I don’t do this often, but I feel a fever coming on and I’m hoping a little ego self-gratification will make me feel better. Please allow me to quote from Joel Spolsky’s article “Finding Great Developers“: …you can go through thousands of job applications and quite frankly never see a great software developer. Not a one. Here is why this… Read more →
Author: Mr. McLaren
Head Explodey, Part 3
The lede on this Reuters story seem relatively harmless, or maybe even positive: Americans who question evolution are testing a new tactic in Ohio, arguing that schools should be required to discuss all controversial issues from creation to stem cell research and global warming. In what critics on Wednesday called a new attempt to bring religion into the classroom, the… Read more →
Head-explodes, part 2
Those poll results were the first part of today’s cornucopia of things that make my head explode. You’d think an article entitled “Southern women breaking up with Bush” would be something I’d enjoy reading. But then you hit this section: Still, some Southern women remain stalwart supporters of the president and the Republican Party. At a watermelon festival in Chickamauga,… Read more →
Canada, I am so disappointed in you
It would not be unfair to say that it physically sickens me that there are 15000+ people reading the Globe who think secret prisons are a good and necessary idea. Read more →
A Thursday Miscellany
Wow. Moore wasn’t kidding. LOST GIRLS is really, really, dirty. You know what really gets me about this story: people were complaining! Who seriously feels threatened on an airplane because someone is praying–regardless of what language they are doing it in? I thought this kind of madness was American-only, but I guess we’re just as bad. My home office is… Read more →
Religion and Pornography
Let’s do some embedded YouTube videos quick, before someone notices that YouTube has no business model! I do love the Daily Show. I think this clip nicely captures the beauty of trying to debate the essentially arational. Or, as Paul Myers puts it “This is exactly what I hear when someone tries to promote their favorite cult.” Now, that’s not… Read more →
Something to look forward to in 2007
I was quite pleased to see this: July 2007 Territory by Emma Bull (new hardcover) On PNH’s list of stuff he (and Teresa) have edited. I’ve been patiently waiting for Emma’s next book since 1997 (or 1994, if you want to get picky about the possessive). It was harder to be patient after I heard her read from (what must… Read more →
Latest acquisition
If you’ve been following the “Hanging Around The House” postsMan, I should really finish that…two more posts should bring us up to date., you have a pretty good sense of what kind of stuff decorates the walls around here. New stuff is coming in at a slow, but constant rate–indeed at the moment I have a small Barry Windsor-Smith print,… Read more →
QOTD
“I’m sorry to be so short with you, but you are making as much sense as someone who asserts that World War II began when Delaware attacked Batman.” — PNH I am likely going to use that, or a simple variant thereof, in some future discussion where someone is starting from completely, objectively, wrong premises. (Cowardly caveat: Note that this… Read more →
Hear Christopher Moore
…over at the Authors On Tour Live site, the current podcast at the moment is Christopher Moore (previously mentioned), who’s touring A Dirty Job. (I read that the week it came out, and quite enjoyed it.) Check it out. Read more →
Overextended, and under-comprehending
I’ve been watching the housing boom–especially in the crazy U.S. markets like Boston and parts of California–with interest and a kind of schadenfreud-laden waiting for the bust to begin. This most recent Businessweek article just confirms all my basic notions: that people do remarkably stupid things, especially when they are motivated by greed, and that they are happily helped into… Read more →
I have never ridden a turtle.
While preparing a ficititious biography for a friend’s soon-to-be-published first book, I came across Louis De Rougemont, a.k.a. Henri Louis Grin His story is plenty weird enough to qualify for a blog post. Follow the link to see the long version at Wikipedia, but I have to quote a couple of bits here: In 1898 he began to write about… Read more →
I know a dude who’s 6′ 7″
I am either 6′ 2″ tall, or 6′ 3″ tall, depending on who you ask–it’s hard for me to say conclusively since I can’t actually measure myself, and reports differ. Trish is 5′ 10″. All indications are that Sarah will grow up to be at least a six footer. So, what I read in Slate today pleased me. Here’s a… Read more →
The word from Boston
First, let me say it’s apparently a really good thing that I didn’t get that Arabic shirt for this trip. One of the inspectors answered him “you can’t wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads “I am a robber” and going to a bank”. I’m trying to come… Read more →
I wonder what my boss would say…
… if I called in “Guantanamo” on Monday, instead of showing up in Boston for work. “Calling in Gitmo” is the international travellers trump-card version of “calling in sick” here at the beginning of the third millenium. If I had seen the t-shirt below a while ago, instead of just now, I would totally have ordered one, and would have… Read more →
