Yesterday I attended the NYC memorial service for Aaron Swartz at Cooper Union’s Great Hall. Hearing about Aaron’s accomplishments and his spirit of pragmatic idealism from those who spoke was humbling, inspiring, and so, so sad. >>
Cross-posted from the SFLC blog
The New York Tech Meetup is an impressive gathering of the guiding lights (and hopefuls) of the so-called "Silicon Alley" community. With over 27,000 members, NYTM is the largest meetup in the world and has become so influential that it’s attracted guest appearances by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and United States CTO Todd Park, and coaxed statements from both 2012 presidential candidates about how their policies will benefit the New York tech community. Every meetup follows a simple format: several New York technology startups present demos of their products and then answer questions from the audience. >>
Cross-posted from the SFLC blog
In yesterday’s New York Times, Ellen Ullman criticized the SEC’s suggestion that mandated software testing could prevent automated-trading catastrophes like the one that shook the market and nearly bankrupted Knight Capital at the beginning of this month. More testing won’t work, according to Ullman, for a few reasons. First, computer systems are too complex to ever “fully test,” because they comprise multiple software and hardware subsystems, some proprietary, others (like routers) containing “inaccessible” embedded code. Second, all code contains bugs, and because bugs can be caused by interactions between modules and even by attempts to fix other bugs, no code will ever be completely bug-free. And finally, it is too difficult to delineate insignificant changes to the software from those that really require testing. >>
I really do my best to avoid eating salads as meals. Not only do I have an irrational prejudice toward meal salads owing to my disgust with fad diets, but people generally think that vegans eat nothing but salads, and I don’t want to play to stereotypes. But one immutable rule of CSAs is that you will get a lot of damn lettuce. Every week, one or two heads of lettuce, and there’s really nothing you can do but make some salads. >>
It’s summer and it’s hot, so I’ve mostly switched from hot coffee to iced coffee. I’ve been hearing about the esoteric pleasures of cold-brewed coffee from geeks and friends for a few years, but despite the almost idiot simplicity of the process, I didn’t bother trying it till this week. >>