America is wide open and trusting. This shouldn’t change. The idea of stopping terrorist attacks from occurring is simply asinine in this light, as it’s just too easy to walk into a mall and cause havoc. The message to terrorists (also heard by the American people) should not be, We’ll stop people from setting off bombs in malls.…
Archives for January 2012
On Customer Service
I think a lot about customer service. Or, what I really mean is that I get angry a lot about customer service. I’m not speaking of the declining competence of tech support for a phone or Internet service, but more about things like restaurants or coffee shops, i.e. places that are supposed to be providing an experience. And…
Human Memory Schema: is_real ; is_dream ; is_fantasy
A while back I posted about having experiences through books. I was thinking again about this today and was imagining a rock-climbing experience. I myself have never been rock climbing, but I have a feeling of it from a few things. I do, however, remember reading The Eiger Sanction in my teens, and watching several films and shows…
Programming as a Life Skill
Perhaps the most obvious and powerful of changes in our world is the penetration of computers into our personal lives. This is penetration to the point of integration — to the point of augmentation. No surprise there; everyone’s talking about it. One less obvious result of this monumental shift, however, is that the skill of programming will move…
Mandatory States for Human Happiness
I’ve been thinking recently about what states of being are required for optimum health. A few things bring this on: 1) Paul Graham’s writing on how he manages inputs and controls distractions has always penetrated deeply for me, and 2) when I find myself without options for inputs I fiercely enjoy the resulting silence and thought. To say…
Mature Visual Analysis
From raffy.ch: Data Collection: No data, no visuals (see also Where Data Analytics and Security Collide). This is the foundation. Data needs to be available and accessible. Generally it is centralized in a big data store (it used to be relational databases and that’s a viable solution as well). This step generally involves parsing data. Turning unstructured data…
Why Best Buy is Gradually Going out of Business | Forbes
The reasons for the company’s dwindling prospects are easy to find. Just walk into one of the company’s retail locations or shop online. And try, really try, not to lose your temper. I admit. I can’t do it. A few days ago, I visited a Best Buy store in Pinole, CA with a friend. He’s a devoted consumer…
A Possible Text Editor Change for 2012?
I’m considering making an attempt to move from TextMate to MacVim/Janus as my main text editor. I have a few main things I do with TextEdit that I need to be able to (mostly) replicate: Git integration with my website (I use git to do all updates) Snippets Blog integration (I use TextMate to do all blog updates)…