Jeff De Luca

My son’s high school team won the championship game today at the...

Sun, 27 May 2012 20:42:00 -0400

My son’s high school team won the championship game today at the US Open Volleyball Championships in Salt Lake City, Utah. Go East Greenwich Avengers!

My son’s high school team won the championship game today at the...

Sun, 27 May 2012 20:33:00 -0400

My son’s high school team won the championship game today at the US Open Volleyball Championships in Salt Lake City, Utah. Go East Greenwich Avengers! Here’s the chat to my wife of how the championship game went down.

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Wed, 23 May 2012 00:34:14 -0400

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Wed, 23 May 2012 00:34:03 -0400

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Wed, 23 May 2012 00:33:52 -0400

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Wed, 23 May 2012 00:33:36 -0400

"Headphones are the new wall."

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:37:38 -0400

“Headphones are the new wall.”

- - Ray Udeshi cited by John Tierney in From Cubicles, Cry for Quiet Pierces Office Buzz via NYTimes.com, discussing how office workers deal with the increasing noise in open space offices. (via stoweboyd)

Jeff says: *sigh* just read Peopleware…

buzz: slaughterhouse90210 (via Matt Lehrer): “Some very...

Tue, 22 May 2012 02:30:03 -0400

buzz:

slaughterhouse90210 (via Matt Lehrer):

“Some very considerable part of the gestural language of public places that had once belonged to cigarettes now belonged to phones.”
—William Gibson, Zero History

TechCrunch: Pair Programming Considered Harmful

Tue, 22 May 2012 02:20:00 -0400

TechCrunch: Pair Programming Considered Harmful:

It’s sad we’re still discussing this.

buzz:

(via lucius)

In one of my previous jobs I worked in an environment where pair programming was briefly foisted upon me, and I’ve never been more sure of my absolute distaste for anything in my professional life. While its defenders would undoubtedly allege that this is because I’m an egotistical cowboy coder who simply can’t handle collaboration, my experience was that far from producing the best possible code, pairing frequently forced my partner and I into hasty technical decisions we regretted not considering more carefully later. Ruminating on design should be a healthy component of any good programmer’s day, but full-time pairing can make the certain amount of “staring into space” time every programmer needs to get things right excruciatingly awkward.

This is not to say that I’m not open to collaboration or feedback—far from it. I love talking designs over with colleagues, and my personal preference is for a review process where everything is developed on branches and only merged to master after review by at least one other person on the team. I feel that this achieves a lot of the reputed benefits of institutionalized pair programming without the awkwardness (and, I might add, a lot more efficiently).

"A study now suggests that simply taking a break does not bring on inspiration — rather, creativity..."

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:04:00 -0400

“

A study now suggests that simply taking a break does not bring on inspiration — rather, creativity is fostered by tasks that allow the mind to wander.

“We’ve traditionally found that rapid-eye-movement sleep grants creative insight. That allowing the mind to wander does the same is absolutely fascinating. The implication is that mind-wandering was only helpful for problems that were already being mentally chewed on. It didn’t seem to lead to a general increase in creative problem-solving ability,” says Baird.

As well as revealing that breaks on their own do not encourage creative thinking, Baird’s work suggests an explanation for one of psychology’s great mysteries: why we zone out.

From an evolutionary perspective, mind-wandering seems totally counterproductive and has been viewed as dysfunctional because it compromises people’s performance in physical activities. However, Baird’s work shows that allowing the brain to enter this state when it is considering complex problems can have real benefits. Zoning out may have aided humans when survival depended on creative solutions.

”

- Why great ideas come when you aren’t trying : Nature News & Comment (via myserendipities)

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Mon, 21 May 2012 20:40:35 -0400

"How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours."

Sun, 20 May 2012 11:26:07 -0400

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”

- Wayne W. Dyer (via kari-shma)

The attitude of gratitude.

Sat, 19 May 2012 10:29:08 -0400

The attitude of gratitude.

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Sat, 19 May 2012 09:49:10 -0400

respectthebeach:

Sat, 19 May 2012 09:47:59 -0400

respectthebeach:

This is true of many things. visual-poetry: “exhibiting...

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:01:58 -0400

This is true of many things.

visual-poetry:

“exhibiting paintings” by john baldessari

arstechnica: Private: some search engines make money by not...

Thu, 17 May 2012 21:35:25 -0400

arstechnica:

Private: some search engines make money by not tracking users. Full story

mattsbrickgallery: somethingyouwish: <3 Blues Brothers.

Thu, 17 May 2012 20:38:02 -0400

mattsbrickgallery:

somethingyouwish:

<3

Blues Brothers.

User engagement matters. (ignore the link bait article headline...

Thu, 17 May 2012 20:31:06 -0400

User engagement matters. (ignore the link bait article headline though)

thenextweb:

While Facebook and Twitter may rule the roost when it comes to total users, a few surprising names pop up when you look at the equally important statistics relating to user engagement. In layman’s terms, user engagement refers to how effective a site is at keeping users interested once they sign on. A quick scan of comScore reports from March of this year shows that, while they may be the best at attracting new users, sometimes the major players in the social networking game don’t always do a great job of keeping those users interested. (via Facebook’s 900 Million? But What about Engagement?)

The return of artisanal employment

Thu, 17 May 2012 20:11:00 -0400

The return of artisanal employment:

It’s been one of the hottest economic questions for at least the last few decades: what sort of jobs will provide a comfortable, secure, middle-class lifestyle for the next generation of Americans?

…

The company man was content to be a cog in the machine, the modern worker must take pride in his talents.

…

Becoming good at anything takes hard work, humility, discipline and sacrifice.

This article is well worth the read.

via @Steve_Hayes