sky, Author at Sky's Blog

The 10-ton resume is not the whole story

12 December, 2013 by sky Leave a Comment

I had to review my resumé recently to create two paragraphs for a couple of “Board members” pages. I have a small pile of academic appointments and jobs that I can put into a bio. But to me there’s an interesting additional component in lives that are filled with creativity and great breadth of experience. All of which I find hard to describe in the standard bio format.

So where do I put “created and operated a half dozen mixed-reality real-world interactive games that combined phone, email and SMS messaging in a follow-the-trail-through-the-real-world storyline” — on a bio?

And where do I put “recorded 8 albums of experimental music” on a resumé that is so heavy with Computer Science credits?

I guess mostly an artist’s bio is his or her portfolio, isn’t it?

[Read more…]

As the mouse turns – Are you twisted or are you straight?

7 December, 2013 by sky Leave a Comment

Are you “straight” or are you “twisted?”

You’ve probably never thought about this, but if you are currently using a mouse, take a look at how the mouse is positioned with respect to your screen. Is the mouse pointing straight away from your body, or is it twisted around to point directly at your screen?

I constantly find that I’m unconsciously twisting the mouse to point toward the screen (first illustration), even though this makes no difference whatsoever in how it functions. It doesn’t get smoother—it doesn’t get faster—it doesn’t gain precision. Sweeping it leftward in an arc still moves the cursor to the left across the screen. Pushing it toward the screen still moves the cursor upward.

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Tech and Peace

26 November, 2013 by sky Leave a Comment

As many as 10 years ago, the term “ICT for Development” or ICT4D came into popular use. It was based on the premise that information and communication [ICT] technologies could be used as a cornerstone in economic and human development.

The efforts have been rangy — from the “One Laptop per Child” project to projects where cellular (phone) technologies would be used to bring health education and services to remote communities. (See also OLPC on Wikipedia.) OLPC is a particularly good example of the ICT4D genre because over the years it has brought a large number of its computers to children, but has not achieved the broad success sought for the project by its founder, Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the M.I.T. Media Lab. i’ve written

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In the long run they’ll get you “in the code”

11 September, 2013 by sky Leave a Comment

Bruce Schneier says “Remember this: The math is good, but math has no agency. Code has agency, and the code has been subverted.” (read original)

What this means is that the theory behind something — in this case encryption using “hard” mathematics — may be very good, but the implementation can be full of “gotchas” — errors, omissions, faults — and that‘s what will get you in the long term. He was specifically commenting on Edward Snowden’s revelations about the US National Security Agency and whether they can read all encrypted messages, but it can apply to many other software endeavors.

If you’re thinking of writing some software whose function is critical, and especially if lives depend on it, you have to be extremely careful with your implementation. And Open Source is a big plus because other eyes can look at your code and spot mistakes that you, as author, are likely to overlook.

So whatever you’re working on, be very, very careful with the implementation.

Finding your way

20 May, 2013 by sky Leave a Comment

I was watching Charlie Rose interview Paul Farmer tonight and I thought, “gee I was going to become an M.D. when I was an undergraduate in college, and it would have been so nice to have that M.D. and then be able to go do other things if I wanted to.” But then I did a double-take and realized that I was truly fortunate to realize while an undergraduate that what I really wanted to do is become part of the “core” of those working on Computer Science in its early days.

Compared to today, 1963 really was the early days. It was pre-Internet. It was pre-Ted Nelson. It was pre-Doug Engelbart. And so forth. And getting a PhD in computer science back then was really an adventure in the unknown. Most of what we regard as Computer Science was unmapped in those days.

So some unaskedfor advice to my readers. When you find yourself saying ”I think I should do X but I really like Y” please pay attention to what your intuition is telling you. Don’t waste your time doing what someone else thinks you should be doing. Above all, be realistic, but give great weight to what your intuition is telling you, because it’s very likely right about it.

That old Steve Jobs advice again (see also)

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

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P.S.: In 2015 I decided to augment my computer science career by studying (music) composition for a year at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. [Read more]