I just found out about Alex St. John’s ridiculous article on VentureBeat claiming that developers who object to working uncompensated overtime have “a wage-slave attitude”. Ummm, what? It sounds like he’s trying to use emotional terms and “snarl words” to make people think that “whatever a ‘wage slave attitude’ is, it must be bad!” But look […]
Tag Archives: you fail
Let’s Unpack “Professional Victims”
Thursday, January 14th, 2016 – 8:12 am
The only thing more annoying than a phrase that’s overused to the point of cliché is when that overused phrase isn’t even remotely accurate — and in fact, borders on completely nonsensical. The one I’ve heard far too many times in the past year is the all-purpose favorite of Red Pillers, MRAs, GamerGaters, and other defenders […]
Fascism Is Anti-American
Friday, November 27th, 2015 – 10:25 am
I can’t believe I have to say any of this stuff. I shouldn’t have to. Nobody should have to say any of this. But I want to be on record. I want the world to know where I stand. When I first started writing this, there were two points I wanted to make. The first was […]
Thoughts On “The Rating Game”
Thursday, November 5th, 2015 – 7:35 am
I started reading The Verge’s recent article, “The Rating Game” (subtitled “How Uber and its peers turned us into horrible bosses”), and quickly started thinking, “Wow, I have to tweet about this. Including some comments I have.” By the time I was halfway through, I’d come up with so many comments, they’d have required a huge […]
What’s Wrong With the “Minimal Weighings” Puzzle for Front-End Interviews
Thursday, October 29th, 2015 – 6:24 pm
A while back, I came across a post by Philip Walton, who points out that most front-end interview questions aren’t well suited for their basic task of… well, testing a candidate’s front-end development knowledge. At least, the sorts of things he ran into were mostly “logical puzzles, generic coding challenges, and algorithm design problems”, as […]
I Feel Like Part of the Problem
Sunday, July 12th, 2015 – 8:00 pm
In San Francisco now, I no longer feel like a useful, contributing member of The City’s social or cultural scene. Merely by virtue of being “a developer”, I feel like I’ve become Part Of the Problem. I sure as hell try not to be. I try to encourage the arts; I try to defend and promote […]
The Place Where Flow Goes to Die
Monday, December 10th, 2012 – 9:58 pm
My employer has multiple offices in different places, so people who I’ve worked “with” for months can still be newcomers to my physical work environment. A visiting co-worker recently said, “From your Twitter feed, I assumed this office would be, like, the loudest place ever.” Am I really that sensitive? I started wondering. I started keeping […]
“Fast” Is the Enemy of “Good” — And “Accurate”, and “Deep”, And…
Sunday, August 26th, 2012 – 9:24 pm
Wanna see a perfect encapsulation of what’s wrong with journalism, and particularly online journalism, these days? Just take a look at this piece by TechCrunch’s Ryan Lawler. Pay particular attention to the parts where he says: I would be following someone else’s story half a day later, and no one wants to do that. I wrote […]
What to Do When the Tech Failboat Sails
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012 – 7:51 pm
The tech world is no stranger to occasional outbreaks of Sexism!Fail, but the past two weeks have seen a rare double instance of it. Naturally, I’ve got to speak up. By the way, for anyone who missed the events, here are a pair of quick recaps: Boston API Jam’s Marketing Problem Oh Hai Sexism And now, […]
A Cute Motto Can’t Make Up For Evil Actions
Sunday, February 19th, 2012 – 2:53 pm
I recognize that Google’s motto is not (the oft-misquoted) “Do no evil”. It’s the much easier-to-achieve mandate of “Don’t be evil”. But even that very low bar is one Google doesn’t seem to be hitting any more, and they don’t seem interested in trying to. The latest “Google being evil” story, where it turns out they’ve […]