Tropes I Won’t Write(All tropes available for review on TVTropes.org; warning for existential-level time sink threat.)May 19, 2023May 19, 2023
I am still a humanFor many years I have used a tagline similar to the current one, which includes the stipulation: “All posts made with 100% recycled…Mar 18, 20231Mar 18, 20231
Fixing the coding part of interviewsCoding interviews suck. They’re painful for everyone. But we need to assess technical ability. What if there were a better way?Jan 27, 20221Jan 27, 20221
The Five Hearts“No, Twitter, I didn’t want to shove that in all my friends’ faces, I just wanted to let the author know I liked it!”Jun 14, 2021Jun 14, 2021
How Not to Ruin your Design ReviewLet’s not sabotage the process from the get-go.Nov 23, 2020Nov 23, 2020
Learning How To PracticePracticing is a skill. Learning to learn can really pay off. But it’s hard work, and rarely rewarded.Aug 8, 2020Aug 8, 2020
The fine art of deleting codeDon’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed.Oct 16, 2019Oct 16, 2019
Privacy is safety, and safety IS liberty.Aspects of security are ways to ensure aspects of autonomy. Safety is, at a short remove, liberty; without safety, one cannot be free. The…Jul 18, 2019Jul 18, 2019
Four Pounds of Crap in Three SacksOr, one reason why writing websites always sucks so much.Jun 24, 20191Jun 24, 20191
Tactics for nerdsThere is only one tactic, and this is how stories and games prevent us from realizing that.Jun 4, 2019Jun 4, 2019
How being a lefty taught me what I don’t know about racismSeeing the invisibleJun 2, 20195Jun 2, 20195
On being a better manIt’s not about the destination; it’s about where you start from.Feb 11, 20191Feb 11, 20191
Worshippers in the Cult Of BusyHow do we go from being “always busy” to “sustainably productive”?Feb 7, 2019Feb 7, 2019
Design principles for programming languages, Part 2a: Readability, Expressability, Concision, and…Examples and discussion about the various facets of programming languages, and how they help or hinder programmers.Jan 11, 20192Jan 11, 20192
A Taxonomy of Text-based User InterfacesWhat do NetHack, git, the white pages, chatbots, and Visual Studio all have in common?Jan 7, 2019Jan 7, 2019
Usability testing for APIs (and other textual interfaces)Text-based interfaces are both an opportunity and a challenge for UX practitioners. I’ll discuss what makes testing them harder and easier.Nov 30, 2018Nov 30, 2018
Everything I Know About Business I Learned In The SCA: Part 3The Society for Creative Anachronism is a bizarre, wonderful, ridiculous, multi-faceted organization full of colorful pageantry and even…Feb 7, 20181Feb 7, 20181
The Last Private ConversationThe last private conversation was held on April 2nd, 2042, between Guhyaka Balaji and her sister Aarti, on a walk toward their school in…Jan 9, 2018Jan 9, 2018