Some people just can’t catch a break. It’s never their fault, but things just seem to go wrong around them. Projects spin out of control, bug counts skyrocket, hardware breaks, people quit. Whenever you look at a specific problem, there’s always a good reason – the scope was increased, the agreed-upon technology turned out to […]
I haven’t worn a watch for, I don’t know, ten years? Fifteen? At some point I’d realized that I was surrounded by multifarious screens (computer, phone, microwave, oven, set-top box, etc.) with time displays that were far more accurate than any watch I’d ever own, and took the watch off for good. Fast forward to […]
So, it’s been one month, and I’m happy to report that progress has been good. 14 workouts, none missed, no money donated. All of the workouts were on our home elliptical machine, gradually building from 20 minutes at level 7 to 45 minutes at level 8. It’s a bit depressing to realize that 45 minutes […]
It turns out, car theft is a bulk business. There’s a whole ecosystem around it – the thief, the chop shop, the fences, the salvage yard – there can be a lot of people involved, which means that the individual profit is smaller than you’d think. And so, professional car thieves have to work in […]
Intern interview season is upon us, and last Friday I had the opportunity to sit on a panel discussing how to maximize the value of an internship. There were a couple of points I thought were interesting, and so I share them here for your reading pleasure. Why we intern In my mind, there are […]
When I was 8 years old, I remember having a friend over to dinner one fateful night. Sometime during the course of the meal, someone told a funny joke, and I burst out with an explosive laugh – which wouldn’t have been a big deal, except that my mouth was full of milk. My parents […]
For a while there, I was doing pretty well. I was going to bed early, waking up at 4 am(!), hitting the gym, and getting back home before my son woke up. Then I pulled a muscle, my daughter was born, and BAM a year and a half later I’m 15 pounds overweight. Other parents […]
I’ve been thinking (again) about what it is that makes some coders special, and have come up with the following idiosyncratic, completely unscientific, my-employer-does-not-endorse-my-views classification. It should go without saying (but won’t) that not only is this graph not to scale, but that it’s a pretty scary power function as you move up the pyramid. […]
Here are some things I recommend to my family. My friends. My coworkers. Sometimes, to complete strangers. Some are funny, some are serious, some are just plain strange. Some are longer, others shorter. But I think they’re all worth taking the time. Do this. Watch Dove Evolution This is Water It’s not about the nail […]
My wife and I were recently talking about one of our mutual friends, a researcher in a “soft money” position. This means that instead of getting paid by the university from general funds, she’s responsible for bringing in the money for her salary, research team, facilities, etc., through writing grants. This has become increasingly difficult over […]
Dan Dreams of Coding 