What's at stake
This morning, as I watched an elderly black couple board a full subway car, a seemingly unremarkable series of events occurred: a young white woman rose and offered her seat, then a middle-aged...
View ArticleA lesser poet of Athens
Last year, as you may recall, I experienced the uniquely ignominious pride of winning a bad poetry contest. In this, my last contest as an undergraduate, I settled happily for dishonorable mention....
View ArticleThanks
This may be prolix. I've wanted to write since approximately forever, and my mind and heart are awhirl, plus when not reading for class I've been reading novels (lately Middlesex and Gilead and a quick...
View ArticleLiterature Humanities: Paper #2
Compare Aristophanes' and Diotima's speeches in Plato's “Symposium”. You should analyze each one carefully, thinking about the context, themes, structure, images, language, and references to other...
View ArticleMy unexpected neighbor
[Originally posted to Remember Aaron Swartz]I maintain pkgsrc packages of some ofAaron's software, and over the last decade or so would occasionally send him bits and pieces of code. Along the way we...
View ArticleCodeMash 2013: Your Dev Toolbox, Everywhere
Schmonzcast #13: I've attended (and spoken at) more than a few instances of pkgsrcCon, but I'd never attended a full-on costs-money big-crowd software development conference until two weeks ago....
View ArticleScreencasting on the cheap
When I gave my lightning talk at CodeMash, I made sure to record it (with my iPhone's Voice Memos app). Then I trimmed the ends and converted to MP3 (with iTunes), thinking it was ready to Schmonzcast....
View ArticleSynthesizing podcasts
I'm a latecomer to the Destroy All Software party. Lots and lots of catching up to do. Sure would be nice if I could watch at home on my iPad and on the subway with my iPhone and let Downcast keep them...
View ArticleHow to (maybe) lose 45 pounds in a year
SummaryLook at the evidence and decide that I'm tired of being fat.Look at the evidence and decide that I can make becoming not fat my top priority for 2013.Look at the evidence and prepare the...
View ArticlePermanent CVS, temporary Git
I'm giving a talk called “Rehabilitating pkglint” later this month at pkgsrcCon, which means I need to do some work worth talking about. pkglint is a tool for pkgsrc developers to find common errors in...
View ArticleStrength gains after 15 workouts
As mentioned in my 2013 health manifesto, my exercise regimen thus far consists solely of going to the gym for half an hour twice a week. I spend the 30 minutes (if that) doing high-intensity strength...
View ArticlepkgsrcCon 2013: Rehabilitating pkglint
Schmonzcast #14: Last week I returned from Berlin, where I gave a talk at pkgsrcCon 2013. As a pkgsrc developer since 2002, and a member of its steering committee since 2005, I've attended every...
View ArticleStrength gains (and weight loss) after 30 workouts
I noticed that my progress, as measured by the weights I'm controlling for between 4 and 7 super-slow repetitions, had slowed. This was expected: as the weights increase, effort and intensity also...
View ArticleHealth gains after four months
My first recorded weigh-in was four months ago yesterday. Quantitative data is actionable data, and I've been doing plenty of quantitating. I'm solidly 1/3 of the way to my target weight, still right...
View ArticleRemembering Textpattern
As a person who makes and uses software, on this Memorial Day I want to commemorate the software that brings you these words, for I shall soon retire it from service. (I'll keep writing, naturally,...
View ArticleArea under the curve
As a computer programmer and user, my productivity depends primarily on my fluency with a handful of complex, powerful tools that flexibly suit many contexts alone or in combination: a family of...
View ArticleLosing, learning, and winning
I claimed I would (maybe) lose 45 pounds this year. I've been at it for over six months. What schemes and adjustments did I discuss with the team in the locker room at halftime?Well, hang on. My...
View ArticleWhy I practice TDD
When George Dinwiddie wrote recently about why he practices TDD, it made me think anew about why I do it. His explanation was similar to, yet different from, mine. The practical benefits he lists are...
View ArticleTDD by example: an ikiwiki bugfix
I've written of my love for Test-Driven Development and for ikiwiki. Love is awfully abstract, though. Here's a concrete example.Some contextIkiwiki is a wiki compiler. It transforms easy-to-write...
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