Monthly Archives: December 2008

Childrens’ books we passed up recently: H. P. Lovecraft, To Think That It Thawed Out on Mulberry Street Marco sees a street corner fish-seller’s stall on the way home from school, but it is oddly shaped and has recently been … Continue reading →

Several years ago, in anticipation of my son’s wanting a computer, I bought a couple of cheap ($10) Macintosh IIsi systems (the original list price in 1990 was over $3000).  Last week I set one of them up.  I found … Continue reading →

Here’s a bit of Newton memorabilia I was able to scan in.  It’s nearly black in my notebook, and I had to clean it up to make it somewhat legible – It’s a crash dump showing the CPU registers after … Continue reading →

Over 15 years ago I started using sketch books (and a fountain pen) for my note-taking and design work.  The notebooks by Strathmore come in various sizes, the paper is acid free, they are pretty cheap (compared to Moleskins), and … Continue reading →

So here is a little game that takes some honesty, a little imagination, and (let’s be frank here) a fair amount of cynicism: 1) Think of a bunch of possible names of a web companies (e.g., “Zingit!” or “WhamWeb”). The … Continue reading →

“I’m good at this game!” [We got the board game Chutes and Ladders for our son this Christmas.] “No, there’s no real strategy in it.  You just spin.  It’s all luck.” I disagree.  The real strategy to learn in Chutes … Continue reading →

Everyone’s been looking for silver bullets for so long they’ve forgotten what they set out to kill. Practically everything has been floated as The Answer for solving the Software Crisis, a crisis that has been with us since the first … Continue reading →

Last year my dad sepnt some time in the hospital, undergoing some brain surgery [it worked out okay, though things were a little hairy for a while]. Dad is a bit irascible, and also likes to joke. So when asked … Continue reading →

Judging by the behavior of our kid, falling asleep is apparently a learned behavior. Like many things about babies, this came as a complete surprise to me. Like many other things in life that occupy more or less all of … Continue reading →