(last update: 2019-10-02) I frequently say that advertising is a cancer on modern society. This view is met with various reactions, including requests for a more detailed explanation. In this post, I first explain why I believe the cancer analogy is apt, then continue with a nonexhaustive list of…

We are in a new cold war. That sounds like it's not news.

“Revolution” has many definitions. From the looks of this, I'd say “going around in circles” comes closest to applying... -Richard M. Hartman A funny thing happened on the way to the future. The mainframe outlasted its replacements. Minicomputers Minicomputers were supposed to kill the mainframe.…

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This week's paper is a draft from Ross Koppel, Sean Smith, Jim Blythe, and Vijay Kothari titled Workarounds to Computer Access in Healthcare Organizations: You Want My Password or a Dead Patient? First of all, great title.

The effort to build a truly inclusive society does not just impact Americans. At the turn of the century, the United States is the closest thing the world has to a workable multicultural society. Almost all the cultures of the world have some representation, several in significant proportions.

a static site {for, by, about} me

Preface: I don’t use iCloud. I don’t use an Apple ID. I don’t use the Mac App Store. I don’t store photos in the macOS “Photos” application, even locally. I never opted in to Apple network services of any kind - I use macOS software on Apple hardware.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations announced a new initiative today to combat the proliferation of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) in the United States.

As the first actual content on my new blog, let me tell you the story of how I went absolutely crazy. On my private systems, I ship configuration as system packages.

Much has been written about Go’s interfaces. They’re one of the language features I like best, providing a very pragmatic trade-off between the complexity of more powerful type systems and the anarchy of duck typing.

Four decades ago, university researchers figured out the key to computer privacy, sparking a battle with the National Security Agency that continues today.

Jason Trigg went into finance because he is after money — as much as he can earn. The 25-year-old certainly had other career options. An MIT computer science graduate, he could be writing software for the next tech giant.

In a beautiful, rollicking piece last month for Aeon Magazine, web developer James Somers ponders the question, Are coders worth it? The piece is a thinking man's struggle to understand the value of his profession. By Somers' own reckoning, his accounts are out of balance.

Once upon a time, it was possible to view the Internet as a generally benevolent place as far as your traffic was concerned. Both passive eavesdroppers and man in the middle attacks were uncommon and took generally aggressive attackers to achieve (although it could be done).

Before Risk, before Dungeons & Dragons, before Magic: The Gathering, there was Diplomacy. One writer enters international competition to play the world-conquering game that redefines what it means to be a geek (and a person). It was the summer of 1909. I was on the south coast of Spain.

As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. - H.L.