I'm Loyal to Nothing Except the Dream
30.1.2017
There is much I take for granted in my life, and the normal functioning of American government is one of those things. In my 46 years, I've lived under nine different presidents. The first I remember is Carter. I've voted in every presidential election since 1992, but I do not
An Inferno on the Head of a Pin
17.1.2017
Today's processors contain billions of heat-generating transistors in an ever shrinking space. The power budget might go from:
1000 watts on a specialized server
100 watts on desktops
30 watts on laptops
5 watts on tablets
1 or 2 watts on a phone
100 milliwatts on an embedded system
That's
Let's Encrypt Everything
23.11.2016
I'll admit I was late to the HTTPS party.
But post Snowden, and particularly after the result of the last election here in the US, it's clear that everything on the web should be encrypted by default.
Why?
You have an unalienable right to privacy, both in the real world
Your Digital Pinball Machine
2.11.2016
I've had something of an obsession with digital pinball for years now. That recently culminated in me buying a Virtuapin Mini.
OK, yes, it's an extravagance. There's no question. But in my defense, it is a minor extravagance relative to a real pinball machine.
The mini is much smaller than
Can Software Make You Less Racist?
25.8.2016
I don't think we computer geeks appreciate how profoundly the rise of the smartphone, and Facebook, has changed the Internet audience. It's something that really only happened in the last five years, as smartphones and data plans dropped radically in price and became accessible – and addictive –...
The Raspberry Pi Has Revolutionized Emulation
25.7.2016
Every geek goes through a phase where they discover emulation. It's practically a rite of passage.
I think I spent most of my childhood – and a large part of my life as a young adult – desperately wishing I was in a video game arcade. When I finally obtained my driver's
Computer says NO to HTML5 document outline
9.6.2016
What a brilliant idea! For the longest time HTML5 specified, and advised developers, that it no longer mattered what the number (1 to 6) was in a heading element (when used in conjunction with sectioning elements). What mattered was the nesting level of the H1-h6 in sectioning elements, just like...
Computer says NO to HTML5 document outline
9.6.2016
What a brilliant idea! For the longest time HTML5 specified, and advised developers, that it no longer mattered what the number (1 to 6) was in a heading element (when used in conjunction with sectioning elements). What mattered was the nesting level of the H1-h6 in sectioning elements, just like...
The Golden Age of x86 Gaming
21.5.2016
I've been happy with my 2016 HTPC, but the situation has changed, largely because of something I mentioned in passing back in November:
The Xbox One and PS4 are effectively plain old PCs, built on:
Intel Atom class (aka slow) AMD 8-core x86 CPU
8 GB RAM
AMD Radeon 77xx
Your Own Personal WiFi Storage
7.5.2016
Our kids have reached the age – at ages 4, 4, and 7 respectively – that taking longer trips with them is now possible without everyone losing what's left of their sanity in the process. But we still have the same problem on multiple hour trips, whether it's in a car, or
They Have To Be Monsters
29.4.2016
Since I started working on Discourse, I spend a lot of time thinking about how software can encourage and nudge people to be more empathetic online. That's why it's troubling to read articles like this one:
My brother’s 32nd birthday is today. It’s an especially emotional day for
Here's The Programming Game You Never Asked For
15.4.2016
You know what's universally regarded as un-fun by most programmers? Writing assembly language code.
As Steve McConnell said back in 1994:
Programmers working with high-level languages achieve better productivity and quality than those working with lower-level languages. Languages such as...