Category Archives: Jack Handy

One of the best introductory programming books I’ve ever seen is entitled “The IBM PC from the Inside Out“. This is an assembly language oriented guide to the programming and operation of the 8086-based IBM PC. It suffers from being … Continue reading →

Seth’s got a pretty good post up on the importance of ignoring sunk costs. He makes a couple of mistakes, however, that are worth clearing up.

Several weeks ago I updgraded to Firefox 3.  It worked fine, except for one strange behaviour:  It deleted all cookies every time it was shut down.  (I realize that this is sometimes the desired behaviour, but I didn’t like it, … Continue reading →

I was watching “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” the other day (okay movie, desperately needs about 40m of cuts) and thought I recognized one of the actors by his voice. After a little searching, I found him on … Continue reading →

Keith Hennessey has got a new economics blog up. Whether or not you agree with his politics (he’s an ex-Bush WH guy) he’s worth reading for the clear way he lays out the issues surrounding questions of economic policy, with … Continue reading →

Some time ago, I had a Windows box that was plagued by random reboots.  These weren’t crashes, or bluescreens, or lockups:  I would be typing away at the computer and then, suddenly, the screen would go black, I’d hear the … Continue reading →

Remember "Taipan!"? It is a classic (c. 1982) trading game set in the 1860’s Far East. It’s one of those minimalist games from the early days of PCs that are far more absorbing and addictive than they have any right … Continue reading →

Following up on yesterday’s “design that makes me happy” theme, let me briefly mention my keyboard.  I’ve got one of Apple’s ulta-thin aluminum keyboards – specifically the USB version w/ numeric keypad.  It’s a joy to use.  It feels great, … Continue reading →

Something unambiguously positive today:  I’ve got a Canon Pixma MP610 printer that makes me very happy.  The MP610 is, in most respects, a typical and serviceable all-in-one inkjet photoprinter.  It does its thing well enough – I’m not enough of … Continue reading →

Yesterday, I described the thinking behind this Steve Yegge post as “creepy and dangerous”. Today, I want to focus on the “dangerous” part, after a quick detour to summarize “creepy”. In short, Steve advocates allowing the perfect to be the … Continue reading →