Brain Scat

According to Wired, the Web is dead.
This has the Internets all abuzz.  Someone noted that Wired was trolling the entire Internet, meaning it’s saying something sensational simply to get a reaction.
As with many thing, there’s probably truth in both camps.
Wired wants traffic (both to their magazine and to their website – which lives on the [...]

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So, it’s a bit early to call this year complete, but for my purposes, the year I’m going to review is from mid-November to mid-November (more or less).  For these purposes, we’ll call that 2009.
The year that was 2009 got an early start in mid-November of 2008.
The startup that I’d been a part of for [...]

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It’s good to learn new things.  It keeps us fresh, keeps us from getting complacent.
One thing that is true of moving not only to a new job, but a new job in an entirely new domain, is that there will be plenty of new things to learn.
Today’s observation relates to vocabulary.
It’s probably true that every [...]

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As I get older I’m being forced to acknowledge that my physical body is not accepting my mental premise that I’m pretty much the same as I was when I was 18 years old.
I’m forced to rationalize more things to myself.
I tell myself I’m wiser though strangely slower to learn some new things.  I have [...]

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Whether “Apocalypse” is the right word or not is certainly up for discussion.  Certainly David Sirota at Salon thinks so in his article here.
What I can say is that Oregon is sliding in to whatever this is (recession, depression, economic event, End Times) at a rate in excess of the nation as a whole.  Oregon [...]

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So, for the first time since I was 15, I find myself without a job.
Back in October of 2007 I left the large EDA company I had been working for on and off for much of my career to join a small, local startup.
This startup had a very cool idea which involved a mix of [...]

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This was written after a long day of dealing (unsuccessfully) with the incredible weather we’ve had around here.  Worst storm in 40 years, according to the weather wonks.
‘Twas The Week Before Christmas
Twas the week before Christmas, in old Portland Town,
And the cars and the busses were sliding around.
The stockings were sitting on a chair by [...]

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This tickled me.
Link

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It seems to me one guy tried to appeal to what’s best in us (hope) and one guy tried to appeal to what’s worst in us (fear, bigotry, anger, fear).
The results speak for themselves. Give us something to hope for instead of something to be fearful of.
Having said that, where was the McCain of [...]

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Engineers love data.  And graphs.  We love graphs, too.  Toss in some statistics and some simulations and we’re as happy as can be!
A friend recommended a site that collects all of these together to try and help track polling data for the Presidential election as well as state races.
The site is: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
The name comes from [...]

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