I sometimes sum up the lesson of a liberal arts education as: socially constructed things are real, too. And you are not immune from their effects, no matter how smart you are or whether you've …
You help run an open source software community, and you've successfully signalled that you're open to new contributors, including people who aren't professional software engineers. And you've already got an easy developer setup process and …
I try not to say "don't get discouraged," because to me that sounds like telling someone not to cry or telling someone to calm down. It's a way of saying "stop feeling what you're feeling." …
Leonard writes scifi novels, and one of them (that a publisher is currently considering) has the working title Situation Normal, a followup to the previous working title, Explosion of Honor. It's witty military scifi -- …
I posted on MetaFilter about the new Disobedience Award that MIT Media Lab is starting (nomination deadline: May 1st). And in the comments there, I stumbled into talking about why one might found an award, …
I happened upon the New York state Assembly's website last week,* and noticed an upcoming hearing about "Government oversight of forensic science laboratories" (PDF), hearing oral testimony by invitation only. I wondered: Who's on the …
I've posted to MetaFilter about some recent goings-on at LiveJournal; if you have an LJ account you should probably take a look.
Every year the Yuletide fanfic exchange delivers a bounty of fun transformative works concerning books, movies, songs, games, news stories, and other parts of our media landscape. I myself have, as they say, committed fanfic …
In one of my earliest internships, I volunteered in the local district office of my state Senator (that is, the guy who represented my area in the upper chamber of California's state legislature). I reordered …
On Sundays I make omelets. Today's omelets included three diced cloves of garlic. "I wish to make you aware that we are basically in a garlic ratchet. I will be increasing the number of cloves …
