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Knowledge for Knowledge's Sake
(In good faith) I asked my great sociolinguistics professor why we cared about the causes for language change and her answer was that it's interesting. I pressed on -- aren't many of the research questions framed in such ways as to lead to irreproducible results? Yes. Asking a question that can never be answered is a great way to get job ( Read more... ) -
OLPC / XO
We've had our OLPC through the G1G1 program for long enough that I find myself entitled to an opinion. It's not positive at all. We got ours mostly as a fun coffee table ornament, but also out of a sincere hope that it could have value for the developing world and that we could contribute developer hours to the project. Having wasted yet another ( Read more... ) -
Atistotle.
"The greatest crimes are caused by excess and not by necessity. Men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold." -
Dave Eggers -- What is the What
I've had a really hard time understanding the Sudan conflict, and I don't think it's due to a lack of effort on my part. Media coverage is sporadic and often betrays biases and the issues themselves are muddled by too many groups with too many competing interests. Reading a linear narrative of one Lost Boy's experience is enlightening, if painful ( Read more... ) -
Home.
Middle-class Americans' somewhat nonsensical obsession with going far away for college, which I completely buy into, warps the concept of 'home' in all sorts of ways. It's definitely hard to attribute the label to relatively temporary dorm housing, frat houses or shitty apartments but I feel I'd made my studio a home of sorts. After three years ( Read more... ) -
Ave Economics.
"You can smoke $20 worth of weed in one hour. That's two independent label CDs that would last you years." -
Rediscovering the passion.
"Has anyone considered the possibility that it's just not fun any more?"
-- Don Knuth, Stanford University, October 2006
SIGCSE caught me in an interesting place somewhere between extreme career-angst and profound passion for ongoing CS projects. Unsurprisingly, a number of the sessions I chose to attend had to do with computer science's ( Read more... ) -
On wasting my life away.
White space should NEVER be significant because you can't SEE it if it's at the end of a line or the end of a file. Or if it looks like a tab but is actually four spaces.
Fucking bullshit. -
One year...
... and to celebrate he (non-euphemistically) taught me to drive stick in an empty lot... -
Permanent hearing loss.
Non-conformists all conform to the same septum piercing, the same combat boots, the same haircuts, the same studded jackets and every time I end up in that crowd I'm amazed at the level of sameness. Even the crusty punk body odor is entirely undifferentiated ( Read more... )