All Articles
Holiday Inn |
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... So last night I fired up iTunes and poof there it was (yay), and a couple of clicks later we were watching Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. Once again it was amazing, and once again it showed how the convenience of the iTunes / AppleTV ecosystem isn't just in the ease of watching, it is in the power of *now*. the Law of Significance |
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Chris Anderson is one of my favorite writers and bloggers, but he occasionally falls prey to The Law of Significance. (You can tell something is Really Important because people write about it with Capital Letters. Dum dum dum.) Chris has unearthed some amazing insights in his time; the Long Tail is one of the truly interesting new ideas in business spawned by the Internet era. But once you've found a few key insights like that you begin thinking of yourself as a Thinker (note capitals), and it inspires you to promote everyday observations to the status of Laws. You could imagine Chris might drop a piece of toast, find that it landed face down on the floor, and discover the Law of Toast. I call this phenomenon the Law of Significance (note capitals and boldface). |
recrossing the chasm |
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You might remember Shirley gave me a Kindle as an early birthday present right before I left for Brazil… so I bought a number of books to take with me, and one was Geoffrey Moore’s classic Crossing the Chasm. I’ve been rereading it with delight. Despite being written in 1991, it still hits about ten nails on the head at once. I’ve always liked this book and talked about it, but I’d forgotten how cleanly Moore presents his thesis, and what a compelling case he makes. It is one of the best business books I’ve ever read because not only does it identify and explain a problem, it presents the solution... |
visiting RSNA |
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Last Tuesday I attended the annual RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) conference in Chicago. You may know, this is one of the largest conferences anywhere, attended by over 60,000 radiologists and featuring the world’s largest trade show for medical equipment. It always takes place just after Thanksgiving, filling Chicago’s giant McCormick center. The “booths” of some vendors like GE, Philips, and Toshiba are like small cities, with two story buildings, cafés, coffee bars, and tons of meeting rooms interspersed with the equipment and software on display. |
the white swan |
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An outlier like this is sometimes referred to as a "black swan", a term popularized by Nassim Taleb, in a book of the same name. Sometimes such a rare event can be positive, maybe we could call that a white swan? |
When you're out in the ocean every once in a while you encounter a "rogue wave", a wave which is vastly larger than the average. Such waves are caused by a random confluence of a number of difference factors, each unpredictable, and each coming together to create a freakishly large wave. Nobody can predict such waves, they just happen, but if you're out at sea long enough, you'll encounter one.Kindle rocks |
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My wife Shirley gave me an early birthday present yesterday, in advance of flying to Brazil for a week: A spiffy Amazon Kindle! After charging it over night, this morning I made time to play with it. I can say unequivocally, Kindle rocks... |
the big day |
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Well, here we go, the big day (dum dum dum)... |
Midway |
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Today was a frantic amazing wild breathless productive incredible satisfying awesome day, which ended with a pretty moving emotional experience for me. Midway is a great name, and a great concept, full of ambivalence and implied meaning... |
relatively deprived |
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As we all ponder the possible Presidency of Barack Obama, which will apparently include the concept of redistribution of wealth, I thought it would be interesting to revisit a classic article by John Cassidy in the New Yorker: Relatively Deprived [PDF]. Written in March 2006, Cassidy considers the possibility that "poverty" is a relative concept; that is, in order to raise people above the poverty line it isn't enough to make poor people richer, you also have to make rich people poorer. This is a serious theory, by the way, seriously considered. It seems preposterous to me... |
the King of Nürburgring |
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It’s the kind of discussion that often crops up when car guys get together – which is the fastest? If money was no object, what supercar would you go for?
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embedding digital slides |
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You guys know, my business is digital pathology, and the basic unit of digital pathology is the "digital slide", a digitized version of a microscope slide. One of the cool things you can do with digital slides is to embed them in web pages. This doesn't require any client-side plug-ins or other software, it can be done in any standard web browser... |
on the state of medicine, 2008 |
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I've been sick, so I visited my doctor. Being a patient is a unique experience for me, I never get sick, and when I do, I take a DayQuil or Motrin, and two days later I'm fine. My doctor is the guy who conducts my annual checkups, annually. As a result of my really lightweight brush with the state of medicine in 2008, I have a few observations. These are not earth shattering and for those of you who have dealt with medical practice as a patient rather than a vendor, probably all too familiar. |
the ten yard line |
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Okay, I'm going way far from my usual subject matter here, but I want to discuss something of importance. Everyone thinks the most important line in football is the goal line. They are wrong. The most important line in football is the ten-yard line. Stay with me, like I said, this is important. |
Olympic BYE |
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I watched the Olympic Closing Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics tonight, and WOW, it lived up to the promise of the opening... really cool! By this time I guess we're all a bit inured to the spectacle of the bird's nest stadium, and the fireworks, and the pageantry, but when you step back it really is amazing . Please click here for more, including more pictures... I guess my reaction after two weeks of watching the Opening Ceremony, all day / all night competition, and Closing Ceremony is... WOW!
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Olympic WOW |
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Did you see the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics tonight? WOW! Unbelievable. What an amazing spectable, I have never seen anything like that... I tuned in, expecting to be entertained, like yeah, this is cool, but I was unprepared for how amazingly great it was. If you saw it, you know what I mean, and if you didn't, find a friend who recorded it! (In HD, preferably; this was certainly something you will want to see in HD!) Please click here for more, including more pictures... WOW! |
how did I get here (Mt.Whitney)? |
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Well, I did it. I climbed Mt. Whitney yesterday, and I have the pictures (and the overall soreness!) to prove it. I actually had no idea how hard it was going to be, or how dangerous; in fact, before this I had little comprehension of the difference between hiking Mt. Whitney (basically, walking up the trail) and climbing Mt. Whitney (actually, er, climbing, as in hanging from rocks with 100' of nothing below you).
And I may ask myself, how did I get here?
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workaholic in stealth mode |
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Many of you know me outside of my blog, some of you for a very long time (!), and others of you know me pretty well from reading my blog these past 5+ years, so you know: I am a workaholic. I basically work all the time, morning 'till evening, seven days a week, except when working is interrupted by something else like my family, cycling, sailing, etc. Leisure time means I work on stuff I want to work on, rather than on stuff I have to work on. (Blogging has alternated between one or the other category :) If I take a vacation, it is either to go riding or sailing or (gasp!) hang out with my family, but it is also a chance for some concentrated time working on stuff I want to work on; yes, it is a bit sad, but it is what it is. Shed no tears for me. Actually, I am a stealth workaholic... |
the big bang |
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Yay, the New Yorker has published a fabulous collection of Independence Day covers - "the big bang". Check 'em out...
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pictures of Iran |
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These days we view them as "an enemy", because of conflicting religous politics, but it was not always so; there was a time when Iran was a staunch U.S. ally, and a time before that when Persia was one of the most influential and advanced countries on Earth. How things changed I'll leave to others and other times to explain, but in the meantime I wanted to share this collection of amazing photographs of Iran. Enjoy.
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user experience |
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Hi all; here's some musings on user experience... |
everything you need to know about COM |
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Everything you need to know about COM: For more than everything you need to know, please click here... |
confidence! |
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Today was an object lesson in confidence, one of my favorite subjects, which is closely related to value creation, another one. (See this post about my friend Paul, and this one about Arnold Schwarzenegger.) |
Ferrari 250GT Competizione Berlinetta |
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There are two kinds of people in the world, those who think vintage Ferraris are awesome, and those who don't. If you are in the latter category please click "back" and resume your web surfing. If you are in the former category, welcome to the club and read on... |
the lost art of desk checking |
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Okay, I’m going to date myself here. I’m 49 years old, and I started programming in Junior High, when I was 13, so my story begins 36 years ago. The dawn of time, metaphorically speaking. Please join me for a gentle rant about the lost art of desk checking... |
Oleosaurus: the dispose pattern |
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You all know how much I love .NET. And you all pretty much figure I’m a hopeless dinosaur, and I just don’t get it. And you’re all pretty tired of hearing me rant about it. So, sorry… but yes, here’s another one. You may click "back" and get on with your life as appropriate. In which we investigate that wonder of .NET programming, the dispose pattern... |
managed memory leaks |
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This is another in my series of foaming rants whereby you the reader become convinced of my status as a coding dinosaur. So be it. Today's subject is memory management, the old "bad" way, and the new "good" way using garbage collection in managed code. Please click to read more... |
pissed off in Peoria |
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You all know I can't stand .NET’s virtual machine architecture, and you probably think I’m a hopeless dinosaur who just doesn’t get it. Everyone knows Microsoft is great, everyone knows .NET and Java are the future, etc. Someday Ole will retire from railing at progress. (And everyone will be spared Sunday morning rants :) Let me give you a clean example of what I can't stand about .NET’s CLR: Visual Studio 2005. |
entertainment |
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... Posted after spending the entire day skiing at Loveland Pass, Colorado. A day well spent 8) ... |
the checklist |
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I've been meaning to post this for a while... The New Yorker published a great article in their Annals of Medicine called The Checklist, by Atul Gawande. The article describes how an emergency room physician named Peter Pronovost created simple checklists for routine emergency room procedues, and how use of these checklists has has a dramatic reduction in unforced errors. Please click to read more... |
nano art |
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Entries for SPMAGE07, an art contest in Spain, recognizing the contributions of Scanning Probe Microscopes. Beautiful nano art... enjoy! |
universal healthcare |
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Here's a theory for you to disregard completely... Universal healthcare is bad. Please click to read more... |
paper art |
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Entries for an art contest at the Hirshorn Modern Art Gallery in Washington, DC. The rule was that the artist could use only one sheet of paper. |
the metric magic |
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I've been spending a few days worrying about measuring stuff. Like productivity and predictabilty. Way back in late December, 2006, I worried about this, too, and wrote a long rambly email to my team about it. I just reread it, and thought it might be worth sharing. So here it is. |
an uncomfortable truth |
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On August 31, 2003, I posted IQ and Populations, which to this day remains my second most popular post. Unlike Tyranny of Email, my most popular article, the reaction is not generally positive. The post is popular in the sense of being widely linked, but unpopular in the sense of being widely disputed. While Tyranny asserts opinions that nearly everyone agrees with, IQ and Populations reviews facts with which nearly everyone disagrees. So, is this really true? Yes. Is this uncomfortable? Yes. Is this important? Yes. |
dynamic page sizing |
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This is a nerdy exposition, for those of you creating web apps and for me to be able to find it later :) The subject is dynamically sizing web page elements based on the size of the browser window. Please click to read more... |
Exporting IP |
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Every once in a while you read something that manages to get just about everything wrong. And so it is with a recent column in the New Yorker entitled Exporting IP, by James Surowiecki. You may read the article here. For my thoughts on the article and what it gets wrong, please click to continue reading... |
almost famous design and stochastic debugging |
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In which I screw up a programming change, devise an almost famous design, and engage in stochastic debugging, and philosophize... |
Sweet Revenge |
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I came across a great article about cancer in the latest issue of Caltech’s monthly newsletter, Engineering and Science: It is really well written, I learned a lot about cancer, how it is being treated, and how many of the side effects of the treatments come about. The article describes an innovative drug developed by a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Caltech, Dr. Mark Davis, after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. The drug is presently undergoing Phase I trials – the article also explains the whole FDA approval process nicely. Click for more... |
The Traffic School Web Usability Test |
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So, the other day I got a traffic ticket. Fortunately, I was able to ask the court for traffic school so the ticket won’t go on my permanent record. This turned into an interesting exercise in web usability... |
caravans revisited |
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A long time ago I posted an article about caravans; my idea for making traffic move more smoothly by using technology to keep your car as close to the car in front of you as possible. At the time, nearly three years ago, this seemed like a future. But now the future is here! |
file permissions |
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I have a question. Have you ever used OS file permissions? I have not. Ever. |
On the Persistence of Bad Design... |
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As a programmer you are constantly making design decisions. Some are small, some are big. Some have little effect, some have larger effect. And every once in a while you make some decisions which seem small, but have a huge effect. If these decisions are made badly, then it affects many other people for years to come. |
Web 2.0, "Live" and other meaningless jargon |
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Do you hate business jargon as much as I do? Blech. A classic example of meaningless jargon is "Web 2.0". Nobody knows what it means, it doesn't mean anything. And for an unbelievable example of jargon run amuck, consider Microsoft's recent "Live" announcement. Talk about meaningless blather. |
second gear |
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Back in the dawn of time, when I was 30, my life was somewhat in limbo. I was in between marriages, and decided to take a creative writing class at a local college. I wrote an essay called "Second Gear" in one go, and I am absurdly proud of it; the feelings ring as true for me today, fifteen years later, as they did then. Makes me want to go ride the ol' Santa Susana pass again (although now I'd have my 15lb Kestrel with 18 gears). Anyway here it is, for your reading amusement, Second Gear...
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my positive Sprint experience |
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Are you sitting down? Are you holding any sharp objects? No? Good. Because you aren’t going to believe this… I’ve had a positive experience with Sprint. Let me repeat that because I’m sure you think it’s a typo: I’ve had a positive experience with Sprint. Please click to continue reading...
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icebaby |
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Well I did it; I have a new baby. Today I bought a apple on intel |
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Earlier today I posted about the rumors that Apple is planning to support Intel CPUs. I'd wrote "probably 'support' not 'switch to' but after one bike ride's worth of cogitation I think this is exactly wrong... Maybe it will be possible to run Windows programs "as is" without any changes on top of some kind of runtime emulation inside OS X? Now that would be a reason to do this! |
the nuclear option |
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Relax, this is not a post about filibusters or approving Supreme Court justices. No, this is about nuclear energy. It seems that intelligent people of all stripes are converging on the nuclear option. Which is terrific, because the alternative - continuing to burn oil until it is gone - is no option at all. |
Shorthorn |
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This is going to be a long post. I can tell. I have all these thoughts, jumbled together, and it is going to take a lot of words to get it all out. Sorry. The subject is Windows... Microsoft has now spent four years building Longhorn, the "next" version of Windows, and it looks to be spending two more years at least. When Longhorn is released, it will have been at least six years since XP came out. That is a long time in computer years. What will we get? If it were up to me, Microsoft would stick to its knitting, and instead of trying for more and more functionality - which is properly the province of application software anyway - it would fix paging and fix networking. Do the things Windows should do well. I won't get my wish, but that's what I want. |
Tort reform now! |
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I just read something which boils my blood, and needed to share it. When private parties prevail upon the court system to settle a dispute, is called a “tort”. The U.S. tort system is badly in need of reform. Continue reading... |
location free TV |
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I've been testing a Sony Location Free TV. The concept is really cool - you have two parts, a video server and a wireless video receiver. The server sits in your home entertainment center, and the receiver can go "anywhere". Well, it doesn't work. Continue reading... |
think green, think nuclear |
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If you're a regular reader you know that I'm a green in wolf's clothing. I think we must get better at preserving our environment and slowing our consumption of natural resources. And I also think - gasp! - that nuclear power is the key to this. Continue reading... |
unintelligent design |
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There are people who do not believe the theory of evolution is sufficient to explain the existence of the world as we know it. They prefer to believe in creationism, the idea that there is a deity who created the world. I have no problem with people who wish to believe this, it is their prerogative, of course, just as they may chose to believe the Sun orbits the Earth, or that the Earth is 6,000 years old. I only ask that they admit they are choosing to believe in “magic” instead of rational facts and logical reasoning. Please click for more... |
visiting Titan |
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I've decided I have one "out there" goal for my life; before I die, I want to visit Titan. This is the largest of Saturn's 33 moons, larger than Mercury and Pluto, and has an actual atmosphere. The big orange moon is Titan:
Why Titan, well ... please click for more... |
solving bongard problems |
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I found a great site from Harry Foundalis about his Research on the Bongard problems. What's a Bongard problem? Well, here's one: |
language talks |
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I just encountered Paul Graham's Great Hackers. Quite thought-provoking, including the notion that in choosing a platform, you are choosing a culture... |
plaintext email is obsolete |
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It's Sunday afternoon, I'm sitting in front of the fire, watching football, so it's time for a rant. Let me just say, that in 2004 plaintext email is obsolete. |
UniversRevolved |
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So what did you make of this?
It was written with a 3D font called UniversRevolved, read on... |
electoral mapmanship |
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Maps analyzing the 2004 election are all the rage, are we red and blue, purple, or what? Here's my take... |
the big day |
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The big day: Election Day 2004 - a chronology... |
no equals = wrong |
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"If it doesn't start with an equal sign, it's wrong." This is a first for me; spreadsheet nerdliness. But there's a larger point, too. Read on... |
Journey through the center of the Earth, part 2 |
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Remember this thought experiment?
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C++ method pointers |
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Have you ever wanted to use a pointer to a class method? This might be basic C++ but I couldn’t remember how to do it, and spent some time Googling and messing around to figure it out. So here’s the way... |
RSS cookbook |
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Okay, today we are going to get YOU to use RSS. Follow the simple steps, and you'll be using RSS, and loving it. I promise this is worth it. You will thank me. More... |
Spacing Out |
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I thought I'd comment on President Bush's plans for space exploration. Punch line: I'm strongly in favor. And I'm impressed that he has time and energy to spend on strategy as well as tactics. |
Life and a Couple of Cans of Beer |
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When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar... and the beer. |
More Party Politics |
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The other day I lamented that the U.S. two-party system is suboptimal, and suggested that proportional voting might enable minority parties to have more influence, thereby enabling more innovation among candidates. Be careful what you wish for! I received an email from Ivan-Assen Ivanov, a Bulgarian, reporting that they have proportional representation, and it isn't working out. |
Two-Party Politics |
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Do you think the U.S. two-party system is optimal? I don't. It would be great if there were more points of view represented, more opportunity for candidates with a unique perspective which don't naturally fit into either mainstream party. |
Simple is Good |
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I always have so much to do in December, don't you? So many social events, Christmas shopping, year-end deadlines. But somehow I love it. The cold crisp air, lights everywhere, a sense of excitement, music... And since I have so much to do, naturally I'm procrastinating by working on something I don't have to do at all. Yep, I redesigned my blog. And you probably can't even tell! |
Religion vs IQ |
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razib and godless are bored, so they plot and graph "religion important" vs. IQ for different countries. The bottom line: "religion and IQ are strongly negatively correlated (-.886)." |
Merry Christmas! |
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Merry Christmas to all of you! I hope you were able to relax and enjoy yourself, in the company of family and friends and those you love. |
The "under the skin" game |
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When I was a kid, I had a subscription to a magazine called Highlights. I remember one little article which stayed with me my whole life, called "the under the skin game"... |
The Return of the King |
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I saw Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King this afternoon, with Alex and two friends. The best movie I have ever seen.
If you haven't seen it, see it! If you have, click here for more thoughts... |
Toy Story |
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This really pisses me off. Once upon a time, there was this nice little toy store business called Zainy Brainy. They specialized in educational toys, cool things smart parents wanted for their smart kids. They found a market niche, and they grew slowly but steadily. |
I Switched! [temporarily] |
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So, for the past four days my [Windows] laptop was down, and I switched to using my iMac as my "main" computer for a few days. Overall the experience was pretty good. I thought you might find a brief review interesting. continue reading... |
Blogrollcleaning |
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This afternoon I went through my extended blogroll, clicked every link, and 1) verified the site is still there (most were) and 2) verified the blog is still being updated (many were not). I deleted all the dead and dying links. I find the shorter someone's blogroll, the better. |
The Little Boy Explains |
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The other day I posted The Emperor's New Code, a heretical critique of "Longhorn" Microsoft's upcoming version of Windows. I expected to get a lot of links, and I did - thanks Dave, Tim, and Robert! - and I expected to get a lot of criticism, and I did. I am like the little boy who cried "the emperor's not wearing any clothes", and of course some noblemen cannot admit this; it would be too embarrassing. Or maybe the little boy just can't see the clothes :) So. Dialog is always healthy, right! I'd like to take a moment to discuss the most prevalent reactions... |
The Emperor's New Code |
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... In which the author proves himself a hopeless heretic by disparaging Longhorn ... I attended the Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference in Los Angeles last week. Microsoft formally unveiled "Longhorn", the next version of Windows, along with a bunch of new underlying technology. My first day's reaction was PDC = Moo!; a positive impression of a lot of cool new stuff. But my takeaway is... there's a lot less here than it would at first appear... |
PDC = Moo! |
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I'm at the Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. Today Microsoft formally unveiled "Longhorn", the next version of Windows. I left for the PDC at 5AM, and got home at midnight. Cool. |
Loving My Treo |
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The thing I really love is having a built in camera. I carry my 'phone everywhere, and consequently I now carry my camera everywhere. Even on my bike... |
The Joy of Craftsmanship |
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I just love real craftsmanship. It goes beyond mere doing things right, Confidence |
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So, Arnold Schwarzenegger is California's new governor. What is it about Arnold that caused so many people to vote against the incumbent, and for him? Confidence. |
Unless... |
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The Lorax has been each one of my kids' favorite story at a certain point. Meg is six, and it has been her favorite for about two years. This amazing story by Dr. Suess (Theodore Geisel) was published in 1971, but its message rings as loud and true 32 years later... |
PDC: Oh, not Oooh |
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I'm attending the Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference in October. All the pre-PDC talk about how great everything is and how complicated and how cool and how mystical is scaring me. MS is best served by having developers say “oh, that’s easy, I could do that”, rather than saying “oooh, how cool, I wonder if I could ever do that”. You want people to say “oh”, not “oooh”. |
Vonage works! |
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Hey, guess what? Vonage works! I think this is going to be BIG... |
Really Moving Mount Fuj |
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Everyone wants to know "How would you move Mount Fuji"? |
Adding Value |
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I saw my good friend Paul last night, and he reinforced something I've been thinking recently. The most important thing you can do every day is add value. And inspiring others to create value is a really efficient way to add value yourself. Of course there is something even more efficient, which is inspiring others to inspire others. That's why I wrote this... :) |
Are You a Bright? |
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Are you bright? Do you know what the question is asking?
Yeah, I'm bright. I believe in a naturalistic world view. I believe everything can be explained rationally, logically, and scientifically, without resort to "magic". Continue reading... |
Light Reading |
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At the moment I am reading three different books, all great, and I want to share them with you; In the Blink of an Eye, by Andrew Parker, A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, and A Traveler's Guide to Mars, by William Hartmann. |
Ode to my Car |
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I have a 12-year old Lexus Coupe, and I love it! Really really... |
SES and IQ heritability |
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Back-to-school pop quiz: Why do poor children, and especially black poor children, score lower on average than their middle-class and white counterparts on IQ tests and other measures of cognitive performance? That's the lead question in a Washington Post article about a new study that appears to show that IQ heritability varies significantly with socioeconomic status. |
Blind Watchmakings |
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I recently discovered The Insect Company website, which has fascinating photo galleries of beautiful and interesting insects. I was awestruck by these wonderful examples of Darwinism in action; for me this was a religious experience. In paging through these photos, I was reminded of the amazing software Richard Dawkins wrote to accompany his 1986 classic, "The Blind Watchmaker"... |
IQ and Populations |
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Combining National IQ data from Richard Lynn's and Tatu Vanhanen's "Intelligence and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations" with world population data from the U.S. Census, we can quantify the decrease in world IQ over time. The consequences of this overall decrease in world IQ have yet to be quantified, but they are bound to be significant... |
Bloggers as Filters |
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Bloggers are interesting sources of information and analysis, and entertainment as well. But did you ever think of them as filters? |
Rock 'n Roll |
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I'm mountain biking with my good friends Bill and Jim, and one of the highlights has been Bill's incredible Rock 'n Roll collection.
1700 terrific songs on one little MP3 player. Wow! One great song after another. Arnold and Proposition 13 |
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Earlier I reported that columnist Dan Gillmor wrote Why I Might Vote for Schwarzenegger. Apparently Warren Buffet, an advisor to Arnold in his gubernatorial campaign, mentioned that if elected Arnold might consider overturning Proposition 13. This has caused a stir, with many people feeling it would be political suicide to mention during the campaign. And maybe it is... but, Proposition 13 has been a horrible thing for the state of California, and overturning it would be a great good thing. |
Gravity Inversion |
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Today I was riding my bike, when suddenly I got this weird feeling. About gravity... |
Revisiting the Nest |
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Writing in Elvish |
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Would you like to be able to write in Elvish? Aha, I thought so. Then here is your page, a tutorial in writing with Elvish fonts, using the Tengwar writing system developed by J.R.R.Tolkein. |
Third-Party C++ Children |
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Suppose you have an application which provides a "core" for other developers. Suppose you wan to provide functionality as classes, rather than APIs, but enable extension. Supporting third-party children is not easy... |
Financial transactions, RSS and OFX |
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Recently there has been much discussion about using RSS for things other than blog summaries, and people have asked about using it for providing financial information. It turns out there is already an XML-based format for doing this, called OFX... |
The Lead Bullet - Writing Specs |
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In which we talk about writing specs, the subject near and dear to every programmer's heart... |
The Caravan Fallacy |
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A while back I suggested Caravans... The other day I attended traffic school (!) and the instructor told the class the best thing to do in traffic is to relax and leave plenty of room between your car and the next one. His fallacy is a common one - perhaps you believe this yourself - and so I wanted to discuss this a bit. |
Even More Bridgework |
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Okay, here it is, the optimal solution for 25% flashlight carry... |
More Bridgework |
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We're back at the bridge of the four programmers, as we consider variations in flashlight "carry". There is more complexity in this problem than you thought. Yay! |
Revisiting the Bridge of the Programmers |
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Remember the bridge of the four programmers? An interesting technical interview problem, with an unexpected answer. It turns out there is more complexity in this problem than I had thought. Yay! |
People over 30 should be dead |
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The Nest |
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Around our house we have a bunch of old iron lanterns. They are reasonably attractive, pleasant at night (with suitably low wattage bulbs), and difficult to maintain. They also make great bird nests. And therein lies a story, which I am about to relate... |
iSnipeIt rocks |
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I just found this great tool called iSnipeIt. This tool automates an eBay practice called "sniping", whereby you sit on the sidelines of an auction you're interested in until the last possible second, and then enter a bid quickly, leaving the other interested bidders no time to respond... |
Happy Birthday, U.S.A.! |
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Happy Birthday to the greatest
country in the world , and the greatest political and economic system
humans have ever known. It isn't perfect, but it sure is the best we've
got. The U.S. econopolitical system is truly a rising tide raising all
boats.I Love My Evo |
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I have a Compaq Evo N800c named "Maxwell", and it is great. Truly we've broken into the clear as far as having laptops powerful enough to be desktop replacements.
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I love my
Evo. There, I said it.What was M.E.? |
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My post about Mitochondrial Eve attracted a bunch of interest - thank you! - and several people asked a key question: what species was ME? |
Mitochondrial Eve |
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Of all the women who have ever lived, there was one woman who was special. She was the common maternal ancestor of all women currently alive. She was "Mitochondrial Eve". |
My HP-25 Calculator |
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When I was 17 I bought an HP-25 calculator, billed as "the minimum computer". I still have it - and it still works! I was reflecting on this little guy recently when using my Handspring Treo's calculator... |
Human Pattern Recognition |
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Among all the remarkable things that we humans can do, effortlessly, that takes huge amounts of effort to do any other way; our image pattern recognition is perhaps the most awesome. |
Google and Escher |
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If you visited Google yesterday, you might have been intrigued by their logo; a grayscale drawing which showed a couple of hands drawing each other. This was their very cool way of celebrating M.C.Escher's birthday... |
Ottmar Liebert |
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More about Ottmar, his blog, the Apple Music Store, and Tivo for audio...
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Last night we saw
Ottmar Liebert at the House of Blues. Sam Barros and Powerlabs |
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Have you ever checked out Sam Barros and Powerlabs? This is such a cool site. Every once in a while someone links one of his experiments from Slashdot, and it reminds me how cool it really is. |
Child Tax Credits and the Mutilated Beggar Effect |
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How the child tax credit which is part of the Bush administration's proposed tax cut is an example of the "mutilated beggar effect", as I argue against motherhood... |
The Two Switches |
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I solved it! And it is great!! The infamous "two switches" puzzle does have a solution, and it isn't a trick; it is a pure logic puzzle. Read on for more... |
The $21 Question |
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A few days ago I reviewed How Would You Move Mount Fuji, a great new book about the logic puzzles often used in technical interviews. I received a lot of feedback - thanks! - and herein consider Chris Lightfoot's different and better answer to the $21 question... |
Ceci n'est pas Mimi |
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Which brings us to Magritte's "The Human Condition"...
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Job Seeking Advice |
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I have a friend who's seeking a job after having run his own business for many years. I'm not the greatest job seeker in the world nor the most experienced, so this could be quite wrong, but here's my advice to him... |
Moving Mount Fuji |
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I just read "How Would You Move Mount Fuji", a great new book about puzzles as technical interview questions. I enjoyed it a lot - it is an easy read, and kind of "fluffy"; I blew through it in two days. I'm often in the position of asking these questions, and I found it terrifically helpful. Here are my thoughts about the book, and also some examples taken from it... |
God and Beauty |
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Let's consider the nature of beauty. We'll explore atheism and the anthropic principle, the natural selection of beauty, selection of mates, and other stuff. It is not really about God, but it sort of is. You'll see... |
iTrip Report |
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A while back you might recall I was excited about Emergent Properties |
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In which we discuss emergent properties vs. explicit properties, take Marvin Minsky to task about artificial intelligence, diss RDF and the semantic web, and relate image processing to water. Read more... |
Google and Blogs |
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There's been considerable discussion in the blogosphere about Google "dropping blogs" from search results. What's the truth? Here's some educated guesswork... |
A Perfect Day |
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I'm riding my bike: the sun on the lake, a light breeze, pretty girls, and my daughter's birthday party coming up... it all makes for A Perfect Day... |
Books and Wine |
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Two of my favorite things are books and wine. They even go together; what could be finer than curling up with a great book and a nice glass of wine. Amazingly, there are many similarities between these two apparently unrelated things... |
Try, or Try Not |
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Try, or Try Not... For everything there is to do, the easy way to fail is simply not to try. If you can feel good about yourself for your effort - regardless of the results - then you can always succeed. |
Outbound Trackbacks |
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I implemented "outbound trackbacks" today. Essentially a trackback is a way to tell someone: "hey, I linked to your site". |
iTunes Music Store |
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So, I'm sure you heard, Apple announced their new online music service, the iTunes Music Store. As soon as you see it, you'll say "this is the way online music should work". |
My Awesome Sharp DVD Recorder |
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Caravans |
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Some friends and I were sitting around at lunch talking about "what will be the most significant new technology in the next twenty years". My thought - a way to optimize highway traffic, which gets worse all the time and affects everyone. I suggest Caravans... |
Fehlervorhersagefreude |
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As you know, I've been looking for a word which means "a malicious satisfaction in the mispredictions of others". And here it is:
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Site Optimization |
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If you're a web nerd like me, you might be interested in Site Optimization... |
On Blame |
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Blame... What a strange concept, right? |
Aperio's Mission = Automating Pathology |
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Want to know what I do all day? I haven't posted much about Aperio. This is partially because a lot of stuff would be highly technical (so what, eh?) and partially because of some of the stuff would be intellectual property which we're patenting. But I'm going to do more! Here is a starting point, Aperio's Mission = Automating Pathology... |
Lying |
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Lying is all about intent... When you say something you know isn't true in order to influence others, you're lying. |
Starting to Get .NET |
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Everyone agrees that .NET is at least two things: a development environment and a marketing concept. The net net: .NET is a development environment positioned as a follow on platform to Windows... |
I Don't Get .Net |
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Hello, my name is Ole, and I don't get .Net... |
"Tyranny" Revisited |
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A week ago I posted a little article called The Tyranny of Email, giving some tips for improving personal productivity. It generated a terrific response, and I herewith post the most interesting observations and comments... |
Unnatural Selection |
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Here it is! - the Unnatural Selection outline, for your reading pleasure... |
I am an Iterator |
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I am an iterator. When I make something, I don't just make it and go on. I make it, then I remake it, then I remake it again, and iteratively improve it until I'm happy. I annoy myself sometimes, I am so unwilling or unable to leave something as it is... |
How to Write C++ Classes II |
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A little while back I posted How to Write C++ Classes. There was more which could be said, and so I did; here's How to Write C++ Classes II... |
Slashscreen |
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Ever been "slashdotted"? Want to know what to do? Well, here's what I did... |
The Tyranny of Email |
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If you're reading this, you're online, which means you may be a victim of the tyranny of email... |
This War |
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In case you'd like to know Saddam Hussein a little better, please read Tales of the Tyrant in The Atlantic. And related - a friend emailed a rant which I've posted anonymously: This War... |
World of Ends |
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Here are my thoughts on Doc Searles' and David Weinberger's World of Ends. They missed a key truth: "It is a mistake to characterize the Internet by a list of simple truths"... |
Frames, Too |
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Today I made a couple of slight enhancements to the way this site uses frames, please click here if you're interested... |
Correlation vs. Causality |
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A quick rant on the difference between correlation and causality which is important in many things, including studies of people... |
Why Aggregators Are Not Good |
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RSS aggregators are cool, but they have a big drawback - they make all sites look the same... |
MusicNet Review |
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Interested in MusicNet? Please see my review... |
Who Are You? |
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In which the author discusses Unnatural Selection with Ms. X, and describes the target audience... (hint: it's you) |
Back in the Elevator |
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In which the author revisits the elevator pitch, and ponders whether dumb = bad... |
In the Elevator |
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In which the author meets Ms. X in an elevator, and delivers the pitch for Unnatural Selection... |
Weighting Links |
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Wow, so Google has bought Pyra, the company behind Blogger. This really puts 'blogging on the map. It also creates some potentially interesting conflicts of interest (will Google searches preferentially find Blogger 'blogs?). At first glance, actually, it doesn't seem a great fit. Google did buy Deja News about a year ago, but that made more sense; Deja archived all the Usenet groups, wereas Blogger only has about ¼ of the blogosphere... Perhaps the synergy is at the link level. Google indexes links, Blogger makes links. |
Simple Search |
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Every website needs a simple search facility, including this one... |
The Role of Inspectors |
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The U.S. government is patiently explaining that inspectors are not spies... |
How to Write C++ Classes |
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If you're a programmer today, most likely you are writing in Java or C++. In which case you may be interested in How to Write C++ Classes... |
Baby Steps |
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Well, time for some baby steps toward the book... Yeah, that book. |
The nonfiction publishing landscape |
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The clouds enveloping the foreign world of non-fiction publishing are breaking up a little - I'm getting glimpses of the landscape... |
Tracking Visitors |
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You are being watched... |
So about this book... |
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Here's the plan... and my plea for help! |
Turning Over Software |
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The programmer's dilemma, turning over software... |
First Post - Welcome! |
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Welcome world to Critical Section, my weblog. I started this weblog for two reasons. First, I think they're a great means of communication; I spend a lot of time reading other blogs (see my favorites on the right), and felt like I have things to say myself and that it was time to start saying them. Second, I am planning to write a book. No, I have never written a book before, and no, I don't know anything about it. So it will be a learning experience, please come along for the ride... I plan to post daily about computer software, medical science, business, politics, philosophy, and notes on book writing (!) |
The Point of Natural Selection |
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The Point of Natural Selection (masthead picture and other meanings)... |
Frames |
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Yeah, this site uses frames. I explain why - and how... |
W=UH |
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W=UH is the equation of life... |
About Me |
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A brief description of who I am and what I do... |
Home
Archive
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'03
All Articles
Re:Cycling
Re:The Book
Re:Software
Re:Philosophy
About Me
W=UH
Email
Search
Greatest Hits
Correlation vs. Causality
The Tyranny of Email
Unnatural Selection
Lying
Aperio's Mission = Automating Pathology
On Blame
Try, or Try Not
Books and Wine
Google and Blogs
Emergent Properties
God and Beauty
Moving Mount Fuji
The Nest
Rock 'n Roll
IQ and Populations
Are You a Bright?
Adding Value
Confidence
The Joy of Craftsmanship
The Emperor's New Code
Toy Story
The Return of the King
Religion vs IQ
Most Spectacular Photos of 2003
In the Wet
the big day
solving bongard problems
visiting Titan
unintelligent design
Shorthorn
the nuclear option
second gear
On the Persistence of Bad Design...
Texas chili cookoff
the inflection point
almost famous design and stochastic debugging
may I take your order?
paper art
triple double
China's olympic gardens
New Yorker covers
Death Rider! (da da dum)
how did I get here (Mt.Whitney)?
the Law of Significance
Holiday Inn
Daniel Jacoby's photographs
room with a view
weird disaster update
in praise of paddle shifting
the first bird
Gödel Escher Bach: Birthday Cantatatata
shining a light
Father's Day (in pictures)
Tour de France 2009
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