Quote of the Week
You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.—Henry Ford
Computing Aesthetics
I’ve always been drawn to clean design—the kind that doesn’t shout for attention, but quietly says, “this just works.” That’s why reading about how Steve Jobs once spent only ten minutes dragging sliders around to design the original Mac calculator feels like a revelation. According to the article from Ars Technica, a young Apple engineer …
Top Ten: Movies
Continuing with the Top Ten focus for this month’s Tuesday posts, I give you (once again, in no particular order) my Top Ten Movies. The Blues Brothers is a chaotic musical comedy that follows Jake and Elwood Blues as they try to save the Catholic orphanage where they grew up. Their “mission from God” leads …
A Running Joke
There’s this meme floating around online that draws a line from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics—our ancestors’ earliest attempt at picturing ideas and emotions—to today’s colorful emojis blinking across our phones. And it got me thinking about an intermediate chapter in that journey: the humble emoticon. Back in 1982, at Carnegie Mellon University, computer scientists were trading …
Top Ten: Music
With the year drawing to a close, I can’t help but ask: Has this year gone by faster than previous years? From my gaming chair, the answer seems to be a resounding “Yes!” So I thought I might end this year a bit differently. So this month, I’m going to commit my Tuesday posts—all five …
Quote of the Week
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.—Winston S. Churchill
Why I Skip Black Friday Altogether
I’ve only ventured out among the early-bird Black Friday shoppers a handful of times, and that was enough to know it isn’t for me. I remember standing in long lines before sunrise, watching crowds rush through store doors the moment they opened, everyone chasing that once-a-year deal. It was a fascinating sight—part tradition, part frenzy—but …
Conflicted
This week marks a turning point as another calendar year dwindles away. Thanksgiving week brings a few things into my world. Two days away from the day job. Time to look back and give thanks for the bright spots in my life. The end of the regular college football season. Friday night: Indiana travels to …
Quote of the Week
We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.—Dalai Lama