Blog Posts

Should I add this guy to a Google+ Circle?

The End of Free Will

Check out The End of Free Will(from Dilbert.com Blog: ** "First we need to define free will. In the past, I’ve defined it as the brain’s magical ability to make decisions independent of the physical laws of the universe. And since I don’t believe in magic, or souls, I conclude that free will doesn’t exist, at least by that limited definition. In my view, we’re just moist robots bumping around and imagining we have control." (from: **The End of Free Will) Dilbert Blog often has crazy excursions of fancy intellectual humor!

Update about Spotify

So I have now been using Spotify for about a week after sumarily deserting Rhapsody (no stickyness at all!) Here’s my summary: Pro Spotify - Has a nice downloadable client on Mac which I can launch from the Dock - I seem to be discovering some new music from non-American Jazz artists. Not sur...

No Regrets? My Macbook Air is only 2 months old and already out-of-date

It always happens and I really try not to have buyers remorse, but: “Apple Updates MacBook Air”…

Big announcement about twitter

Actually it’s about Twitter Support in BlogBridge. If you are a BlogBridge user, please try it out. Just click on BlogBridge Weekly Release and it will just work. If you aren’t still or yet, please help me spread the word! > “I have exciting news. We have released a new beta build of BlogBridge with IMO awesome new twitter support. This is bringing us another step to being the ultimate personal social media dashboard.” (from me!) Spread the word!

BillGuard

This site looks really good, but I am not signing up yet. I am famously promiscuous signing up with new s...

Spotify – genres?

Ok a few hours into it, I’ve located what looks like a major weakness in Spotify. One of the fun things about Rhapsody is discovering new music. What are the top albums in “Piano Jazz”. Had to look and look for a similar feature in Spotify. The closest I can find is to type this into the search box: genre:”piano jazz” Oy! And by the way, how am I supposed to know that “piano jazz” is a legitimate genre? Oh just look on this list. Whoops. Piano Jazz is not a real genre, so it doesn’t work. Any one know any tips?

Cancelled Rhapsody, Trying Spotify

As I said in the previous post, I am a bit of a promiscuous signer upper. From a cursory look, Rhapsody and Spotify are fairly similar. They both charge $10 per month for unlimited listening to all kinds of music. I saw a few blog posts that took one side or the other. With all the geek news about ...

[GEEKY] Good link of Rails Tips

Just a quick hit: Ruby on Rails tips that will male you a better programmer.

Preparation needed

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what kind of preparation college students need as they graduate to pursue their futures. Thomas Friedman writes an excellent column in the New York Times where he says: > “Look at the news these days from the most dynamic sector of the U.S. economy — Silicon ...

Boston Postmortem

We just got back from the monthly meeting of “Boston Postmortem“. Huh, what is that? Well as a result of my teaching at Brandeis this summer – [Mobile and Game Software Development](https://sites.google.com/site/jbs2011mobile/lectures/week/04-3d-graphics-and-open...

Are you losing money?

From ABC News, but I’ve seen a similar story elsewhere: > “There are 300 million third-party charges totaling $2 billion on U.S. phone bills each year, according to the Senate Co...

David Brooks: The Mother of All No-Brainers

Another on the mark article by David Brooks: the mother of all no brainers. I can’t help it but I am riveted by this debt ceiling debacle. Like many I want them to stop bickering and reach and agreement. I know th...

Cool new game? Giraffe Adventure…

If you’re interested in computer games for Android, see what you think of this one’s potential… Coming soon to an Android near you according to some friends of mine. I’ve seen a prototype and, it looks promising in an Angry Birds kind of way. Mindless and unique. Let them know what you think! Giraffe Adventure, Coming to an Android near you!

I wonder when this will come to iPhone!

This is a very unusual Android app that I came across. It looks like they are just starting so it’s a bit crude, but highly intriguing… > “HappyTrack is an Android Application that gives you the chance to express how are you feeling and why. Every time you update your status this app will keep track of the time, place and reasons about your feelings. But that’s not all!” (from HappyTrack) What do you think?

Microsoft is to Google as Lotus was to Microsoft

This isn’t a huge new insight but it’s interesting to see history kind of repeating itself. Sometimes a product is so locked in and so entrenched that it looks like it will never be beat. After all, no one ever got fired for buying IBM right? And you’d have to be crazy to try to build a...

Inside Job

It’s hard to comprehend people who feel that it is reasonable (let alone ethical, let alone bankers) to get paid on the order of $50 MILLION a year. You should watch the documentary Inside Job. It’s nauseating. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFfTcAcGjcU]

[GEEKY] Full Applications that run in the browser

Sproutcore is a JavaScript framework for writing powerful web applications with less code. It looks to me as a way to write a lot more of your application in JavaScript running in the browser. And this involves moving the logic of the application’s own logic there...

Interesting approach to teaching computer science

Fun article about Ben Hescott who has some unique – and impressive – approaches to teaching an abstract topic: > Q. Did you experience an “aha’’ teaching moment? A. My first time teaching, I was using PowerPoint slides. One student kept saying, “I don’t see it.’’ So I turned off the c...

[GEEKY] JavaScript – Universal Language of the Future

JavaScript is the language of the future. Why do I say this? I love Ruby, I respect Java, and I am jealous of Python. And of course I have a warm spot in my heart for C++. Think about it. JavaScript is unique among all those languages: - Any computer you can get your hands on nowadays has a workin...