August 2011
1 post
If PHP Were British - Added Bytes by Dave Child →
Brilliant, old chap!
May 2011
1 post
Upcoming Shows
For those of you willing to suffer amateur performances to watch friends perform, I have three shows coming up. You may be able to watch the Passim shows online via ConcertWindow, if Passim decides to stream them.
Saturday, May 28th, 12:00-12:30 pm, at Club Passim: The Club Passim Blues Ensemble (incluging me) will be opening the Saturday session of the spring Campfire. We’re planning...
March 2011
1 post
The Gamer Brain →
January 2011
1 post
A Tale of Two Moralities - NYTimes.com →
Krugman nails it.
December 2010
1 post
Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; “To... →
Very interesting read. I’m strongly ambivalent about Wikileaks, but I’d never heard Assange’s arguments in its favor. Good food for thought.
July 2010
2 posts
The ever-arrogant Apple « Observatory →
Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning →
I already put this on facebook, but I’m sticking it on Tumblr so I can keep track of it. (apologies for those who see it twice)
June 2010
1 post
Why Parents Need to Talk to Their Kids About Race... →
May 2010
1 post
Color Survey Results « xkcd →
Ever since trying to do computer sign detection in color images, I’ve had some hangups with this whole “color” thing. Good to see I’m not the only one.
April 2010
1 post
Kickstarter - Haiti, Documentary Photography... →
Just pledged to back this. Please consider doing the same. Haiti needs a lot of things, but one of those is to have its story told. (Note, also, that Nate is offering to donate 50% of book sale profits to support educational projects in Haiti.)
March 2010
7 posts
4 tags
Who says Massachusetts is full of gun-hating... →
We’re church-hating liberals, apparently.
Odd and Wonderful
12easypieces:
Today, March 26, is Robert Frost’s birthday. On his 18th birthday, in 1892, Walt Whitman died. It seems odd and wonderful to me to have these two poets—each with such a distinctive voice and yet each so wholly American—overlap in their lives.
33 years later, time leaves its mark on Le Grand... →
I hate to think that this might ever go away, but it’s seeming more and more possible. If you live in Massachusetts, or live near Massachusetts, or are visiting Massachusetts, and you have an appreciation for magic, you *must* go see this, and you should do it soon.
Urban Mass Transit System of North America →
Wordle - Gov 2.0 Camp New England (#gov20ne) →
A Wordle made from the introductions (“please say three words”) at Gov 2.0. My words were transparency, trust, and service.
February 2010
2 posts
What to do when your child is being bullied →
The post here was very painful for me—possibly because Sarah has been having a rough time at school, this week. I’m linking to one of the comments, though, because I thought it was very insightful, and because I thought others might want to know about NCBI.
December 2009
1 post
Going West →
Where books come to life, indeed.
November 2009
4 posts
My True Fit Press Release →
My previous company has a new name and (apparently) a new CEO.
xkcd » Lego →
Apparently all I do, now, is post web comics to this account, but I really, really cannot express how much I loved this comic. (But maybe that’s just because it’s that time of the month.)
Tonight on "Unthreatening African-American Male... →
I don’t generally recommend the comic Medium Large (though I love it), because it can be offensive and/or unsettling, but I think this one is mild enough to share.
September 2009
2 posts
[xkcd] The Search →
Just loved this new xkcd comic (though I’m perhaps biased by having spent a non-trivial amount of last evening thinking about how humans understand, and fail to understand, God).
The 3 key parts of news stories you usually don’t... →
I have a list of things that I would really, really like to have. So much so, that if I could figure out how to get time and funding, I would make them myself. One of those is an online news periodical that takes a timely, unhurried, and transparent approach to reporting. This article is going on my list of references in case I ever start it.
August 2009
4 posts
MBTA transit schedule raw data →
One thing I can cross off my Christmas list. Next I’d like real-time updates on the position of all trains and buses. Thanks, Santa.
What we believe: Love isn’t enough →
Preach it, Tami Winfrey Harris!
White Collars Turn Blue →
Found this interesting. Would be curious to hear rebuttals, if anyone is in the mood.
“May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and...”
– Ekklesia Journey: A Four-Fold Franciscan Blessing
July 2009
2 posts
3 tags
Understocked →
Hope you can enjoy this regardless of your feelings on the whole Gates vs. Cambridge PD thing.
Very Fine Fellows
Yesterday I bought a pair of Vibram Five Fingers “shoes” (hereafter, VFFs) at City Sports. Though I did take a quick walk around the park in them last night, today I really put them to use, so I figured I’d record my thoughts here to answer people’s questions.
Since I have a desk job, pretty much all my walking was on my commute. I walked just over 2 miles, today—0.5 mile...
June 2009
1 post
May 2009
3 posts
Utah Governor Huntsman - Next Ambassador to... →
I go to NYC for the weekend and nearly miss Obama adding a Mormon (Republican, no less) to the administration.
3 tags
“The Princess and the Frog” and the critical... →
Interesting analysis of the upcoming Disney movie. I haven’t been following closely, but I have to say that this essay gave me some hope. Yes, it spends a lot of time of what seems to (still) be wrong with the movie, but given Disney’s history, I’m amazed at all the things they manage to be getting right. Here’s to hoping they’re reading racialicious and can fix a...
April 2009
2 posts
Oprah and the Secret Lives of Moms at ... →
Tell it! This is the motherhood parallel to Jeff’s awesome screed on American media’s opinions about fatherhood.
$80m in US funds for bike projects unspent in... →
Hmmm. Thinking maybe I shouldn’t have let my MassBike membership lapse.
March 2009
3 posts
'We're All Gonna Die' →
One of my favorite things in life is having friends who know what I love. Rachel sent this to me, because she knows how much I love faces, and good photographs of anonymous, unsuspecting people.
Coding Horror: The Hardest Interview Puzzle... →
Worth reading just for the eponymous puzzle question (it’s a block quote, just below the picture of a book cover). If you’ve ever done I logic puzzle, you’ll get the joke.
Does anyone know anything about Amtrak's books?
Every time I price a trip on Amtrak, I’m flabbergasted. We’re planning a 3-leg trip this summer, BOS to SLC to PDX (Portland, OR), and I’m pricing leg 1 by rail and plane. Jet Blue wants $215/person to get us to SLC. Amtrak wants $130/person (w/ AAA discount). So far, so good, but there’s still one tiny problem. This fare involves having my darling daughters sleep in...
February 2009
2 posts
Twitter / John Gruber: They act as though ... →
I normally don’t re-tweak (and technically, I’m not), but this is just a bit too funny to pass up.
12 easy pieces: Hidden Assumptions →
Re-posting Jeff’s excellent observations on assumptions about fathers in U.S. popular culture.
January 2009
6 posts
2009 US Movie Box Office →
Once you figure out how to read the chart, it’s pretty easy to see who the Academy Award nominees are—they’re the ones with the big jumps last week. (Well, other than “Hotel for Dogs.”)
Please tell me the author of this document has... →
Seriously. This is worse than the KJV Bible.
“Our people know great uncertainty.” Also, they know a lot of cliché turns of phrase.
“In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of…the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.” WTF? Even if you want to insist this horrid style is...
Is it worse to call someone a racist or to be one? →
This is a great elucidation of something I was trying to get across during the trans-racial adoption seminar I did on Saturday. Namely, that the absence of lynchings and assassinations (Oakland aside) does not mean the absence of racism. That there is subtle, institutional racism that continues to oppress people of color. See also one of my favorite quotes ever.
Software Engineer VAX / VMS / Ada / C Jobs →
Is it wrong of me to find the juxtaposition of VAX/VMS, Ada, Access, HTML, and ColdFusion odd? Should I be worried that this implies that our ICBM launch software is a CF web app, interfacing with a VMS mainframe, and an MS Access database? The Free World may be in much more danger than I ever imagined.
Report Finds Online Threats to Children Overblown... →
Anyone want to bet against me and assert that this will reduce the amount of panic about children online?
Cryo-SEM of Snow →
— via Electric Josh.
December 2008
4 posts
Challenge: Send a holiday card to a stranger →