Tag Archives: Tech

How Bad Apples Can Poison a Team

Posted on 2015-09-23 by jcs

Over at Coding Horror there’s an interesting but disturbing report on research by Will Felps on how a bad apple can affect team dynamics. Most of us have worked on a team where a single individual disrupts the smooth functioning … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

A Word to the Wise

Posted on 2015-08-15 by jcs

Advertisers: clean up your act or look forward to a future like this Ad exec in 2000: Annoying ads perform better. in 2010: Ads based on tracking users perform better. in 2017: Why are all our ads blocked? — Brian Smith (@BRIAN_____) … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Google and the Smoking Gun

Posted on 2015-08-05 by jcs

Regular readers know that I’ve been critical of Google in the past. But their business model doesn’t mean that some state attorney general with an agenda gets to use the power of government to do the bidding of the MPAA … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

I Know the Feeling

Posted on 2015-06-08 by jcs

Here at the International Irreal Headquarters, we’ve felt this way for some time: In a few years there'll be enough computers in your home that getting hacked and being haunted will be functionally indistinguishable. — Cliff (@moonpolysoft) September 14, 2014

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Collecting and Using Data in Schools

Posted on 2015-05-20 by jcs

Regular Irreal readers have probably figured out that I’m a data freak. I’m always collecting, tabulating, and analyzing data about myself and the things around me. That’s one of the reasons I found the use of digital methods in hospitals … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Case Against Agile

Posted on 2015-05-02 by jcs

Back in early April, I wrote about Nic Ferrier’s take on agile. Ferrier understands it as a way of increasing communication in development teams. He makes a good case that agile is at worst benign and that in most cases … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The 500 Mile Email Limit

Posted on 2015-04-26 by jcs

If you’re in our business for any length of time, you accumulate a number of amusing stories. Most of them are in-jokes that outsiders wouldn’t get or find funny. One of my favorite such stories concerns a problem with email … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Working with Customers

Posted on 2015-04-24 by jcs

We’ve all been there: True. "@amyengineer: Also found this gem on software development – it *is* a winner. pic.twitter.com/r1qkTF2bzq" — Anna Nachesa (@ashalynd) April 14, 2015

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday

Posted on 2015-04-18 by jcs

Via Karl Voit: Happy Birthday to the Word “Hack”.

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

RMS and GNU in 1989

Posted on 2015-04-13 by jcs

If you enjoyed the New Yorker article on RMS and GNU you may also enjoy this 1989 New York Times article on the same subject. It’s almost surrealistic to read about the GNU project from a 1989 point of view. … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment