I'm often surprised that some of the most valuable lessons I learned back in the late 1980's have not become standard practice in software development. Back then, I worked for…
The 2012 Summer Olympics are nearly over. I haven't watched them much, mostly because I can't stand the way they are covered by NBC and its affiliates, especially in prime…
Quite a lot of people hate "Obamacare" which is otherwise known as the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. And there are indeed things to hate about the law. For example,…
I became the chair of my department a little over a year ago and within a few months, I found myself completely overwhelmed by email. Emails started to get buried…
I don't think anyone would accuse me of being a Luddite. I began to learn to program in the late 1970's when I was in high school, majored in computer…
I've been thinking about software usability a lot lately, mostly because I encounter so much software that isn't particularly usable. There are two pieces of software that I use a…
A student from my Creating Games class came to my office today to talk about the keynote speech from a conference he had recently attended. The speaker was lamenting the…
Although it is not a personal email written by founder and President of Netflix Reed Hastings, I was happy to receive the following email this morning. Perhaps "the Netflix team"…
I am a sucker for stories about the relationship between games and life. When I was a graduate student, a story in the Tallahassee Democrat about the life of Warrick…
There is a huge controversy raging in NH this year involving the Northern Pass Project. According to the project's web site, the Northern Pass is "a transmission project designed to deliver…
I just finished watching the five episodes of the BBC miniseries The Last Enemy. Ann had recommended it because it is about computers and privacy and also because Benedict Cumberbatch (of recent…
This entry was inspired by Meg, who asked some great questions after I posted my last entry. In that entry, I explained what the net neutrality debate is about and why…
The debate about net neutrality has been around for a while. I taught my students about it back when I was still in the Computer Science Department, during the Bush…
Recently, my favorite NPR show, On the Media, had a story about an interesting blog called Zero Views. The blog celebrates "the best of the bottom of the barrel" by posting…
A story about Google and privacy on NPR last week caught my attention because it seemed so strange. And now that I know what the real story is, it still seems really…
I recently rewatched Julia, the 1977 film starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. It is based on a chapter in Lillian Hellman's memoir, Pentimento: A Book of Portraits. That chapter tells…
As I drove to the airport in late September, I listened, as usual, to New Hampshire Public Radio in my car. Election season is upon us so much of the coverage that…