It is common in “serious” reviews of J. K. Rowling’s works to start with disclaimers regarding her writing — awkward, overly long, inconsistent, filled with excessive and irrelevant details about this ‘magic’ world, and so on. Give me a break. Rowling has managed to create one of the greatest phenomenons in the history of literature, […]
This came from Little Green Footballs, the video below is a bit long, but is a fascintating piece of reporting from a man who used to be entangled with England’s radical Islamist movements. Somehow he was able to put his feet on a better path, and now is speaking out. If you wonder about where […]
Here is an article in the (U.K.) Daily Mail with some hand-tinted photographs from the Third Battle of Ypres during World War I: As the article points out, over 2000 soldiers died every day during this battle, which lasted for several months (July-November 1917). The ground was so torn up by artillery and flooded from […]
Some people read The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs because it’s funny, clever and pointed. Fair enough. However, buried among the rants and tap-dancing are some profoundly cogent observations on the convergence industries: electronics, software, entertainment, telecom, and information. Case in point is the observation that “Steve” makes on where the music industry finds itself: […]
[UPDATED 06/30/07 – 0832 MDT] Ah, I love geeks. A day after the iPhone is released, here’s a heavily photographed step-by-step dissection of one (“We did it, so you don’t have to”). Many years ago, when I was writing for Macworld, I interviewed the Apple product manager in charge of System 7.0, the Macintosh operating […]
I just ran across this article by Annalee Newitz about an on-going intellectual property lawsuit (Columbia v. Bunnel) involving peer-to-peer downloads. In this suit, Judge Jacqueline Chooljian has ruled that anything that exists in computer memory (“RAM”) has left an historical record, however briefly, and is therefore subject to discovery: Here’s where things get hairy. […]
I can be silent no longer. This post has caused me to question all I know about the horrible destruction I have witnessed on film repeately. We need the Truth: … 3) Why was the rebel pilot who supposedly destroyed the Death Star reported to be on the Death Star days, maybe hours, prior to […]
I’ve begun the process of updating and generalizing the original pitfalls (in Pitfalls of Object-Oriented Development) for Pitfalls of Modern Software Engineering (or PMSE). Just scroll past the introductory text, and you’ll see an outline of the actual live content. As with The Art of ‘Ware, feedback and contributions are encouraged. ..bruce..
Approaching the 4th of July
My wife is off in Utah, helping out on the birth of our (let’s see now…) ninth grandchild, so I filled in for her at church conducting music during the sacrament meeting. Our closing hymn was “The Star-Spangled Banner”, and while I managed to keep conducting through the entire hymn (three verses), I only sang […]
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