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November 2015 | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2015_11_01_archive.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. Archive for November 2015. Friday, November 20, 2015. Over the summer, I started the podcast Consult. On the sound quality front, I did struggle at first, even though I've invested in good software and have a great microphone. Manton Reece. My guest on episode 3. Gave me a great tip in the form of recommending The Levelator. This abandoned (but still functioning through a hack. Hosted for free by Tumblr). Style) micro...
observationalhazard.com
August 2015 | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2015_08_01_archive.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. Archive for August 2015. Why I Write in Pure Swift. Wednesday, August 5, 2015. I have had the pleasure of working on several Swift data structure and algorithm libraries over the past year, including SwiftGraph. Why write in Pure Swift? Swift has a small standard library. Finally, there's something that just seems hobbled when you rely on too many Objective-C classes in your Swift code. It's hard to make value typ...
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October 2014 | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2014_10_01_archive.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. Archive for October 2014. Sunday, October 19, 2014. Why is sync hard? There are solutions to this problem (of course), and they're not necessarily complicated - but they are intricate when one considers corner cases. Is it worth it? I don't believe so for the majority of apps, especially when they're in the get traction. Phase It's not worth the potential bugs and it's not worth the development time. What's the al...
observationalhazard.com
September 2014 | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2014_09_01_archive.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. Archive for September 2014. Put a Date on Your Blog Post. Saturday, September 13, 2014. There's nothing more irritating than reading a blog post, looking for a date, and being utterly unable to find a trace of one. There's a good reason for associating a time-stamp with a piece of writing, and that's context. Can you imagine reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Now consider a blog post about a technical subject,...
observationalhazard.com
April 2015 | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2015_04_01_archive.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. Archive for April 2015. Swift Standard Library Signaling. Tuesday, April 21, 2015. The Swift standard library is small at best. Apple's documentation. Provides a starting point for understanding it. However, it does not cover the standard library in its entirety. For the curious, a more comprehensive look can be had over at SwiftDoc.org. So, why in 2014 did Apple decide on such a limited standard library for Swift?
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American Customer Service Downfall | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2015/12/american-customer-service-downfall.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. American Customer Service Downfall. Friday, December 4, 2015. I've had an incredibly bad customer service experience amongst six different organizations. The shipment email (as you can see in this screenshot). What's nefarious is not the mistake, but that TigerDirect changed the bundle (without changing the bundle's item number) and then shipped me the new bundle, even though my order email proves I bought the origina...
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The Real Estate Market does not Reflect Global Warming | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2015/12/the-real-estate-market-does-not-reflect.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. The Real Estate Market does not Reflect Global Warming. Wednesday, December 23, 2015. Whether or not you believe the phenomenon of global warming* is man-made, there's no doubt the Earth has been getting warmer over the past century. Naturally, a warmer Earth leads to melting ice which as a consequence creates higher sea levels. The only point of contention is how fast sea levels will rise. There are many. Market does...
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Open Source Plagiarism | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2015/12/open-source-plagiarism.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. Tuesday, December 1, 2015. Where is that line in open source software? Students who have grown up in this permissive, anti-intellectual property rights era not only don't care about the rights themselves, they don't care about that line either. Plagiarism is a rampant plague in the school system. I am very disappointed to see this disease of dishonesty infecting the open source world as well. That makes no sense - why...
observationalhazard.com
August 2014 | Observational Hazard
http://www.observationalhazard.com/2014_08_01_archive.html
Observations and thoughts on culture, society, and software development by David Kopec. Archive for August 2014. Build Neighborhoods with Cafeterias. Friday, August 29, 2014. Do you know what's really inefficient? Every house/apartment having its own kitchen. It creates such duplicative effort, such overuse of energy (one big kitchen uses less energy than thirty small kitchens), and is such a missed opportunity for community building that it's positively bonkers. The lack of refrigerators in homes (by de...
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