Accept Waste
In new product development, in research, you WILL go down some dead ends. Accept it.
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Just In Time Design
We don’t perfect design in our programming until we’re sure we’re going to keep it. Here is a link to the article from 2003 that impressed me, which I mentioned in the video.
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Who Says Chinese Education is Better?
Before you think I am hating on the Chinese people or Asian-Americans, please go and read this article, “In China, families bet it all on college education for their children.” I’ll wait. Assuming you didn’t read it, I’ll summarize. The Wus have one daughter who studies 13 hours a day and still graduated 16th in…
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Math, Programming and The Ultimate Fighter
I track statistics on my blogs, of course, both this one and my personal blog, which often discusses judo and other martial arts. Normally, this blog has three times as many visitors. Despite what graduate students imply, most people are more interested in statistics than in getting knocked down or punched in the face. A…
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The point of view of truth: Another thing I’ve Learned in 55 Years
” … we may then define intellect in general as the power of good response from the point of view of truth or fact.” – Thorndike, 1921 Edward Tufte impresses me. His books on visual data show him as possessing in copious amounts that very rare commodity – truly original thoughts . So, when he tweeted…
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Should transgender athletes compete in women’s MMA: The data
There has been far more heat than light surrounding the current controversy over whether a transgender (male to female) fighter should be allowed to compete in mixed martial arts in the women’s division. This article on The Verge said that opponents of Ms. Fox competition “are not supported by the current science”, citing the fact…
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Why I hire people who work from home
More interesting to me than the spate of articles on the decision of Yahoo to eliminate the option of working from home has been the comments on these articles. I should have followed the advice I give my children, “Never read the bottom half of the internet.” Too late – and I will never get…
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Be a detail person! #14 of 55 things I have learned
I’m not much for reading management blogs. Most of them are just a collection of worn-out cliches, but the fifth of Cristina’s Five Things You Wish You Could Say to Employees, really caught my eye. 5. Your Work Is Sloppy! OK, don’t use the “s” word, it has all sorts of negative baggage. Employees who have this…
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How do non-technical managers evaluate programmers?
When I was an undergraduate, I argued with my professor about the management theory that said it was not necessary to understand the business to be an effective manager but only to understand management. The example he gave (and that I never accepted) was of a carriage in the park. The driver of the carriage…
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Face-smacking errors
Yet again today, I spent a while trying to figure out an error that had me smacking my forehead at the end. Here was the problem, I am testing a fairly simple database – adds records, updates, selects, does some error checking as you enter the data, typical stuff. To test it, I have a…