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"...but do you call her Lookfar, and paint eyes aside her prow, and my thanks will look out of that blind wood for you and keep you from rock and reef." -- "A Wizard of EarthSea", by Ursula K. LeGuin |
Dear ProQuest friends and colleagues: Introduction As you’ve probably heard, I was abruptly laid-off, on Monday, January 22, 2024. The reasons given were entirely financial; it sounds as though Clarivate wants to move money into “new” projects of some sort. My best guess is that, after 13 years, I was probably one of the higher-paid … Continue reading “ProQuest, Adieu?”
Since the disastrous election of 2016, I have been volunteering my talents as a software architect, to help build technical infrastructure for various progressive and Democratic campaigns. My latest effort is a (potentially state-wide) Democratic voter guide for mobile phones, which you can see at mivoter.org. (But it looks/works best on a phone — that is … Continue reading “mivoter.org”
I. Introduction So much rubbish has been written about time-travel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe… especially with respect to “End Game”… that I thought a “historical retrospective”, as it were, might add some clarity. I love that, in “End Game”, the characters themselves mock other movies’ interpretation of time-travel (e.g. “Back to the Future”), which … Continue reading “Time-Travel in the MCU”
I. Introduction This is an attempt to summarize the basics of money management, for people who are “newly independent”, such as new college graduates. There are many books on the topic (e.g. Broke Millenial seems promising), but I thought a short summary on the key topics might make a good starting place. Some of these … Continue reading “Money Management”
I have been a long-time customer of JP Morgan Chase: personal banking, business banking, mortgage, stockholder, the works. I was astonished, several years ago, to find that they actually listened to me, when I pointed out a bug in their on-line banking platform. (Ironically, it was the “We’re Listening” link: the icon used backslashes in … Continue reading “JP Morgan Chase: the #1 financer of fossil-fuel extraction”
I. Introduction Agile & Beyond is an annual conference (at least 9 years running) about the application of ‘Agile’ principles to software development… and management thereof. (And, yes, the implied reference to Buzz Lightyear’s “To Infinity, and Beyond” is not accidental.) I’ve attended a couple of these in the past, but this year I was a … Continue reading “Agile & Beyond 2019”
(This is the written version of my presentation by the same name, at Agile and Beyond 2019 in Detroit. There are also some short video clips from that talk.) I. Introduction If you’re already doing TDD, and/or have 90%+ unit-test coverage, and/or pair-program all the time, you probably don’t need me. Feel free to leave! If you … Continue reading “Unit-Testing: Carrots and Sticks”
I was writing up some documentation about Amazon Web Services and Docker recently, and after I explained how the pieces fit together, I added: but — Loudon’s Law — it’s more complicated than that! Jim Loudon (1944-1988) was, of all things, a self-described professional space popularizer. He joked that he would do private talks, public … Continue reading “Loudon’s Law”
Artemis is a wonderful co-operative PC game, wherein a small group of players simulate a starship bridge crew, fighting off hordes of over-agressive aliens, while protecting their Starbases. The players must interact with each other (usually in the same physical room) to coordinate the efforts of the various bridge stations. I find the psychodynamics of … Continue reading “Artemis”
I. Introduction & Philosophy The “Martinizer” is a little tool I’ve created to help improve unit-test coverage on large Java projects. The name is a tip-of-the-hat to “Uncle Bob” Martin of TDD fame, with a little word-play on “One hour Martinizing”, a dry-cleaning service. (DRY, as in Don’t Repeat Yourself — get it?) The tool … Continue reading “Unit-Testing: The Martinizer”