Wisdom and Wonder » philosophy

How do you define being “burnt out”?

Grant — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:19:39 +0000

How do you define being “burnt out”?

I found this fellow’s definition intriguing:

burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work

– Keith Yost

This sounds so very insidious.

A Philosophy of Cool for Non-Living Things

Grant — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:05:10 +0000

Cool can come from what a [thing] is or what it does. But at the core, Cool is about purity of expression, of material objects being infused with human energy, creativity and insight to make them more than just the sum of their parts.

– Mark Hoyer, WHAT IS COOL?, Cycle World 2/2010

I love Mark’s take on cool; from motorcycles to programming languages, it still makes sense. It makes me think about how great it is to be alive, living, in the present. It is a gift.

When You Just Can’t Imagine…

Grant — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:24:48 +0000

Something to consider…

“I can’t imagine why anyone would need X” is a statement about your imagination, not X.

(via Dan)

Glass Drinking Glasses

Grant — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:34:43 +0000

Was it a happy-accident that glass drinking glasses have been in use for hundreds of years and they don’t leach any dangerous chemicals into their contents and thus into our bodies?

Did that lull us into false sense of security where we assume that drinking container vendors would only provide us with things that would not poison us?

The aim of a language

Grant — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:20:46 +0000

to turn ideas into software, quickly and faithfully

– John Chambers

Great aim!

Why Be Positive?

Grant — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:44:44 +0000

Q. Why Be Positive?

A. It beats the alternative!

The Bipolar Lisp Programmer

Grant — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:44:29 +0000

Ben referred us to this article (cached here) in the midst of a discussion about, among other things, why there is still no FFI in the Scheme standard.

That article is really interesting.

What did you think about it?

What Spending Money Says About You

Grant — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:43:06 +0000

Money is more than a transfer of value. It’s a statement of belief.

(via Seth)

There are a lot of ways to think about how this applies that might help you to better make sense of why things “work” they way that they do.

Conway’s Law

Grant — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:55:03 +0000

Conway’s Law is not intended to be a joke or nasty witticism:

…organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

– Melvin Conway

(via Fare via Wikipedia)

The Grass is Always Greener

Grant — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:33:32 +0000

Here is a little tongue in cheek developer career philosophy/humor:

(via xkcd via Greg Wilson)