Gamification of Tasks That Require Self-discipline is a Mistake
Gamification is a trend in technology right now where people are given micro rewards for accomplishing discrete tasks, such as completing a programming exercise, or…
Category: Mix
How to Get a Good Cup of Coffee From Starbucks
People tend to love Starbucks despite their coffee tasting like it was brewed for three weeks in the center of the sun. Most mask this…
The Difference Between a Programmer, Developer, and a Hacker
There is often spirited discussion and debate about the differences between Programmers, Hackers, and Developers. Most descriptions I’ve seen are flawed in at least one…
The Graph All High School English Teachers Should Mount in Their Classrooms
[ The graph’s x-axis shows the GSS WORDSUM score, which is a vocabulary-based intelligence proxy (correlated at .71). The y-axis shows percentage of people with…
The “Existing Causes” Argument Against Free Will
Image from skeptically.org In my ongoing efforts to convince others that free will is an illusion, I have found an argument vector that I’ve not…
Notice: Hacker Dojos Aren’t Factories for “Idea” People
For those not aware, Hacker Dojos are local groups found in high-tech areas that get many people together and have them code–or learn to code–together.…
Another Way to be Immortal
I wrote a few years ago about the only way I knew of to become immortal. Basically, it was the simple concept of understanding the…
Applying Fundamentals to Health and Information Security
Image by pshan427 In both health and information security it’s easy to become conceptually constrained by external advice, recommendations, and standards. The numbers of entities…
Civilized Cities Should Ban Smoking
I feel like I cannot be the only one who is disgusted every time I walk through someones exhaled cigarette smoke while walking on a…
Getting Real IP Addresses Using CloudFlare, Nginx, and Varnish
March 6, 2012 CloudFlare is a great service that proxies your site’s traffic in order to offer performance gains and filtering options. It can compress…
Thoughts on Sam Harris’ Book on Free Will
Sam Harris’s book on free will came out today and I read it during dinner (it’s a short read). Here’s what I had to say…
The Problem With Daniel Dennett’s Free Will
Before going into my qualms with Daniel Dennett’s capability/evitibility-based free will, I want to point out that most supporters of Daniel Dennett’s brand of free…