Table of Contents
Software
- Coding simplicity
- Elegant simplicity in software
- The perfect number of resources
- Avoiding overkill
- 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
- The growing importance of psychology in software engineering
- Consider the source: email
- Consider the source: social media
- 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
- Reality is more accurate than a model of reality
- Abstracting away pointers
- Data quality matters
- Write-only APIs
- Cleansing user input data
- Look at the data
- Play with the data
- Count the data
- Chunking data
- Put the data in memory
- Statistical significance
- AWS Glue: the good stuff
- AWS Glue: the not-so-good stuff
- Software that’s so smart it’s stupid
- A critique of Salesforce Marketing Cloud
- The emoji test 😀
- The packet bomb
- The potency of idempotence
- Identifying users in simple applications
- Storing database records that lack a unique ID
- De-duplicating database records
- Is your database is missing some records?
- Sequential IDs vs. UUIDs
- Aliases vs. IDs
- My first IDE
- To type check or not to type check?
- Why I love the cloud
- Devops scripting in Python
- Dual-purpose Python scripts and modules
- Devops script comparison: Python and NodeJS
- AWS Lambda batch jobs
- 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
- Software that shouldn’t be fixed
- 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
- Deleting early and often
- Computer games from Z to A
- The app will take your order now
- The algorithms will appraise your car now
- The algorithms will determine your price now
- The self-driving car will take you to your destination now
- The smartphone will help you rent your home now
- Using async to overwhelm downstream servers
- Should WeChat be trusted?
- Passing a secret via email without emailing the secret
- Use a password manager, for your own good
- Clear your cache
- The newsletter@namecheap.com email spam scam
- A solution to the newsletter@namecheap.com email spam scam
- The namecheap.com “You are a winner!” scam
- Superficial security scans
- Timezones, DST, UTC, and database time
- Distributed systems: vaccines, websites, and vaccine websites
- Consider the sad path
- Polyglots have more fun
- Single system software experts
- From CueCat Cues to QR codes
- The killer app that caused me to get my first iPhone
- Mind the gap
- Serendipitous software, part one
- Serendipitous software, part two
- 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
- Forty year lookback at my Commodore 64, part one
- Forty year lookback at my Commodore 64, part two
- 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
- All I really need to know about business I learned in business
- The best technical interview question ever
- The best sales interview question ever
- Hire for the first derivative
- Hire a vet
- Hire a customer
- Tech company hiring practices over the years
- Don’t forget to check references
- On the importance of sales
- Three steps for successful selling
- Sell what’s on the truck
- Leading with the ask
- Don’t sell past the close
- 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
- The problem with PhDs
- How to fool a PhD
- Mistakes weren’t made
- How I hired my boss, or appear to have
- How I both worked for and helped acquire Kentrox, or appear to have
- Not your company
- Returning to the office
- The end of office life
- Management via food and coffee
- My kind of company, part one
- My kind of company, part two
- Government-ordered factory shutdowns
- 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
- Electronics company towns, from old to new
- 1990s Japanese business culture: after work drinking
- 1990s Japanese business culture: saving face
- 2010s Chinese business culture: dinner
Startups
Economics
Recreation
- Winless in Seattle (so far) – my trip to Safeco
- Rocky Mountain High: Coors Field
- Minute Maid Park: where dreams come true
- MLB’s best solution for desert baseball: Chase Field
- My one lucky travel delay: Camelback Ranch
- Sloan Park: a modern, mini Wrigley Field replica
- White Sox or Cubs: my choice was clear
- The view from 527
- The exChicago White Sox?
- Portland is not a major league city
- Speeding up baseball games
- Baseball gets a shot clock
- Getting to the World Series
- Experiencing the World Series
- Esports in the Eighties
- 10,000 mile review: the Specialized Crosstrail bicycle
- 2,500 mile review: Giant carbon fiber road bicycle
- Listening while biking
- Biking to work for fun and profit
- Biking 100 when it's 100
- Bad weather biking and skiing
- Keeping a bike upright while stopping
- The safest way to bike across the country
- Bike safety by route selection
- Navigating without GPS
- My first motorcycle: 1984 Yamaha SR250
- A bad omen for a risky journey
- A second bad omen for a risky journey
- Solo female biker
- Getting back in the saddle after a long break
- Why I got back in the saddle
- Why I ride
- Riding a hog
- Doing the wave
- Tanking up
- 5,000 mile review: 2020 Harley-Davidson Sportster Iron 1200 motorcycle
- 5,000 mile review: 2020 Harley-Davidson Heritage Classic 114 motorcycle
- Great motorcycle roads: Arizona 89/89A Wickenburg to Flagstaff
- Great motorcycle roads: Hawaii 550/552 Waimea Canyon, Kaua`i
- Great motorcycle roads: The Devil's Highway, US-191 Clifton to Springerville, Arizona
- 50,000 mile review: 2015 Acura RDX
- First impression: 2023 Jeep Wrangler Willys 4xe 4-door
- Favorite family ski vacation destination: Steamboat
- Best (non-extreme) Steamboat trails
- The easiest black trail at Steamboat
- Sun Valley: a true classic ski resort
- Impressions of Mammoth Mountain
- The Empire’s Mothership: a journey to Vail
- A Steamboat snob skis Aspen
- Ski Arizona
- Hopping the border at Heavenly
- In praise of hiking poles
- Grand Canyon hike: November, 1987
- Grand Canyon hike: September, 2021
- Hiking Camelback Mountain Cholla Trail
Other Observations
- Oregon’s Two Fundamental Flaws
- Chicago: at the center of it all (well, at least the U.S.)
- Why Jeff Bezos should choose Chicago for Amazon’s HQ2, and why he won’t
- Death by property taxes in Illinois
- Selling Illinois at a loss
- Illinois property tax scams
- Real estate "investment" tips
- Early impressions of Arizona
- The perfect water temperature
- House complexity: Arizona vs. Illinois
- Moving to Arizona FAQs, part one
- Moving to Arizona FAQs, part two
- College admissions game theory
- Choosing the wrong college
- Where I'd go to college today
- All I needed to know about blogging I learned in college
- You get out of college what you put into it
- GPA margin of error
- Breakfast at the Law School
- The decline of teenage car culture
- Anxiety (not paradise) by the dashboard light
- E-bikes are the new EVs
- The lost art of signaling for a turn
- Entropy wins, in the end
- The upside of downsizing
- The best time to move, with young kids
- The best time to move from the snowbelt to the sunbelt
- Moving (yourself) without moving (your stuff)
- White knuckle flying
- Flying the unfriendly skies
- Memories of the moon landing
- Visiting the USA’s space port
- The best life advice ever
- The luckiest event in my life
- The toddler diet
- The significance of statistics, and probability
- Biology and I don’t quite agree
- Living with the virus
- A pandemic of risk aversion
- Kids in cages
- In praise of landfills
- The Matrix 2022
- The failures of the elites
- The failures of the elites: net neutrality
- The failures of the elites: cryptocurrencies and FTX
- The failures of the elites: nuclear power
- The failures of the elites: COVID-19 kids policies
- The failures of the elites: COVID-19 vaccine mandates and passports
- Parsing Francis Collins’s comments on what happened in Wuhan, part one
- Parsing Francis Collins’s comments on what happened in Wuhan, part two
- Parsing Francis Collins’s comments on what happened in Wuhan, part three
- Parsing Francis Collins’s comments on what happened in Wuhan, part four
- The #OriginOfCovid raccoon dog that did not bark
- The next pandemic
- Not everyone loves a good proxy war
- Another war for oil (energy)
- Memories of Taiwan
- The CARFAX + insurance company conspiracy
- The CARFAX + insurance company conspiracy, part two
- The CARFAX + insurance company conspiracy, part three
Technical Books
Non-technical Books
- André Aciman, ed.: The Best American Essays 2020
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ed.: The Best Short Stories 2021: The O. Henry Prize Winners
- Scott Adams: Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies: Dogbert's Big Book of Business
- 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
- Alex Berenson: Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives
- Buzz Bissinger: Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager
- Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan: Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right
- David Brooks, ed.: The Best American Essays 2012
- Geraldine Brooks, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2011
- Dan Brown: The Da Vinci Code
- Christopher Buckley: No Way to Treat a First Lady
- Christopher Buckley: Florence of Arabia
- Christopher Buckley: Boomsday
- Christopher Buckley: Supreme Courtship
- Curtis R. Carlson and William W. Wilmot: Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want
- Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game
- Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- Michael Chabon, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2005
- Alina Chan and Matt Ridley: Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19
- Jim Collins: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't
- Jennet Conant: Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II
- Edwidge Danticat, ed.: The Best American Essays 2011
- Sean Deveney: The Original Curse
- Junot Díaz, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2016
- Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- Paul Dickson: Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick
- E.L. Doctorow: Homer & Langley: A Novel
- Anthony Doerr, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2019
- Peter F. Drucker: The Essential Drucker
- 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
- Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex
- Anne Fadiman, ed.: The Best American Essays 2003
- Zeke Faux: Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
- Adam Fergusson: When Money Dies
- David Hackett Fischer: Washington's Crossing
- Samuel C. Florman: The Existential Pleasures of Engineering
- Jonathan Franzen, ed.: The Best American Essays 2016
- Lew Freedman: White Sox Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Real Fan!
- Lew Freedman and Billy Pierce: "Then Ozzie Said to Harold...": The Best Chicago White Sox Stories Ever Told
- Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
- 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
- William Gibson: Agency
- Adam Gopnik, ed.: The Best American Essays 2008
- Andrew Sean Greer, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2022
- 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
- Neil Howe: The Fourth Turning is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When this Crisis Will End
- Daniel Huff: How to Lie with Statistics
- Ada Louise Huxtable: Frank Lloyd Wright: A Life
- Walter Isaacson: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- Walter Isaacson: Steve Jobs
- Leslie Jamison, ed.: The Best American Essays 2017
- Edward P. Jones: The Known World
- Kevin Kaduk: Wrigleyworld: A Season in Baseball's Best Neighborhood
- Larry Kalas: Strength Down the Middle: The Story of the 1959 Chicago White Sox
- Marin Katusa: The Rise of America: Remaking the World Order
- Stephanie Kelton: The Deficit Myth
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race
- William J. Kennedy: O Albany!: Improbable City of Political Wizards, Fearless Ethnics, Spectacular, Aristocrats, Splendid Nobodies, and Underrated Scoundrels
- Andy Kessler: Wall Street Meat: My Narrow Escape from the Stock Market Grinder
- Andy Kessler: Running Money: Hedge Fund Honchos, Monster Markets and My Hunt for the Big Score
- Stephen King, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2007
- Amara Lakhous: Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio
- Erik Larson: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- Christopher Leonard: The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy
- Steven Levy: In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
- Michael Lewis: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
- Michael Lewis: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
- Michael Lewis: Flash Boys
- Valeria Luiselli, ed.: The Best Short Stories 2022: The O. Henry Prize Winners
- Om Malik: Broadbandits
- John D. MacDonald: The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything
- Steve Martin: The Pleasure of My Company
- 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
- Haruki Murakami: 1Q84
- Mary Oliver, ed.: The Best American Essays 2009
- Susan Orlean, ed.: The Best American Essays 2005
- David M. Oshinsky: Polio: An American Story
- Jens O. Parsson: Dying of Money
- Ann Patchett, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2006
- 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
- Watty Piper: The Little Engine That Could (Original Classic Edition)
- Thomas Pynchon: V.
- Thomas Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49
- Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged
- James Rickards: The New Case for Gold
- James Rickards: Aftermath: Seven Secrets of Wealth Preservation in the Coming Chaos
- James Rickards: The New Great Depression: Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic World
- James Rickards: Sold Out: How Broken Supply Chains, Surging Inflation, and Political Instability Will Sink the Global Economy
- Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff: The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
- Marilynne Robinson: Gilead
- 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: Empire Falls
- Richard Russo, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2010
- David Schickler: Kissing in Manhattan: Stories
- Peter Schiff: The Real Crash, Edition 2.0
- Kathryn Schulz, ed.: The Best American Essays 2021
- Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret: COVID-19: The Great Reset
- Alice Sebold, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2009
- Lionel Shriver: The Mandibles
- Jeremy J. Siegel: Stocks for the Long Run, Third Edition
- Curtis Sittenfeld, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2020
- Lauren Slater, ed.: The Best American Essays 2006
- Rebecca Solnit, ed.: The Best American Essays 2019
- Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth: Yes, You Can Time the Market!
- Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash
- Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon
- Neal Stephenson: Seveneves
- Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland: The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
- Neal Stephenson: Fall; or, Dodge in Hell
- Neal Stephenson: Termination Shock
- Steve Stone: Said in Stone: Your Game, My Way
- John Stossel: Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media
- William Strauss and Neil Howe: The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy
- Cheryl Strayed, ed.: The Best American Essays 2013
- Elizabeth Strout, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2013
- David E. Stuart: The Guaymas Chronicles: La Mandadera
- John Jeremiah Sullivan, ed.: The Best American Essays 2014
- Studs Terkel: Hard Times
- Brent Underwood: Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley
- John Updike, ed.: The Best American Short Stories of the Century
- Bill Veeck: Veeck - As in Wreck
- Bill Veeck: The Hustler's Handbook
- Valerie Vogrin: Shebang
- David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest
- David Foster Wallace, ed.: The Best American Essays 2007
- Jo Walton: Among Others
- Jesmyn Ward, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2021
- Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom: China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know
- Mary Yukari Waters: The Laws of Evening
- Bernard A. Weisberger: When Chicago Ruled Baseball: The Cubs-White Sox World Series of 1906
- Connie Willis: Blackout
- Connie Willis: All Clear
- Meg Wolitzer, ed.: The Best American Short Stories 2017
- Peter Wright: Spy Catcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer
- Peter Zeihan: The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
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