By Rip Rowan on
11/6/2009 12:30 PM
This is pretty much self-explanatory, right?
Which LinkedIn button should I click?
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By Rip Rowan on
10/29/2009 1:21 PM
So I'm writing this with my new $350 Hackintosh netbook.
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By Rip Rowan on
10/3/2009 12:50 PM
In case there was any doubt that there can be too much of a good thing, here's a set of social networking buttons I recently stumbled upon (pun intended):
Besides the confusing layout of buttons, there's just way too much going on here.
Somehow, there must be a way of simplifying this stuff.
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By Rip Rowan on
9/16/2009 4:52 AM
A while back I posted something about WordPress’ taxonomy model. At the time I thought it was clever and thought we should use something like it for the DotNetNuke Blog module. Now, I’m less enamored with it.
Here’s why.
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By Rip Rowan on
9/15/2009 10:48 AM
An interesting concept - author with a bad shoulder travels to 10 countries seeking various solutions, then writes about his experiences with various forms of health care in each country.
Something leapt out at me. Although the book treats this as tangential, I found it strikingly salient:
In an Ayurvedic hospital in India, a regimen of meditation, rice, lentils and massage paid for entirely out of pocket, $42.85 per night, led to “obvious improvement in my frozen joint,” Mr. Reid writes, adding, “To this day, I don’t know why it happened.”
Well there you go. Arrogant Western medicine does, in fact, have an awful lot to learn from Eastern. In most of the countries he visited, surgery and steroid injections are de rigeur. He had to practically travel to the Third World to learn that an inexpensive and risk-free solution was possible.
For over a decade I struggled with a variety of back problems, rejecting the expensive and very risky surgery for so-called "physical therapy" all based in the best Western science has to offer. A couple months of hatha yoga (Bikram yoga, to be exact) and my back and other joints are as healthy as they were at age 18.
Go figure. Maybe after a thousand years, those crafty Indians actually figured something out after all.
I think the author - and the NYT article - miss the whole point. The NYT writer comments that "the comparative merits of different orthopedic philosophies are secondary here." Not so fast, Abby. I don't think it's secondary at all.
Perhaps if Western medicine comprehended - and Western insurance covered - valid and often superior forms of treatment like hatha yoga, the United States wouldn't be in a health care "crisis".
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By Rip Rowan on
8/31/2009 11:01 PM
So I decided last Wednesday to finally retire my aging desktop. It died a peaceful, natural death.
The rest were not so lucky....
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By Rip Rowan on
8/31/2009 5:42 PM
Joel Spolsky is a big fan of SSDs. Even when he's wrong, I like reading his stuff. But when he's right, he's oh-so-right.
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By Rip Rowan on
8/25/2009 5:28 AM
Welcome address to freshman parents at Boston Conservatory, given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston Conservatory:
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By Rip Rowan on
8/19/2009 9:02 AM
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By Rip Rowan on
8/17/2009 5:10 AM
I have a solution to the purported "crisis" in health care. Here goes:
- We will select one insurance company which we will allow to gain a monopoly over the entire health care system.
- We will give that insurance company the right to set whatever premiums it wishes.
- We will entitle that insurance company with the power to collect premiums by force.
- We will allow that insurance company to allocate health care resources however it sees fit, to whomever it deems most worthy of services.
Oh, wait. That's already been proposed.
Sorry, my bad.
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By Rip Rowan on
8/4/2009 2:32 AM
I know the rest of the world has moved on, but I thought I might just summarize the whole Gates / Crowley issue.
Clearly, institutionalized racism is still alive and well when an elite black professor at the nation's most respected college, living in a city with a black mayor, in a state with a black governor, in a country with a black President can't pop off at a white cop without getting arrested.
Hopefully, we can all learn something from this.
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By Rip Rowan on
7/31/2009 10:41 AM
Does anyone see anything a little wrong in this picture?
- The federal government, using our money, takes a 60% stake in GM, one of the world's largest auto companies.
- Then, the federal government, using our money, pays buyers up to $4500 to destroy their used car (removing it from the market and driving up the prices for used cars) provided the buyer replaces the destroyed car with a new car. Possibly a GM model.
Am I the only one?
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By Rip Rowan on
7/31/2009 10:17 AM
Robert Scoble has an interesting (if dated) post called "Why Facebook has never listened and why it definitely won’t start now". It's a good article with many great points.
He writes:
Zuckerberg is a real leader because he doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He’s going to do what he thinks is best for his business. I wish Silicon Valley had more like him.
I get his point. To run a business effectively, it's not so important to know what your customer thinks as it is to anticipate what they're going to think. And it's clear that Zuckerberg has a vision and is running with it.
Here's where I disagree with that vision.
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By Rip Rowan on
6/8/2009 2:22 PM
Being sick sucks. Being sick and half-blind, more so.
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By Rip Rowan on
4/8/2009 4:47 PM
As the Editor-in-Chief for ProRec, I get a lot of music-industry spam. Most of it I disregard. This is why:
Eco-tainer Alyssa Anjelica James put a fresh spin on the green movement with the release of her first full-length album entitled "within.” Tree-huggers and environment scoffers alike are impressed with her smooth style and soulful lyrics. More than just a performer with a cause, Alyssa has dedicated her support to numerous environmental causes including, “Tree-People,” and “Heart-Song.” As a pioneer of the “eco-tainment” movement, Alyssa hopes to use her talents and experience to entertain and inspire her audiences to “go green.”
Eco-tainment?
I am speechless.
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By Rip Rowan on
4/5/2009 5:07 AM
The keyword to watch for now is #doubledip. Because with the recent uptick in the economy, the investing world is going to start looking for signs of a double-dip recession.
There's every reason to predict another dip:
- Profit taking from the current rally causes the market to drop again, possibly below 6500
- Continued bad news in unemployment
- Continued bad news in housing
- Continued falloff in GDP
- Failing auto companies
The list goes on. Housing and auto sales are likely to have a double-dip feel to them as well. Housing and auto sales have fallen far below their historical averages, so we should expect them to pick up, at least briefly. But we shouldn't expect strength in either sector as long as unemployment and overall GDP are falling. That means a brief (1-2 quarter) uptick followed by another drop.
I'm expecting the current rally to end very soon as profit-takers force the market downward. I don't think we've seen the bottom yet.
The real question is: what is going to happen with the US auto manufacturers? The government has shown little interest in helping out - about $12B in loans (compared to the trillions given to the financial sector). The auto executives have gotten a bum rap. Millions of jobs are at stake. Working class jobs. Will these be saved?
If not, beware.
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By Rip Rowan on
4/3/2009 9:33 PM
Jeff Atwood couldn't be more right when he says
I have not found in practice that programmers need to be mathematically inclined to become great software developers. Quite the opposite, in fact. This does depend heavily on what kind of code you're writing, but the vast bulk of code that I've seen consists mostly of the "balancing your checkbook" sort of math, nothing remotely like what you'd find in the average college calculus textbook, even.
Exactly. Programming - especially GUI-based web-centric software development of the sort that most people are up to these days - is much more a "right-brained" than "left-brained" activity.
Question for the group: is logic - especially set theory - more right- or left-brained? Modern software development may not be highly mathematical, but it often requires heavy database design and optimization, where a strong aptitude in set theory is a big plus.
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By Rip Rowan on
3/22/2009 7:02 AM
 Remember "Change You Can Believe In?"
Remember how we were going to do away with earmarks? Toss out the lobbyists? Get away from old-school politics-as-usual?
"Hope" - remember? Isn't that why you voted for Obama?
Still feel that way?
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By Rip Rowan on
3/22/2009 6:19 AM
The recently passed "Spendulus" package has left me totally aghast. I'm pretty (small-L) libertarian, so when I hear of the federal government taking on this kind of authority and power I naturally pucker up pretty tight. A lot of my friends - Obama supporters from the go - are big supporters of the plan. They see good intentions everywhere. Helping the poor with increased Medicaid funding. Helping the middle class with more tax rebates. Building roads and bridges. Motherhood. Apple pie. Who can argue with that?
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By Rip Rowan on
3/2/2009 8:55 AM
Are we living in a new Depression era?
A few years ago I was working in the IT shop of a national US homebuilder. Even though the world was chanting "there is no housing bubble" it seemed obvious to me that we were in a major housing bubble. This company couldn't build houses fast enough. Growth was astronomical. Folks, this is housing we're talking about. If housing typically grows at a rate of 2% a year, and you see it growing at 20%+ for several years, you can bet your sweet bippy it's a bubble.
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