JavaScript: Modular Code Through Namespaces
20 May 2011
My preferred syntax for putting JavaScript code in namespaces, which makes it easy to stay organized while avoiding collisions.
Supermajority Requirements in American Legislatures
03 Nov 2010
There's no reason we have to live with the requirements of 2/3 supermajorities, especially when they're so hard to achieve. There are other ways to build broader consensus without making things too difficult.
An Open Problem: The Gender-Neutral Pronoun
10 Sep 2010
It's fine to say "them" instead of "he or she" when you want to refer to a single person in a gender-neutral way, but here's an additional suggestion if you're a purist and want to tell them apart in writing. The ultimate example of a first world problem.
The King and His Four Daughters
07 Sep 2010
A great story I heard about thinking hard, doing things differently, and acting on insight.
JavaScript: Checking for Undeclared and Undefined Variables
14 Jul 2010
The only way to reliably check for a missing variable in JavaScript. Everyone else is lying.
The Status Quo
21 May 2010
Sometimes, it's all rotten and should be done away with. More often than not, things are the way they are for a reason.
Slowing Down as an Immersive Experience
17 Apr 2010
Great ideas take time to soak into you and enrich your experience.
Ruby: Rescue Timeout Errors
04 Mar 2010
Don't assume that begin-rescue-end blocks will catch everything by default.
Ruby: Convert ISO 8601 Timestamps From UTC to Your Timezone
02 Mar 2010
Take a string in the format "2010-03-02T00:00:00Z," which represents a specific point in time in the UTC timezone, then parse it to its equivalent for your timezone.
The Trouble With Budget Surpluses
23 Dec 2008
It would be more effective for governments to quote financial figures in per-person terms.
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
27 Mar 2007
Every field and subfield of endeavor has its tedious parts.