Positive life changes can only happen when I am able to choose when and how I work, what I work on, and who I work with.
It’s hard to explain the collision of forces and events that has occurred over the past several months.
“Just as soon as we begin to hone the ability to communicate through images it is stripped away from us.”
After recently discussing the widely underestimated importance of visual programming, it’s great to see research like Visual Programming Environments For Kids.
Y-Combinator has published a list of ideas they'd like to see new startups tackle. Aside from obvious criticisms (we're already well familar with Paul Graham's penchant for proselytizing certain forms…
So I've started another website, a kind of ongoing accident, with the idea echoing so intensely during Webstock as I culled together my 8x5 presentation, it just seemed to burst out of my brain and…
Since Ali posted 20 things I learned at FullCodePress, I thought I'd chime in with my own observations from the perspective of being programmer for the Code Blacks.
Why learning Haskell/Python makes you a worse programmer: So, learning Python and Haskell has demoralised me and encouraged me to write code that is bizarre and difficult to understand, and,…
Well, now the election's over, and there's not much left to do but wait til the coalition is announced (and perhaps look at some visualizations of the results), I have a bit of personal news to relay... As…
“The only thing that everyone seems to agree upon is how stupid all the other programmers are.”
We can only learn through crisis and disruption to existing assumptions and patterns of knowledge.
_why has gone. Left the intarwebs. And in the process, he tore down the house, and leveled the garden.
Usually when I write spontaneously here, it's because a topic or idea has been percolating in my mind for a while, and I will stumble across a reference or blog post that provides the necessary…
A true intellectual is a man who, after reading a book and being convinced by its arguments, will shoot someone or, more likely, order someone shot. - John McCarthy For some reason, I found…
It just wouldn't be fair to ask where are the women in open source and criticize open source usability without providing some kind of summary of how we can do something about it. Humanized…
Why is one person who cares about children learning to program, if Cut Holes In Shoes And Get A Mask is anything to go by. Many people would think this is completely insane, or merely reinventing…
The state of science education in New Zealand, is in dire need of a massive creative rejuvenation, but it can only occur to it's fullest once there is widespread knowledge of an irreconcilable crisis…
"Freedom of the will" - that is the expression for the complex state of delight of the person exercising volition, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with the executor…
How video games trained a generation of athletes.
“Every time we went down the ‘wrong’ path, we learned something concrete — if not about software than at least about people”
‘Respecting Creativity’ encourages teachers to introduce the concept of intellectual property and the debate surrounding copyright issues to a classroom discussion.
In the last 30 years neuroscience has given us great insight into the workings of the human brain and as more information emerges, it becomes clear just how out of step with reality conventional attitudes…
Wow. Last week was absolutely crazy. Aside from being super busy at work and trying to keep several part-time music and design projects ticking over (!!), I attended Webstock 08 (aka The Nat Torkington…
A fascinating chronicle of introducing the One Laptop Per Child project to a small school in Peru. One particular aspect that really jumped out at me was: On the first day, we also discovered that…
I hate to agree with grouchy old Dijkstra, but unfortunately now it's impossible to deny: BASIC is what killed my ability to be a truly great programmer. Dijkstra was right, GOTO completely rots your…
It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning…