"Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything."
- Blaise Pascal

"In an age of specialization people are proud to be able to do one thing well, but if that is all they know about, they are missing out on much else life has to offer… I like the idea of being a Renaissance hack. If tombstones were still in style, I would want to have the two words chiseled right under my name."
-Dennis Flanagan

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert Heinlein

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The death of the desktop OS greatly exaggerated

September 10, 2009 2 Comments
For almost as long as people have said this year will be the year of the Linux desktop, people have decried the end of the desktop OS itself.
Sorry Google, not so fast.
The desktop OS isn't going anywhere.

The argument goes something like this:
1. More and more people are using their web browser for applications.
2. The web is producing progressively richer and richer applications.
3. Thus eventually the desktop will be pointless
4. Thus people will stop using it.

According to the proponents, we're all soon going to be using dumb terminals, getting our data and applications though the cloud. The personal desktop is a thing of the past. Armageddon for private computing. We will be beholden to our service providers.

This is all failing to recognize one basic fact. Moore's Law outpaces Neilson's Law. You may be asking yourself what these laws ...
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The city of sin

April 9, 2009 0 Comments
Here I am in Las-Vegas.

This place is very strange.

First of all there was the drive.
We decided to leave in the afternoon, and so went through the mountains at night, and it was very cold. However there was plenty of passing through civilization, so no big deal.

We got into Nevada around day break...
Bad idea.

As soon as you enter Nevada civilization as we know it ceases to exist.
There are tiny towns throughout the plains to the north. And the tiny towns fall under one of two categories.

1) A few businesses on a dusty road,
These are the kind of places a person like me fears walking around in.
These are the places where manly men are, the kind of place where you just know a person like me wont fit in.
We passed a place called bobo's bar. Outside the only vehicles were ...
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What is a bank

April 2, 2009 1 Comment

There are a few concepts that need to be covered:

  • Wealth
  • Money
  • Monetary Policy
  • Banks


Wealth is the actual value owned by individuals. For a given individual wealth is relative. Perhaps you like shoes, and I like jackets, so I trade my shoes for your jacket. By trading these items, we have each become wealthier; however the wealth of the society has remained the same.

The wealth of the society can be measured as the average value held for each good or service multiplied by the quantity of those trade-ables. From this it is obvious that the only way to increase the wealth of the society at large is to offer a service or make a new good.

Trades become complicated if we're only bartering. Suppose I have shoes and I need a jacket, but the jacket maker doesn't need shoes she needs a sewing needle, but the ...

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Programming Paradigms

March 31, 2009 10 Comments

A paradigm is a way of thinking.

A paradigm is an abstract model. It is an exemplary model for how a model is constructed. It is a way of producing models.

Programming is the process of defining a model of a computational problem.

Programming paradigms are models for the way to think about (abstract) a problem in a computational manner. It is a theoretical framework within which algorithms, objects, functions, and other abstract representations are formulated. It is composed of techniques, styles, and a culture for how computation is achieved. It is a pattern that serves as a school of thought regarding methodologies for computing.

A programming paradigm is a way of programming.


Programming paradigms are often closely coupled with programming languages. And why shouldn't they be? Programming a `programming language` consists of defining a model for defining models of computation. Since a paradigm is an abstract model, a ...

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Wordsmith.org: Today's Word

meretricious

1. Appealing in a cheap or showy manner: tawdry. 2. Based on pretense or insincerity.

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