What is the cellphone equivalent of a hat rack?
I am just as guilty as anyone of being overly addicted to looking at my cellphone, and that’s not an original observation! It’s a cli...
Blog Posts
All my blog posts and articles
Page 57 of 142 (2823 total posts)
December 2012
Good tips for building products that people want
Here is a good cheat sheet on how to build products that people really want. It is cribbed from this article on TechCrunch. > - Draw On Previous Experience and Understanding – Th...
Read more →November 2012
Teaching at Olin College next year
I’m excited to tell you that I just accepted a position as Visiting Lecturer at **[Olin College](http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...
These icons are too similar to be coincidences
One of these two is from Apple and one is from Google. They both contain coupons and cards. Which is which? 
Election Meltdown
I was a volunteer for the Democratic Committee in Arlington Mass. They have an impressive operation, just like what you’ve heard. For example, the systems they used to deploy us volunteers. I walked in the campaign office, untrained and unschooled. Within minutes I was **assigned my...
Read more →There’s more to life than Kickstarter (revised)
Everyone (almost) has heard of Kickstarter, right? It’s the best known (I think) of the so-called Crowd Funding services. Let’s say you have a project – it can be anything – a record, a book, some kind of invention – and you need funding. The crowd funding sites giv...
Read more →Check out WriteThatName
I’ve been using a app called “WriteThatName” which very helpfully scans the emails I receive for signature blocks with people’s name. It takes that info and correctly parses it and adds it to my google contacts. Super nice. I recommend it!
What happened to Americans Elect?
Over the last year I mentioned “Americans Elect” several times: [Americans Elect: Another Opinion](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCoQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.salas.com%2Fimported-20111103233638%2F2012%2F4%2F6%2Famericans-elect-another-opinion.html&ei=_NiXUNKnD8...
Read more →Intellectual Property? Copyright? Or just a lot of LOVE?
I was rather proud of the art I designed for a t-shirt this summer. It’s cool but of course it’s a direct ripoff, um, no, I mean, it was inspired by a well known piece. If I show you my design, below:  said something which may seem obvious but is nonetheless very controversial: > “Apple’s success as a technology company is built on hardware. The current fixation with digital is misplaced.” (fromThe Real Meaning and Future of Apple’s Mantra – Designed in California) Good article. Read it.
Ivory Tower or Trade school?
One of the tensions that I have seen in teaching software engineering is whether something should be viewed as legitimate research or part of the craft of computer engineering. It’s a slippery slope that I myself didn’t have a good articulation for. I came across [this in a newsgroup which I think...
Read more →Beautiful Outlook
I don’t know why this has not gotten more press. You should take a look at Microsoft’s new Gmail killer, outlook.com. It’s a totally web based email client, like Gmail, but the user experience is miles and miles better than Gmail. ![Screen Shot 2012 10 16 at 10 31 ...
Read more →Securing or attacking Industrial Control Systems
It turns out that Kaspersky Labs is developing a brand new operating system specifically designed to be used in embedded industrial systems and industrial control systems. ...
Read more →How are the presidential debates like a Nascar race?
I am looking forward to watching the Presidential debates tonight. But for all the wrong reasons. I believe I know pretty clearly what each side’s positions are and what they points will be. So, like when I watch a car race (which is rarely) secretly I have to admit that I will enjoy the su...
Read more →Order in Google arguments
Does Google give a different answer if you reorder the words in the search? What? A trivial question? Have you ever tried to refine a search by reordering the words? Wouldn’t it be useful if you knew for sure that it would or would not make a difference? Experiment: ruby rails bureaucrat gem examples rails bureaucrat gem examples ruby These two searches indeed did produce different results! And not just a reordering of the results. There were at least two results in the top 7 which were present in one and not the other. Q.E.D.
A travesty in a wealthy country
From the New York Times, an article by Nick Kristof, describing a real-life story of a friend of his and health care. Whenever I hear, “We have the best health care in the world”, I think of stories like this....
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