Functional JavaScript, a Remedy for the Lazy One of the core concepts that has driven my quest for knowledge about programming techniques has always been my own laziness. After all, what attracted me to computers back when I first started playing with them was the notion that they could do things for me. …

It’s been a rough few weeks. You know it and I know it. And we both know why. I don’t think we need to get into that right now. The point is that it’s been a rough few weeks, and it follows a rough few months, which follows a pretty…

The human mind sees patterns and projects forward. That’s the secret sauce of our survival. That’s how we’ve managed to adapt as the world has changed, and how we’ve changed our circumstances to perpetuate our species. We focus our attention on things that are around us, look for patterns in…

I find it deeply disturbing to watch people wringing their hands with glee as they talk about the tech bubble bursting. They say that technology companies are destroying San Francisco. They say the city is dead, and will never be what it once was. …

Ruminations on Launching a Podcast It’s been an amazing week. After more than a year of idle dreaming, several months of planning and preparation, and a few weeks of hardcore recording and editing, this week I launched my new podcast, Hack the Process. A Little Background I’ve known that I wanted to launch…

It may have been the Roaring Twenties but, still, these all-women, long-trouser soirees in the Midwest are a remarkable showing of gender fluidity — I enjoy looking at old photographs of people. It’s endlessly fascinating to see the faces in photographs, and notice the subtle differences and expressions that come through from one image to the next. If you take the time to look, you can tell a lot about a person from how…

Reading past gender bias to rediscover the wit and wisdom of classic literature. — Being A Feminist Reader I grew up watching, listening to, and reading stories about men and women who behaved the way men and women were expected to behave at the time those stories were written. …

Mastery through disposable, irreverent, uninhibited experimentation — When you’re starting to learn something new, you probably have an image in your mind of what you want to be able to accomplish. Often it’s much more sophisticated than what you can manage right now. And that’s fine. You can see the end results of experts who’ve created great…

Don’t let your fear of criticism stop you from sharing your creativity and changing the world. — As a web developer, I wrestle constantly with the balance between good code structure and getting the job done. When compared against the idealized vision of clean code in my head, starting anything new is a challenging commitment. Making the wrong choice early on can lock a code base into…