Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Ten More Simple Rules
The Public Library of Science‘s Ten Simple Rules series can be fun reading; they’re introductory papers intended to provide novices or non-domain-experts with a set of quick, evidence-based guidelines...
View ArticleFredOS
With articles about this super classified military AI called “Sentient” coming out the same week this Area 51 nonsense is hitting its crescendo – click that link, if you want to see an Air Force...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Forward Motion
This has been a while coming; thank you for your patience. I’m very happy to be able to share the final four candidates for Mozilla’s new community-facing synchronous messaging system. These...
View ArticleDuty Of Care
A colleague asked me what I thought of this Medium article by Owen Bennett on the application of the UK’s Duty of Care laws to software. I’d had… quite a bit of coffee at that point, and this (lightly...
View ArticleA Process By Which Scarce Resources Are Allocated
Counterpoint: any software that is intended to be used by humans is inevitably an expression of its programmers’ understanding of the software’s audience, and therefore the programmers’ beliefs about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Retrospect
I bailed out of Twitter not long after I put this up. I tried to follow Anil’s lead going to lists and zero followers for a bit, but after some time reflecting on that last blown-up tweet I couldn’t...
View ArticleApparel
I made a thing and somebody said “I want that on a shirt”. If that was you, here’s your chance. It’s a great game, incidentally.
View ArticleClik here to view.
80×25
Every now and then, my brain clamps on to obscure trivia like this. It takes so much time. “Because the paper beds of banknote presses in 1860 were 14.5 inches by 16.5 inches, a movie industry cartel...
View ArticleThe State Of Mozilla, 2019
As I’ve done in previous years, here’s The State Of Mozilla, as observed by me and presented by me to our local Linux user group. Presentation:[ https://www.youtube.com/embed/RkvDnIGbv4w ] And Q&A:...
View ArticleVerso Polity
I had to go looking for it to re-watch, because I was briefly exposed to it and couldn’t coherently ingest what I thought I’d seen. I do not ask you to believe, but I won’t give you a link. I cannot...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Historical Reasons
I’ve known for a while how to override bash builtins, but it was something I’d long filed under “ok but why” in my mental repository of software esoterica. Until I saw this comment I hadn’t considered...
View ArticleDecentralia
It’s been a few years since I’ve seen an interview with Jack Dorsey that didn’t read like he’d just smoked an entire copy of Atlas Shrugged, so when he announced that he was willing to fund “up to...
View ArticleLong Term Support
I bought a cordless drill from DeWalt a few years before they standardized on their current 20 volt form factor. Today the drill part of the drill is still in good shape, but its batteries won’t hold a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Poor Craft
“It’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools” is an old line, and it took me a long time to understand it. [ https://www.youtube.com/embed/ShEez0JkOF ] A friend of mine sent me this talk. And while I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Over The Line
[ This first appeared over on the Mozilla community discourse forums. ] You can scroll down to the punchline if you like, but I want to start by thanking the Mozilla community, contributors, industry...
View ArticleIntrasective Subversions
I often wonder where we’d be if Google had spent their don’t-be-evil honeymoon actually interviewing people for some sort moral or ethical framework instead of teaching a generation of new hires that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Star Wars 1979
This is from a children’s Star Wars book printed in 1979, called “The mystery of the rebellious robots”. The story is nothing – spoilers, but the answer is they cheaped out on aftermarket parts and...
View ArticleCrossfade Dissonance
@pamela : I will never, ever tire of seamlessly transitioning from the end of Mean Girls to the beginning of Hackers with the same song, this was a damn *gift* given to us by the movie industry @mhoye...
View Article