Table of Contents
Software
- Coding simplicity
- Elegant simplicity in software
- Write for readability
- Curly braces vs. whitespace
- Python, for productivity
- Hotmail: the first cloud-based webapp
- The End of Windows (for me)
- Obamacare broke TurboTax
- X: The under-appreciated Boolean logic state
- Learning by grading
- This post will get 0 likes on Facebook
- How lint made me a fortune
- The lost programming skill of juggling
- Nothing but icing
- My most challenging field failure ever, part one
- My most challenging field failure ever, part two
- What programming is actually like and why programmers seem weird
- Spreadsheets (arch.)
- One spreadsheet alternative: data visualization tools
- Abstracting away pointers
- Data quality matters
- Cleansing user input data
- Look at the data
- Play with the data
- Count the data
- The potency of idempotence
- Storing database records that lack a unique ID
- My first IDE
- To type check or not to type check?
- Why I love the cloud
- Devops scripting in Python
- Devops script comparison: Python and NodeJS
- Some comments about comments
- Five simple steps Visa could take to dramatically improve security
- A more secure credit card
- Print if you can, else use logging if you must
- Choosing my major: CS, CE, or EE
- Software developer education over the years
- The first feature to put into any software product
- Full stack: then vs. now
- Avoiding regex hell
- Python’s OOP: object-oriented paradox
- Time to deprecate the container model for variables
- Speeding up development by using the REPL
- Ruminations on the causes of bad software
- Bad software will always be with us
- Write the bare minimum amount of SQL
- Choosing and creating a database
- The Power of the Graph
- Puzzling and coding
- The trouble with generators
- Ferreting out git branches
- Computer games from Z to A
- The app will take your order now
- Using async to overwhelm downstream servers
- Should WeChat be trusted?
- Python and JavaScript: mere scripting languages?
- Python and JavaScript: the joys of duck typing
- Python and JavaScript: dynamic and static typing
- Python and JavaScript: lists and arrays
- Python and JavaScript: dicts and objects
- Python and JavaScript: multi-paradigm languages
- What can possibly go wrong?: Hardware
- What can possibly go wrong?: Software
- What can possibly go wrong?: Networking
- What can possibly go wrong?: Videoconferencing
- Nine tips to improve your videoconferencing experience
- Finding and fixing intermittent software problems
- Reinventing the wheel: IF statement edition
- Reinventing the wheel: an example of not doing so
- My $0/month, ad-free, tracking-free, censorship-free, screaming fast website
- My $2/month, ad-free, tracking-free, censorship-free, screaming fast website
- Observations from GraphConnect SF 2016
- Observations from Pycon 2018
- Observations from AWS re:Invent 2018
- Observations from Segment Synapse 2019
Published elsewhere:
Technology
Management
- The best technical interview question ever
- The best sales interview question ever
- Hire for the first derivative
- Tech company hiring practices over the years
- Don’t forget to check references
- On the importance of sales
- Sell what’s on the truck
- The first rule of marketing
- The toughest market in tech?
- The higher the tech, the lower the margins
- An early lesson in performance under pressure
- Tales of the headquarters effect
- How I helped Gert Boyle see the light
- The trillion dollar beer game
- Stock buybacks are not evil
- Focusing on focus, at the personal level
- Focusing on focus, at the company level
- Public speaking tips
- RIP: Westell’s public stock listing, 1995 - 2020
- How I hired my boss, or appear to have
- My kind of company, part one
- My kind of company, part two
- A decision to outsource manufacturing to China, part one
- A decision to outsource manufacturing to China, part two
- A decision to outsource manufacturing to China, part three
- A decision to outsource manufacturing to China, part four
- 1990s Japanese business culture: after work drinking
- 1990s Japanese business culture: saving face
- 2010s Chinese business culture: dinner
Startups
Recreation
Other Observations
Technical Books
Non-technical Books
- Hilton Als, ed.: The Best American Essays 2018
- Roger Angell: The Summer Game
- Isaac Asimov: Foundation
- Eliot Asinof: Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series
- Rick Atkinson: An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy
- Rick Atkinson: The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy)
- Rick Atkinson: The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (The Liberation Trilogy)
- Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl
- John Barth: The Floating Opera
- John Barth: The End of the Road
- John Barth: The Sot-Weed Factor
- John Barth: Giles Goat-Boy
- John Barth: Lost in the Funhouse
- Saul Bellow: Herzog
- David Brooks, ed.: The Best American Essays 2012
- Geraldine Brooks, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2011
- Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game
- Michael Chabon, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2005
- Edwidge Danticat, ed.: The Best American Essays 2011
- Sean Deveney: The Original Curse
- Junot Díaz, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2016
- Paul Dickson: Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick
- E.L. Doctorow: Homer & Langley: A Novel
- Jennifer Egan, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2014
- Dave Eggers, ed.: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007
- Joseph J. Ellis: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
- Anne Fadiman, ed.: The Best American Essays 2003
- David Hackett Fischer: Washington's Crossing
- Samuel C. Florman: The Existential Pleasures of Engineering
- Jonathan Franzen, ed.: The Best American Essays 2016
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2003
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008
- Laura Furman, ed.: The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2009
- Laura Furman, ed.: The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2010
- Laura Furman, ed.: The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2011
- Laura Furman, ed.: The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2014
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2017
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018
- Laura Furman, ed.: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2019
- Romain Gary: The Life Before Us ("Madame Rosa")
- Roxane Gay, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2018
- William Gibson: Neuromancer
- William Gibson: The Peripheral
- Adam Gopnik, ed.: The Best American Essays 2008
- Steven Hahn: A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
- Blaine Harden: Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
- Dan Helpingstine: Chicago White Sox: 1959 and Beyond
- Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms
- Frank Herbert: Dune
- Peter Hessler: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
- Peter Hessler: Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China
- Peter Hessler: Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
- Peter Hessler: Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West
- Christopher Hitchens, ed.: The Best American Essays 2010
- Daniel Huff: How to Lie with Statistics
- Walter Isaacson: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- Walter Isaacson: Steve Jobs
- Leslie Jamison, ed.: The Best American Essays 2017
- Stephanie Kelton: The Deficit Myth
- Stephen King, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2007
- Amara Lakhous: Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio
- Steven Levy: In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
- Michael Lewis: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
- Michael Lewis: Flash Boys
- Om Malik: Broadbandits
- John D. MacDonald: The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything
- Cormac McCarthy: The Road
- Brian McCullough: How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone
- Louis Menand: The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
- Louis Menand, ed.: The Best American Essays 2004
- Ben Mezrich: The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook
- Laurie Moore, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2004
- Walter Mosley, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2003
- Tom Perrotta, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2012
- Joe Peta: Trading Bases: How a Wall Street Trader Made a Fortune Betting on Baseball
- Henry Petroski: To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design
- Mary Oliver, ed.: The Best American Essays 2009
- Susan Orlean, ed.: The Best American Essays 2005
- David M. Oshinsky: Polio: An American Story
- Ann Patchett, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2006
- Thomas Pynchon: V.
- Thomas Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49
- James Rickards: The New Case for Gold
- Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff: The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
- Richard Roeper: Sox and the City: A Fan's Love Affair with the White Sox from the Heartbreak of '67 to the Wizards of Oz
- Phil Rogers: Say It's So: The Chicago White Sox's Magical Season
- Philip Roth: The Dying Animal
- Philip Roth: Everyman
- Philip Roth: Exit Ghost
- Philip Roth: Indignation
- Philip Roth: The Humbling
- Mike Royko: One More Time: the Best of Mike Royko
- Salman Rushdie, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2008
- Richard Russo, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2010
- Peter Schiff: The Real Crash, Edition 2.0
- Alice Sebold, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2009
- Lauren Slater, ed.: The Best American Essays 2006
- Rebecca Solnit, ed.: The Best American Essays 2019
- Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash
- Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon
- Neal Stephenson: Seveneves
- Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland: The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
- Steve Stone: Said in Stone: Your Game, My Way
- Cheryl Strayed, ed.: The Best American Essays 2013
- Elizabeth Strout, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2013
- John Jeremiah Sullivan, ed.: The Best American Essays 2014
- Studs Terkel: Hard Times
- John Updike, ed.: The Best American Short Stories of the Century
- Bill Veeck: Veeck - As in Wreck
- Bill Veeck: The Hustler's Handbook
- David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest
- David Foster Wallace, ed.: The Best American Essays 2007
- Jo Walton: Among Others
- Connie Willis: Blackout
- Connie Willis: All Clear
- Meg Wolitzer, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2017
Movies
