I’ve occasionally wondered, how the structural differences in language between latin descended western romance languages and asian ideographic (CJKV) languages have effected the development of computing and technology. Digging through Wikipedia I was stunned at the number of different systems that have evolved to bridge this gap, most notably the profusion of different romanization methods that have been applied to [...]
One of my favorite websites, Worse Than Failure, today posted an article slamming the Agile Programming methodology. Their basic premise: Good people can build good software no matter what methodology they use. We don’t need a weight-loss pill for thin people; we need to solve the real problem behind failure in our industry. The bar for “acceptable� is far too [...]
I found the above in Linked In’s “Answers” software category, it’s the kind of thing that makes me physically wince. “The software and platform has been designed. Needs to be developed”. Translation: “If we could magically read the handwriting on the mortgage documents I get and transmogrify that into something computer readable, it would be awesome! I’ve done all the [...]
In addition to Muji (the monochrome Ikea store), it now appears there is a second Japanese establishment that I wish was within walking distance: Menza. Cool Hunting has the whole scoop, it’s a hyper express combo of a Hair Cuttery, Dry Cleaners, and energy bar (with cheerleaders). I’m trying to mentally calculate the various macroeconomic effects on our respective economies [...]
Joi Ito is pretty sure he’s a lefty; but was trained from birth to use his right hand for “formal” tasks and now is trying to figure out if his brain is “damaged” by this experience. While it’s no longer precisely clear that brain training slows the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, it does at least appear to be beneficial in [...]
So ProductDose has the scoop about the new half-height and double density improvement to the barcode, the DataBar. (though I’m not sure why, maybe because all their other stories are about items with barcodes?) While I think the ideas good, if you’re going to go through all the trouble of switching everything around, how about just biting the bullet and [...]
Jan Chipchase has a cool picture of the Taipei metro machine’s height gauge for children (children under a certain height can ride free), perhaps the most boring implementation of “you must be this high to ride this ride” ever. In the post, the question of more price segmentation based upon human differentiation comes up and the question: “What is the [...]
MacApper is running a contest for the best “switcher” story: someone ditching Windows for the Mac. Today’s entry was interesting, Joe Goh founder of FunkeeMonk a windows programmer turned Mac software developer. Personally, I was less interested in his “switching story”, than in the story of how he got started with his business. As near as I can tell, Joe [...]
I gave into Twitter after reading about it and deciding that it is probably a platform that I need to integrate with for the personal side of my upcoming online reputation management application. I’m anticipating a lot of swearing about RoR to be posted. I’m thinking I can get it hooked up to where it can automatically do a twitter [...]
Today marks the release of two new episodes in the annals of Zombiedom: The Walking Dead, Vol. 6 is now out. This series of graphic novels along with Y: The Last Man has really rekindled my interest in comic books and the genre. It’s interesting that in the era of “snack culture” that the only really growing segment of the [...]
