In 1994 when my son was about to reach kindergarten age, I realized there were glaring problems with the way the Minneapolis Public Schools operated their school choice placement program. With a bit of research I discovered a solution, patterned … Continue reading
In his Coding Horror blog, Jeff Atwood makes the case that online discussions should be flat rather than threaded. “Flat” means a discussion consists of a single linear chain of messages in chronological order. “Threaded” means replies can be inserted … Continue reading
Revised December 10, 2012 On December 5, Wired published an article by Klint Finley documenting the development of “NoSQL” databases — i.e., nonrelational databases — that keep track of ginormous quantities of information for enterprises like Google and Amazon. These … Continue reading
In a new interview by Steve Paulson, neuroscientist Christof Koch, a self-described “romantic reductionist,” discusses the science of consciousness, including the notion that all matter is, to varying degrees, sentient. A few quotes from Koch follow. In answer to the … Continue reading
If you’re managing a WordPress-based blog or website, the Google Document Viewer is a handy way to display a PDF, spreadsheet, Word document, etc. without requiring the viewer to download it and open it with their own software. The inconvenient … Continue reading