[The notion that "everyone should learn programming"] assumes that coding is the goal. Software developers tend to be software addicts who think their job is to write code. But it’s not. Their job is to solve problems. Don’t celebrate the creation of code, celebrate the creation of solutions. We have way too many coders addicted to doing just one more line of code already.

I can get behind this sentiment in a big way. Programming really isn’t for everyone–I know how to code, but I wouldn’t say that I “know” how to code well–and it requires a lot of time and dedication to learn how to write it efficiently. Plus anyone can learn the syntax–that part is easy–but it isn’t particularly useful unless you understand how to use it.

Like all tools, programming is useful in some contexts, but sometimes you don’t a hand planer. Sometimes, you need to know when you shouldn’t build furniture.

A few years ago I used to be a hothead. Whenever anyone said anything, I’d think of a way to disagree. I’d push back hard if something didn’t fit my world-view.

It’s like I had to be first with an opinion – as if being first meant something. But what it really meant was that I wasn’t thinking hard enough about the problem. The faster you react, the less you think. Not always, but often.

It’s easy to talk about knee jerk reactions as if they are things that only other people have. You have them too. If your neighbor isn’t immune, neither are you.

Words to keep in mind, but the advice that follows is even more important. What I got out of it, in a nutshell was this bit:

There’s also a difference between asking questions and pushing back. Pushing back means you already think you know. Asking questions means you want to know. Ask more questions.

New goal: ask more questions, react less.

Just as in a picture or dream you might see the king of the flies with his lances of straw and shields of hay arrayed against a real and regular army of seasoned human troops, that is how you go to war.

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Sugar is so toxic it should be controlled like alcohol, according to new report that goes so far as to suggest setting an age limit of 17 years to buy soda pop.

It points to sugar as a culprit behind many of the world’s major killers — heart disease, cancer and diabetes — that are now a greater health burden than infectious disease.

Are you kidding me here? Why is the modern reaction to problems like this always some form of government regulation? People are utterly and truly aware of the affects of sugar. Instead, these things are painted as some giant societal ill:

“We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby,” the researchers say, “and will require active engagement from all stakeholders.”

But such “tectonic shifts” in policy are possible, they say, pointing to bans on public smoking, limits on alcohol sales and condom dispensers in public washrooms. “It’s time to turn our attention to sugar.”

The battle is not political, it is with consumers. Get that through your heads.

Also, be sure to change your browser window’s size and see how the site responds.

We all grew up as athletes together, once felt young, and hope to recapture that feeling in some way. I’m at a disadvantage, though, I’m afraid. I might be able to maintain or establish some kind of cardiovascular fitness, but my knee is going to forever deteriorate until one day I’ll be half man, half mechanical parts, and that sucks. I wish my knee had never been injured, dammit.

FLG: We just more care about different things, and women choose to believe that what men care about is dirtier or less important, and thus we are pigs. Look, if every time you feel like he should know what you are expecting without telling him, then think of the French maid outfit. It’s best just to tell him what you’d like. If he says no or balks in some way, then maybe there is an issue. For example, if you told him you wanted him to come over with soup and he didn’t, then that’d be an issue. Or at least an issue you could discuss like adults. This he should know what I want and then when I don’t get it I don’t talk to him stuff is, frankly, high school bullshit.

Santa keeps tabs on what you do and when you sleep. He will punish or reward you on the basis of your performance. So you should be good for purely moral motives. The trouble, again, is that after having given a variety of non-moral, strictly self-interested reasons to act, it is a perfect non sequitur to conclude that we must act on the basis of purely moral motives. In fact, if we’re right, the Santa myth undermines the idea that we should act on the basis of our moral reasons. By accepting the Santa myth, then, we nearly ensure that we will not be good.

Ah, Joe. You’re not part of the new enlightenment. The old, superseded enlightenment took a narrow view of harm to others, where harm had to be directly imposed on other people, and “other people” was far too exclusionary. The new enlightenment says it’s a harm to others if those others can’t help themselves from coming in to rescue you if you get into trouble, so force can be used to keep you from taking risks.

It boggles the mind how often this view is a justification for the abuse of individual liberty. This particular post at Offsetting Behavior is funny, because its true–judges aren’t really designed to protect the Enlightenment notion of liberty, rather they’re more apt to protect the state interest.

Now I’m just making everything up.