Would you rather work with an affable incompetent, or with the most abrasive genius ever? Software developers, the stereotype goes, have House-ish characteristics: They don't care about their colleagues' emotions and see everyone who does …

Sometimes I wish I could defend "Keep it Simple, Stupid" with flair and confidence to people who think they need things that they probably don't. Folks who say "the customer is always right" have almost …

"This guy's incredible." Cynical, topical, addictive. The AAAAAGH: Finally, in March of 2004, the CIA figured out they had screwed up. Masri's passport was genuine, and he was just some poor unemployed schmoe who had …

Poet Jim Fisher (a.k.a. Mountain Goats fan Jim Fisher) is finishing up a two-year poetry fellowship at Stanford. He pointed me to a cutting Billy Collins poem about workshopping poetry -- oh man, no code …

I'll start with a taxonomy that made me laugh (caution: it's raunchy). Some columns I've written lately (tardy because of ANG technical problems): From April: Scheme, scheming, and geek authenticity and getting married -- a …

Last night I went to a Mike Daisey show about Tesla, which was very good of course, and I'm really looking forward to next week's conclusion of his "Great Men of Genius" series (L. Ron …

Keep my nails short Almost always honest & straightforward can make jokes am finally, finally, goddammit, learning to listen to other people hold on, this is supposed to be a self-affirming list am basically pretty …

Coworker 1, futzing with double-precision or floating-point or something: "Does 3 equal 3?" Coworker 2, immediately: "Sometimes." Me, cracking up: "Coworker 1, did you ask that just to try to get Coworker 2 to make …

A visit to Fog Creek; I discuss the Fog Creek Software Management Training Program with Betsy Weber of TechSmith.

An NYT article on why the tremendous civil liberty invasion by the NSA does us no good at all. Such a stupid wide-net ploy and for basically zero gain. The only things it facilitates are …