Tag: philosophy

  • The Great Software Stagnation

    Jonathan Edwards is one of those people I both profoundly agree with and profoundly disagree with. In his new year essay The Great Software Stagnation he again complains about the way the computer science field seems to be running out of new ideas. I agree wholeheartedly with his frustration. And, sure, with a few bright…

  • George Monbiot has a good piece on pursuing the work you want. So my final piece of advice is this: when faced with the choice between engaging with reality or engaging with what Erich Fromm calls the “necrophiliac” world of wealth and power, choose life, whatever the apparent costs may be.

  • Work is never fun if you do it for other people. But why? I’d guess it’s not simply that someone else is asking you for it. It’s that the other person is *always* setting some constraints, defining the boundaries of what the thing should be, that don’t entirely line up with your own. And then…

  • Prioritizing by Anxiety. I see what he’s getting at although I’m not entirely convinced. Obviously No Free Lunch tells us that no “prioritize-by-X” strategy could be appropriate to all circumstances. (Including the FIFO algorithm of Mind Traffic Control). Because of this, the less time wasted imagining you can specify priorities in advance, the better. Because…

  • Vagmi’s Open Letter to Programeter (nice one)

  • There’s a new crop of business wikis. And some interesting discussion. But what’s wrong with this picture? SystemOne, an enterprise-knowledge-management system masquerading as an ordinary business wiki. What’s cool about this product is that it automatically creates, at the bottom of each page, a list of relevant other wiki pages, feeds, and Web search results.…