No Tips, Everyone!
The US tipping culture has, no pun intended, tipped over. At restaurants you're expected to tip 20-25% - and watch out for those pre-printed amounts, which often include taxes or…
Random Learnings #46
"A Peasant Leaving His Landlord on Yuriev Day" by Sergei V. Ivanov I thought that Russian serfs were essentially slaves - a belief supported by many English-language references - but…
Nuclear Power Isn’t The Answer
The Brittanica Book of the Year 1972 included a special report Nuclear Power - Promise or Peril? (a oft-used title, if my. web search is any indication) which discussed -…
Meandering Thoughts #39
The end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade shows Indiana filling the Holy Grail with well and healing his father from the gunshot wound, followed by happily-ever-after as Indiana,…
Return to Office Insanity Part II
A follow-up to my previous post. Previously my employer emphatically declared a no enforced return-to-office policy, in whatever form, at least as long as the current VP ran engineering. Wednesdays…
Neighborhood Turkeys
© 2024 Scott C Sosna Last fall wild turkey moved into our neighborhood with no indication that they ever intend to leave. They wander the neighborhood, I assume to forage…
Meandering Thoughts #38
How does any sensible musician conclude that s/he should cover a recent hit (#5 on the US charts) and add a meaningless chant Ooga-Chaka, Ooga-Ooga at the beginning? As I…
Good News, Everyone!
Robot Santa, "Xmas Story", Futurama (1999) In Futurama's Xmas Story, Santa Claus is a robot whom judges (almost) everyone as naughty and attempts to kill them. As Professor Farnsworth explains:…
Over-Architected? Maybe, Maybe Not.
An oft-heard criticism of way-to-many software solutions is that it's over-architected, implying that the design, abstractions, implementation, deployment, whatever is unnecessarily complex, difficult to understand, unmaintainable, unnecessary, wrong. Criticisms often…
Random Learnings #45
"United Nations" by japedi is licensed under CC BY 2.0. I knew that China joined the United Nations at Taiwan's expense - China also getting the permanent seat on the…