trained dog, maybe ...
Read more →Check out Actor Tony Curtis Was Buried With His iPhone(from iPhone Download Blog: > "  all the time. - What was that movie about that we saw LAST WEEK? - How come did it take till page 102 before you realized you had alread...
Read more →If you know anyone in graduate school (oops, or if you are in graduate school yourself, or planning to go to one), this is interesting reading: Advice for New Graduate Students from [Freedom to Tinker](http://freedom-to-tinker.co...
Read more →And, it’s leaving us: > “The past four years have been a wild ride for us: growing something from nothing to substantial scale, providing a simple service that people love because it simplifies their lives. We’ve learned tons along the way, often by making big mistakes. We’re really sorry that this ...
Read more →This is just a weird weird happening: > “His body was found late Sunday morning after a passer-by reported seeing a man plummet 30 feet into the River Wharfe, the police said, adding that a “Segway-style vehicle” had also been found. They did not say what had caused the accident.” (from New York Times)
Another old-wives-tail bunked. (opposite of de-bunked?) > “At the end of the study period, the group that regularly gargled had a nearly 40 percent decrease in upper respiratory tract infectionscompared with the control group, and when they did get sick, “gargling tended to attenuate bronchial symptoms,” the researchers wrote.” (from New York Times)
From an article about Google’s hardware: > “Google’s big surprise: each server has its own 12-volt battery to supply power if there’s a problem with the main source of electricity. The company also revealed for the first time that since 2005, its data centers have been composed of standard shipping containers–each with 1,160 servers and a power consumption that can reach 250 kilowatts.” (from CNET) There are lots of other choice tidbits about the design of the millions (?) of tiny servers that Google uses to run its data centers. Quite interesting.
A BBC Headline says: > “Leaked list suggests 180 quangos to be abolished” (from BBC Web Site) Inquiring minds want to know, what the heck is a quango? Before you look it up, can you guess? First I thought it was a derogatory word for some ethnic group. Then I thought it might be a currency. Who knows?
This never happened… We were working on some piece of software or something and the Russians invaded our workplace and demanded that we create it for them. We were threatened in big ways. We had a kind of a robot thing small which had a video camera and it was left in the Big room while we were put ...
Read more →Just go to this link. United States Postal Service: Free Shipping Box Nothing more to it. No strings attached (as far as I can see 🙂 No kidding. I just did it. Share and share alike!
My head is full of democracy and elections these days. How come, you ask? Well for the last year or so I’ve been working for the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation, on elections technology. This month’s focus is generating ballots for two elections happening in November. So more than usual, I am ...
Read more →I came across the idea of the Johari Window during one of the presentations at the Bif-6 Conference. I’d never heard of it before. To me it’s an interesting formalism to think about ones self knowledge. Reading about the Johari Window on Wikipedia (where...
Read more →I saw an article in the New York Times and other places about the future of the University, and even the End of the University. I have a bit of a curiosity about this topic as Lecturer at Brandeis University. Here’s a [blog post fr...
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