Tag Archives: Tech

Campbell’s Law

Posted on 2021-11-23 by jcs

Back in 2017 I wrote about Goodhart’s Law, the notion that any measure used as a target, ceases to an effective measure. It stops being effective because those being measured learn to game the system in such a way that … Continue reading →

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Measuring Network Quality in macOS

Posted on 2021-11-22 by jcs

Sorry non-Appleheads, but this post will probably interest only Mac users. I’ve been running macOS Monterey since it was released but I just learned about an interesting new feature: networkQuality. It’s a command line utility to measure the quality of … Continue reading →

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Read Meat Friday: Chrome Is Not Your Friend Either

Posted on 2021-11-12 by jcs

A few months ago, I noted that Google is not your friend. You’d think everyone would know this by now but apparently lots of folks don’t. As a corollary to that truism, we also have, “Chrome is not your friend … Continue reading →

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How To Be an Ankle Biter

Posted on 2021-11-08 by jcs

It’s Sunday night and I’m completely unmotivated to write something coherent and interesting for tomorrow’s (i.e. today’s) post. Instead, I offer this oldie but goody from the Way Back Machine that they title Things to say when you’re losing a … Continue reading →

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Blogs and RSS

Posted on 2021-11-07 by jcs

Brandon Quakkelaar has an interesting post on Social Media, Blogs, and RSS. His feelings are amazingly congruent with mine. We both don’t care for social media but recognize that they present a good way of discovering new content. What are … Continue reading →

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Question: Do You Primarily Read on Your Smartphone?

Posted on 2021-11-02 by jcs

The other day, I was reading an article by David Perell on Riding the Writing Wave. The article is about developing a writing regime and improving your productivity and quality as a writer. It’s worth taking a look at if … Continue reading →

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RSS for the Researcher

Posted on 2021-10-19 by jcs

At the beginning of his Elfeed video, John Kitchen mentioned a paper by James Fraser on RSS for the researcher. This is notable for two reasons. First, there’s the paper itself, of course, but there’s also the very nice way … Continue reading →

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Prosecuting the Press

Posted on 2021-10-15 by jcs

As you all know, Irreal doesn’t think very highly of journalists and the press. What Irreal likes even less is know-nothing politicos who nevertheless feel fully qualified to opine and pass judgment on technical matters. The Congressional hearings on social … Continue reading →

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They Don’t Want to Return

Posted on 2021-10-06 by jcs

CNBC has an interesting article about large-organization CEOs’ frustration at trying to get their workers back into the office. Workers have little interest in returning. Part of that is fear of COVID-19, of course, but many, having experienced the freedom … Continue reading →

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Inspired Python

Posted on 2021-10-03 by jcs

All Irreal readers are, I’m sure, familiar with Mickey Petersen who, in addition to his excellent Emacs site, Mastering Emacs, is also the author of a book by the same name. The articles on his site are among the best … Continue reading →

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