Jun 25The Great Dumbing DownToday I read an article in Medium, Why a Black Hole is a Laughable Idea. The author, whose bio only says that he is a “Structural Philosopher”, claims in the article, “The center of gravity in my washing machine is such that no laundry was found in the center when…Idiocracy9 min readIdiocracy9 min read
May 21Ten Years From NowOkay, Maybe 20 For Some Things Business strategy needs to be short term, medium term, and long term. Startups don’t care about the long term: for them, the medium term goal is usually to be acquired or even go public. But established companies need to think long term, because things can change and disrupt the company’s…Future12 min readFuture12 min read
Apr 27The False Dichotomy of Space Exploration versus Making the World a Better PlaceThis past week novelist Francine Prose wrote, “Every time a SpaceX rocket explodes, I wonder if we should tax the rich more”. Ms. Prose is a humanist and is rightly concerned about humanity and its problems. But her comment is a common one, and yet it is grounded in a…Spacex6 min readSpacex6 min read
Nov 23, 2022Artemis — YawnThe hoopla around the recent launch of Artemis to the Moon has me conflicted. The good side is that NASA is actually trying to do something other than send people to an orbiting tin can that is not suitable for humans, because prolonged stay there leaves them debilitated. …3 min read3 min read
Aug 12, 2022Scrum Was Unethical From the StartIn 2001 an ad hoc group of men (yes — all men unfortunately) gathered for a weekend to devise some shared ideas about how to fix the dysfunctional culture of software development, which — during the 1990s — had come to be dominated by PMI-centric waterfall ideas and heavyweight methodologies. …5 min read5 min read
Apr 16, 2022The Horrendous Design of Streaming AppsHave you found that streaming apps are a horrible experience? I am not talking about the content — I am talking about the aps that deliver the content. My wife and I use an Apple TV for watching Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and Apple TV+. We also use a browser for…4 min read4 min read
Apr 9, 2022Climate Change Is Not Our Biggest ThreatI am worried about climate change, but I started out as a skeptic. Today I am like the reformed smoker, evangelizing about the need to control methane in particular and CO2 as well. My journey began when I noticed that the climate record showed that we are due for another…Climate Change5 min readClimate Change5 min read
Mar 11, 2022“Life” is a Non-Sensical ConceptScientists have updated the definition of “life” many times, and with increasing frequency. Philosophers have debated what “life” is for millennia — it is one of the cornerstone topics in philosophy. I claim that those debates are destined to lead nowhere, because there is no such thing as “life”. But…4 min read4 min read
Nov 29, 2021The Internet Did Not Have to Be This WayHundreds of passwords. Misogynistic and other toxic trolls poisoning online discussions. A few dominant e-commerce providers and a decimated small retail landscape. We celebrate the Web — England even knighted its creator, a lowly non-physicist programmer at CERN. Yet the “Web” that he created was a primitive and haphazard application…Internet Security9 min readInternet Security9 min read
Jun 28, 2021Old Versus New AgileAgile has changed. In the words of Jeff Patton, “When people say Agile today, they mean something different today than they did in 2001…it’s come to mean something else.” Unfortunately, some members of the Agile community are stuck in the past. …Agile Methodology7 min readAgile Methodology7 min read
