Posts

Not buying nice computers for software developers is a mistake. I put this so bluntly because I think it’s an easy mistake to make if you don’t really understand developers. I’m not going to make an argument based on the productivity gains to be had through the use of more powerful computers and bigger monitors. Those are good reasons to make sure people have the tools that make them most effective, but the reasoning behind making sure developers have nice computers goes beyond that. ...

Netflix has officially awarded the $1 million prize for improving its ratings engine by 10%. I’ve been fascinated by the prize since it was announced, and I’m thrilled that a team managed to win. Netflix has also started a new contest. Teams will compete to see who can offer the best recommendations to users who have rated very few (or even zero) titles.

In a post about how economists often separate their personal beliefs and professional work, Tyler Cowen describes bloggers like this: In many ways the core of blogging is a willingness to apply what you know to every problem you encounter, and see how good a job you can do of it in a more or less integrated fashion. That’s pretty much a perfect explanation of what my goal is for this blog. I break down the problems I encounter in terms of the things I already know and believe. I make mistakes and try to learn from them. There are a lot of blogs that don’t fit this model, but it certainly describes many of the blogs I enjoy most. ...

Literacy is going up, not down, people are writing more than they ever have, and it’s all thanks to kids spending more time online.

Jason Fried’s rant about Mint.com selling to Intuit has really, really stuck in my craw for some reason. I have no special knowledge of Mint.com’s situation, and from my reading of Fried’s post, I don’t think he does either. Fried constructs a fantasy world in which the noble founders of Mint didn’t really want $170 million and instead the mean old investors (who enabled Mint to exist in the first place) forced them into selling out and immediately becoming rich. ...

Chris Dixon writes about climbing the wrong hill.

The New York Times has an interesting blog post questioning whether cropping a photo of Dick Cheney cutting meat distorts the truth. My thought: if Dick Cheney rested the meat longer before slicing it up, it wouldn’t bleed so much.

Everybody who’s been paying attention to health care reform was eager to see what sort of monstrosity emerged from the Senate Finance Committee. Today, they presented their bill. The New York Times has provided a forum for health care experts to grade the bill. Everyone seems to hate it. It seems to me that the fundamental problem with the bill is that the health insurance that it mandates that people purchase (and that employers provide in order to get credit for providing health insurance) is very low quality. I don’t know how cheap it will be, but even if you have it, it will still be very easy to go broke because you get sick. That’s a big problem. ...

Marginal Revolution: Unacceptable thoughts about Quentin Tarantino. Really interesting (and disturbing) thoughts on Inglorious Basterds. New York Times: Times Web Ads Show Security Breach. The malware ads were injected by an advertiser who pretended to be Vonage. Corporate identity theft. Varmint Bites: My Life as a Line Cook. First person account of a (very) skilled home chef who worked in a restaurant kitchen for a night. It gave me a new appreciation of the difficulty of restaurant work.

So the big news for me this weekend was that the University of Houston football team beat Oklahama State (then the number 5 team in the country) 45-35 on the road. It was their first win on the road against a top 5 team since 1984. For one weekend, my team was the toast of college football and the subject of widespread discussion. It’s not every day that UH leads the highlight real on the college football scoreboard show. Unfortunately, in the wake of the win, some people are saying unhelpful things that need to be addressed. ...