O’Reilly’s History of Programming Languages poster is really great. (Thanks to Coding Horror.) But where’s MATLAB? We’re at least as big as NetRexx or ActionScript or Self or Objective Caml or Haskell or SML or . . . At least.
Maybe if we had an O’Reilly book . . . perhaps with […]

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I’ll be the first to admit that my occasional dispatches probably touch on too many topics — photography, global development, the future of my software engineering career, and deconstructing American life. I will probably never have the kind of loayal readership that sites dedicated to one topic have: sites like Museum Blogging, Conscientious, Steve […]

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New images from the Commonwealth series.

Hancock, Mass. (2006)

Springfield, Mass. (2006)

Tyringham, Mass. (2006)

Worcester, Mass. (2006)

Hopkinton, Mass. (2006)

Hopkinton, Mass. (2006)

Sherborn, Mass. (2006)

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More great images from Steven Smith: Suburban Desert.

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I had my first class tonight, Software Testing Techniques. You know that dream where you have something embarassing happen on the first day of class — perhaps you show up and suddenly realize you’re naked. Oops! Well nothing quite that bad, but about five minutes before my class was to start I […]

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Though I never worked with him directly, we were all watching what happened to our former coworker Maher Arar, who was illegally deported to Syria (which tortured him) and was yesterday cleared of all allegations. Justice Dennis O’Connor: “I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr Arar […]

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I think I was the last person in the Commonwealth to vote today.
“You just made it.” It was 7:59 on the clock on the wall of the Portuguese American Club. The midterm primary ended at 8:00.
Why is it that every poll worker is grumpy? Is it because they’re old and it’s past their […]

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Jeff Brouws has a new book and a show at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York.
“In Approaching Nowhere, Jeff Brouws surveys the evolving cultural landscapes of rural, urban and suburban America, from secondary highways to strip malls to decimated industrial sites and inner city housing. Combining bleak beauty with anthropological inquiry, he seeks the […]

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So there it is. From the “normal” post-Clinton days to the depths of national tragedy to the clearest signs of our nation’s emerging post-9/11 faultlines all in the span of just four weeks. I didn’t leave much out — just a few redundant bits. I started writing a lot more (and more […]

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Life is starting to get back to “normal,” although there is still a lot of tension and unease. I have been sleeping better, but my dreams are still unsettled. The weather has been beautiful and the leaves are turning, so it is possible to forget about all of this at least for a […]

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My dreams have been disturbed recently. Vivid Thomas Moran landscapes, troubling cross-country drives, the return of dead relatives, bad men and me unable to stop them. I have been so confused about the events of the last fourteen days. No, confused isn’t the right word. Rather, I’d say concerned, saddened, too. […]

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What a strange and bellicose past few days. There is still more news on television than anything else, but the footage is increasingly introspective, focusing on the fallout in emotional and political terms. This, I fear, is the most that we will be likely to expect over the next several days; the search […]

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The situation is becoming somewhat clearer. The hijackers are now all known, and the investigation is progressing apace. At the same time, there is no sense of certainty in the general public. Who is responsible? Why was it done? How many perished? When will we know, if ever? […]

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Yesterday was shock and amazement. Today these feelings have been clarified and largely replaced with a mounting sadness. The staggering human toll is still unknown, but indications are starting to come out that indicate that it is in the tens of thousands who are feared dead. We have also begun to see […]

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We are all amazed and disbelieving. Early during the workday terrorists hijacked four planes, crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, crashed another into the Pentagon, and apparently were aiming somewhere else with the fourth, which crashed in rural western Pennsylvania. Roughly half an hour after each […]

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