malvasia bianca

The original paper on boundary objects gives a partial taxonomy of boundary objects; given my earlier thought experiment, I thought I’d see if I could find programming analogues to any parts of their classification. Star and Griesemer’s first type of boundary objects are Repositories: These are ordered ‘piles’ of objects which are indexed in a […]

The following bit from Brian Marick’s summary of boundary objects caught my eye: Ivermectin is a popular drug for deworming animals. Onchocerciasis (river blindness) is a chronic illness that’s a particular burden in sub-Saharan Africa. Since river blindness is caused by a worm susceptible to ivermectin, the manufacturer (Merck) desired to donate ivermectin to fight […]

Some evidence for anybody curious how well being good at Rock Band drums transfers to real drums. The neuroscience of illusion; I’ll embed one of the videos so you can see the kind of thing they’re discussing. (Via Kelley Eskridge.) A pleasant network logic puzzle game. (Via User Friendly, which makes it essentially impossible to […]

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been finding enough unusual projects imposing on my time that I think I’m going to have to shuffle my priorities, albeit temporarily. I’ve been wanting to do more programming at home than normal recently: aside from improving the memory project, I want to spend a bit of time getting […]

It’s been ages since I blogged about learning Japanese, so I figured I’d give y’all an update. I finished the textbook I was using last November, which raised the question of what to do next. I have some manga around and even a couple of collections of essays/stories, but I wasn’t sure I’d be up […]

Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce: the power of choices, of market segmentation. Two on folded paper: pictures by Simon Schubert (via @KathySierra) and a TED talk by Robert Lang on the origami that modern math and computers allow us to produce. An abandoned island city. (Via @japanesepod101.) Or, if you want a whole blog about […]

One of my goals in going to GDC was to get a feel for what the industry is like on the inside. I think I succeeded in that, to some extent; what I wasn’t expecting, however, what that I’d learn so much about what I like about my current job, and about things to keep […]

Despite our earlier plans, we are now back on cable TV again. We actually went pretty far in carrying out the plan: after getting lots of useful advice, I bought a Mac Mini and a PS3, along with various accessories, spent an hour or two rewiring things, and spent several hours over the next few […]

I’ve been meaning for ages to write about Jim Womack’s article on Respect for People, but I don’t seem to be getting around to it, so I’ll mention it here. A TED talk on underwater astonishments; if the beginning doesn’t capture your fancy or you’re short on time, go to the 4:20 mark. Everything you’d […]

I’ve been working standing up for about three and a half months, so it’s more than time for me to provide an update on that experiment. Which is: somewhat to my surprise, I’m still doing it! I’m not going to go out and start proclaiming that it is the way everybody should work, and I’m […]

For its fifth game, the Vintage Game Club has chosen Chrono Trigger. We’ll begin our playthrough this Saturday, and I’m really looking forward to it; if you’re interested in joining us, please grab a copy of the game and come on over to the forum!

Comcast is forcing us to switch over to digital TV soon; given that this will break our DVR, we’re thinking that we should just give up on this whole cable TV idea, and set up a computer as a media center instead. Conveniently, Apple has just upgraded the Mac mini, so we’re going to go […]

More links (and older links) than normal this time: Reader has developed a nasty habit of not showing me all the items with a given tag, so I didn’t realize that I hadn’t posted some of these already. My favorite new blog: Dear Planetary Astronomer Mike. Learn about the history of the earth, or Pluto’s […]

Thanks to everybody who game me twitter client recommendations for my iPod Touch; I’ve tried them out, and settled on Tweetie. (Recommended by Shawn Rider.) It’s been successful enough that I immediately stopped launching Twhirl on my Linux machines, and I’ve recently stopped launching Twitterriffic on my Mac. Others I considered: TwitterFon. It didn’t have […]

What web sites should I be reading if I want to learn about iPhone / iPod Touch games? There are an awful lot of games for the platform already, with a pretty staggering variety, and the web sites that I’m reading now are generally more focused on the traditional console space. So I’m pretty sure […]

It is definitely time for me to buy a new iPod: when driving to the airport, it took me five tries to reset the old one after it locked up, because I couldn’t get the buttons to engage. Given the frequency with which my old one locks up, that will become untenable almost immediately. Which […]

My iPod Nano has served me well over the last few years (though I could live without its habit of freezing on me after syncing), but it seems to be reaching the end of its life span. The menu button had been slightly iffy for a while, but not enough to be a real annoyance; […]

I was going through my drawers and ran across some old passports; I thought that people who know what I look like now might find them amusing. My passport photos from 1981 and 1988: It’s a good thing that that last passport was only valid for five years, because towards the end of traveling on […]

This probably deserves a full blog post, but I’m not sure I’m going to get around to it, so: Brian Marick on communities of practice, communities of interest, and boundary objects. The examples just get funnier and funnier. Very interesting take on GlaDOS. I’d never heard of umami before, I’d always thought we only had […]

Some experiences from my recent reading: My recent Christopher Alexander reading made me wonder: what are the centers in this blog? Am I nurturing them properly? Seth Godin’s Tribes got me thinking: I see other bloggers out there leading tribes, and I quite enjoy being part of one of them. To what extent, however, do […]