ktheory.com

I think people should have ’strong opinions weakly held’. I also think my debate/critical reasoning skill are getting weaker as I get older. So it seems like good practice to argue strongly for a weakly held opinion.
There is a stigma against people who merge late on roadways. Popular behavior dictates that one should vacate the […]

I’m leaving arXiv.org and Ithaca, NY to work for Mint Digital in New York City. I’ll be a Ruby on Rails developer. This is how excited I am:

Tired: LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl)
Wired: ROFL (Ruby on Rails On FastCGI on Lighttpd); rhymes with whaffle. Now we need to invent more platforms for the “Roflcopter” stack.

Puns of the word ‘seitan‘

Woah, Vox is a boatload of fun. Not that ktheory.com is going away. But Vox has the new car social web app smell. The smell is the chemicals they use to treat the dashboard AJAX.)

I can’t decide what I like most about flip-flops: their comfort, their convenience, or their sound.

Following Mark Pilgrim’s meme…
My computer usage is somewhat unusual. I have a Linux workstation for my job, an Apple Powerbook for remote productivity (’remote’ usually being my couch, a coffeeshop, or a meeting room), and a Windows desktop for videogames. To keep my digital stuff synchronized across my three different computers (and OSes), I’m prejudiced […]

When sending documents to people, consider the utility of the filename in the recipient’s context. We’re hiring student employees for the summer, and if I had a nickel for every email attachment called “resume.pdf”, I’d have at least $0.60.
Naming a file “resume.pdf” makes plenty of sense for a student, who likely only has one such […]

An older librarian in my office reads the New York Times on her computer and knows I like weblogs. Whenever there’s an article about weblogs, she prints out a hard copy and puts it on my desk.
We make small talk about the article for a minute or two, and I act flattered that she bothered […]

I wonder if one can become addicted to eye drops, like one can become addicted to lip balm.

Putzing around with feeds, I discovered how to conglomerate the feeds from my weblog, del.icio.us, digg, and flickr into just one feed.
Here it is (in ATOM format), the Aaron Suggs uber feed.

(If you’re not down with syndication, you can view the feed rendered by Google Reader

Q: What did the cow say as he was led into the abattoir?
A: Moo.

There are so many things that seem wrong with Bush nominating Miers. I don’t think Bush gets out enough.

Brilliant technologist Nicholas Negroponte unveiled the designs for a sub-$100 laptop aimed at bridging the ‘digital divide’ between developed and developing countries. However, I don’t share Negroponte’s passion for this idea. People in developing countries have more dire worries than access to the information these laptops could provide. They lack food, health care, and clean […]

Outside the Cornell Store:
Guy: “I think Friday we should just stay in and watch a movie.”
Girl: “Do you mean ‘watch a movie’, or actually watch a movie?”

For the next two months, I’ll be guestblogging (a gratuitous neoligism) over at Kathie’s Politech. Hopefully with more regularity than here.

Okay, so this isn’t so much a blog post as a gin and tonic-fueled stream of consciousness. Blame it on Kathie.
First, I’d like to say, “What is up with people doing crossword puzzles in class?” And not so much, “What is up with that?” as, “I did crossword puzzles in class last year you lame-ass […]

Moacir drops semiotics on the Anheuser-Busch “Applause” ad that ran during the Super Bowl (available from their web site). One assumes that the troops are returning from Iraq, though the ad leaves open the possibility that they’re leaving. The ambiguity gives the ad a more messy and nuanced message that Moacir describes well.

Congratulations to Tim, whose “Mathworld” page for the Dennis Miller Ratio is now the first Google result the phrase.

I like how on TV people can have quiet, meaningful dialogue in a loud environment like a bar or rock concert. If I could employ the same ambient noise reduction technology used in the television universe, the following dialogue would have never taken place (last night, at Uncle Tony’s):
Girl: What do you study?
Me: Mathematics.
Girl: No, […]