Meditations 6.1

Nature is pliable, obedient. And the logos that governs it has no reason to do evil. It knows no evil, does none, and causes harm to nothing. It dictates all beginnings and all endings.

So long as the ending is natural, it cannot be evil. It is simply the symmetric ending to a beginning set in motion years ago.

When we moved into our house, there were a number of bushes planted in various places by the builders. We pulled a few out because wanted to put other things there. Another one died on its own which was just fine with us.

But the two bushes next to our back porch we actually liked quite a bit. In a few years when they're larger, they'll provide a nice bit of visual screening to the

Mozilla Corporation, the commercial arm of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, announced this week that they are laying off 250 people, which is a quarter of the company. The official press release on the Mozilla blog is very upbeat, including bits about "acting more quickly and nimbly" and that they will "experiment more."

Piecing together reports from Twitter and elsewhere, however, it looks like the entire team of the Servo browser, an R&D project

(Part 2 of this story)

When I was doing my research to find a used Chevy Volt to buy, the news that the Volt was being discontinued after 2019 crossed my notice. Not a big deal, I thought. I wasn't planning to buy a new one anyway.

But after driving this car for six months and really coming to like it quite a lot, I've noticed there's that voice in the back of my head.

(Part 1 of this story.)

I've never been a car guy. I appreciate a nice Mustang or Corvette as much as the next American but I always knew I was way out of my depth compared to the guys who had been studying hot rods since high school.

Then came the beginning of this year, and it was time to replace my aging Ford Focus hatchback that was I quite fond of. It was getting

My grandfather, James P. Berry, bought the first Chevy Volt sold in Rock Hill. Unveiled in 2007 (the same year as the iPhone) and taking 3 more years to come to market, the Volt was an odd car. An entirely electric drivetrain that had a 40 mile battery but could burn gas to power a generator to run the motors for unlimited maximum range. Commute on electricity, road trip on gas. The best of both

I was having a conversation with a friend just starting out, later in life, on his journey as a software developer, and we were talking about code schools and college degrees.

There seems to be a paradox, that some companies hire code school graduates and have success when others don't, while at the same time not all companies have success hiring junior developers straight out of college. So what determines success?

One model that might

Yesterday's post was not intended to be the first in the series, but here we are. The obstacle has become the way.

MythBusters premiered during my freshman year of high school, and slotted into the subscription list on our first-gen TiVo alongside Junkyard Wars, so in a way this hits me more like finding out about the death of a friend I lost contact with when I went off to college (not having a TV

I was saddened to hear that Anders Ericsson passed away recently, because his research and writings, primarily his book Peak has had a significant positive impact on my life.

His research into what distinguished effective versus ineffective practice was sadly taken out of context to become the cultural meme of the "10,000 hour rule," which I might consider a miscarriage if he hadn't had a chance to set the record straight in Peak, for