All my blog posts and articles
Page 76 of 142 (2825 total posts)
I am not sure exactly what this article about Trust means exactly, but it’s thought provoking, don’t you think? “Trust is present or it is absent. Grab a nerd and he’ll tell you that even the absence of trust is a measure of trust and that particular measure is zero. When trust is non-zero (which is better, believe me) it is based on one of two methodologies — empiricism or transparency (the other T-word).” (from I, Cringely)
Scott Kirsner summarizes a new book “Mastering the VC game” and re-tells a funny VC scenario: “He also talks about an exercise called the “rock fetch,” when VCs ask an entrepreneur to spend time finding other investors willing to join them on the investment (bringing them “rocks”), but then decline to collaborate on a deal with those investors (“bring us a different rock.”)” (from Scott Kirsner) Ok, not really funny. More sad depressing poignant familiar…
Ok, probably to a mathematician these are not arcane, but to normal people (oops, sorry, I love mathematicians) I think they might be. Anyway, read and enjoy without any further commentary: - Needle-in-a-haystack Problems: “[snip...
Read more →Check this post Sequoia Voting System Witch Hunt, err… Study Project from Coder’s Revolution: > [Matt Woodward](http://mpwoodward.posterous....
Read more →CAPTCHA is the nickname of the venerable (ok only a few years of veneration) technique of verifying if the person on the other side of the screen is actually a person not a computer. We’ve all seen them a million times: a very hard to read bit of text in a small box, with a request that you decipher...
Read more →If you’ve been in computing for any time you may have been hit over the head by the slogan “Security by Obscurity is No Security”. As I have understood the argument it has a few components: - If your security relies on secret tricks, trap doors, and a hope that no one will be able to find out or gu...
Read more →The earphone/microphone that came with my iPhone is acting odd. First I thought it was a problem with my ear, then with my iPhone, but it seems to be a problem with the earphones, which I never thought of as something that could actually fail, except if I broke it physically. The sound quality is ju...
Read more →The article “Reflections on Trusting Trust” is often mentioned in conversation and cited. I finally tracked down and read this classic, and it is indeed a classic of computer science. And typically for classics, it’s short, clear, readable and impactful:...
Read more →I am not going to spend bits talking about the iFad (other than deploying my snarky nickname for it) but if you are interested here’s a (very positive in fact) review it by uber-technology taste maker Walt Mossberg: Apple iPad Review: Laptop Killer? Pretty Close.
They may not like me to say this, but as a longtime subscriber, I’ve been very disappointed for the last several seasons at the Huntington Theater in Boston. A very hit or miss program with only a few memorable plays. Well I did stick with the [Huntington](http:/...
Read more →David Mamet (supposedly) wrote this compelling note to tv writers for the now-defunct tv show “The Unit” (which I thought was a really good tv show.) If you like TV you will enjoy reading this. Gems such as:...
Read more →Steve Jobs says: “I almost died” in interesting article: Apple CEO Steve Jobs joins Schwarzenegger to push organ donor registry 
I stopped posting thoughts about the mess that all of congress has made of health care reform. There are daily articles in the news to confirm the dysfunction in government today. Here are key quotes two from today which again hit home. I recommend that you read both articles in full:[Health Care Le...
Read more →I was talking with Noah Mendelsohn this morning and we got into a discussion about RDF and it’s role in the world. Noah mentioned something called DBPedia which I had not heard of. [DBPedia](http://dbpedia.org/Abo...
Read more →Following on on my post yesterday about “What we don’t understand.” As I was writing it, I was trying to use examples of simple things that just work without handholding, like an old dial telephone. Oh there’s an example. But did you notice how all the old examples are slowly falling away because th...
Read more →Dave Winer wrote a bit recently called “What we don’t understand” that lists all the ways in which computers are still so confusing, not only to our elders but also to many others who’s brains are not just wired that way. ...
Read more →I came across VentureFizz. It’s a broad resource for Boston area techies: “VentureFizz can help you see what’s buzzing in Boston’s tech community” Particularly useful is their Event’s calendar, which as far as I can see is one of the better ones. An analogous site is Greenhorn Connect, which is trying to achieve something similar but seems more focused on up and coming entrepreneurs.
A beautifully written comment (positive) by Roger Ebert on the article about him in Esquire that I mentioned the other day: **“Well, we’re all dying in increments. I don’t mind people k...
Read more →“I am so disappointed in the government” “Are we driving off a cliff with two sets of hands on the steering wheel?” “What is wrong with those people!” You can pick your own headline, depending on your political leaning. I remember my father, living in Curaçao 30 years ago, would admire the US Congre...
Read more →You may or may not remember Roger Ebert who not very long ago was co-host with Gene Siskel on the best movie review program anywhere. It was called something like Siskel & Ebert. Well Gene Siskel has since passed away, and here’s an update about the challenges that Gene Siskel has been having. It’s quite a story.