I don’t normally blog poetry, but the passing of our giants this past month has put me in such a mood. . What is built becomes our future Hand-constructed, stone by stone Quarried by our elders’ labors Fashioned with their strength and bone Dare to dream, and dare to conquer Fears by building castles grand [...]
Archive for the ‘Friday Thoughts’ Category
A Passing of Giants
Posted in Friday Thoughts, Opinion & Editorial on 2011-11-02 | Comments Off
2010: Cyberpunk World
Posted in Friday Thoughts, Opinion & Editorial on 2010-12-31 | 14 Comments »
Speaking as a neutral observer with exactly zero opinion on any political question, and not even a cyberpunk reader given that I’ve read about two such novels in my life: Is it just me, or do the last few months’ global news headlines read like they were ghostwritten by Neal Stephenson? I wonder if we [...]
Links I enjoyed this week: Flash and HTML5
Posted in Friday Thoughts, Opinion & Editorial, Software Development, Web on 2010-05-06 | 1 Comment »
These are the two best links I’ve read in the wake of the Flash and HTML5 brouhaha(s). They discuss other informative points too, but their biggest value lies in discussing three things, to which I’ll offer the answers that make the most sense to me: What is the web, really? “The web” is the cross-linked [...]
Links I enjoyed, and iPad musings
Posted in Apple, Friday Thoughts, Microsoft, Software Development on 2010-04-01 | 4 Comments »
Appetizers: Three cool links The Design of Design by Fred Brooks (Amazon) Yes, a new book by the Fred Brooks. Started reading it in Stanza on my iPhone today… A Turing Machine (aturingmachine.com) I’m in love. This is my favorite computer ever. I so want one. The Evolution of Visual C++ in Visual Studio 2010 [...]
Warren Buffett Rocks
Posted in Friday Thoughts on 2010-03-19 | 2 Comments »
Really. Direct link.
Guest Blog: Words Matter
Posted in Friday Thoughts, Software Development on 2009-12-11 | 7 Comments »
This morning my colleague Rob Hanz wrote an interesting email that went viral in my corner of Microsoft. He graciously allowed me to share it with you here. I hope you enjoy it too. Blink and subconscious messaging Robert Hanz I was reading Blink last night, and one of the things it mentioned is how [...]
Truth In Spam
Posted in Friday Thoughts on 2009-06-12 | 1 Comment »
This afternoon I was just finishing up my next Effective Concurrency article (it’ll be up in a few days), when some spam email arrived. Just as my fingers’ auto-delete macro was about to fire, I noticed something odd about the name of the attachment and did a double-take: Cool! There must be some kind of [...]
Dress Re-Hearsal?
Posted in Friday Thoughts on 2009-05-22 | 5 Comments »
An amusing hearse, seen on a neighborhood street: Here’s a close-up of the license plate: Made my morning.
You Know When Your UI Needs Help When…
Posted in Friday Thoughts on 2009-05-01 | 15 Comments »
Seen at a gas station: You know your UI has usability issues when people tape multiple signs on your gas pump to help people get through the intricate and error-prone process of purchasing fuel. Why does the upper note exist? The trouble is that there’s a Debit button but not a Credit button, and so [...]
A Wryly Repurposed Quotation
Posted in Friday Thoughts on 2009-04-17 | Comments Off
In my travels, I recently came across this empty store with an almost-empty box beside the front door. As seen in Monterey, CA: Evidently some character had also noticed the empty store with its empty box, and decided to do a little walk-by wry economic commentary via repurposed quotation. Zooming on the once-empty box:
