Non Sequiturs is the personal blog of Michael Argentini.
I'm a software developer and Managing Partner for Fynydd and Blue Sequoyah Technologies, the project lead for Coursabi, and Āthepedia founder. I also have several nerdy open source projects on Github.
I'd describe myself as an Oxford comma advocate, autodidact, aspiring polymath, and boffin, with a mechanical keyboard addiction. You can also find me on Mastodon.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
All of life’s answers lie in J. R. R. Tolkien books.
So if IVF embryos are legally considered children can we claim them as dependents on our taxes? Can we do this every year since they never physically age? Do they legally age each year giving them the right to vote in 18 years? If they were implanted after 20 years would they qualify for social security at age 35? I have questions.
Overzealous app design patterns for mouse hover modals, tips, and cards frequently cause user frustration by obscuring the items with which a user wants to interact. I see this all the time in everything from websites to software development IDEs. The solution? Exercise restraint and add options to disable these hover actions.
Legislation from fear is the death spiral of freedom.
#politics #philosophy #opinion
apnews.com
Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker’s 2023 commencement speech at Northwestern hits the mark.
The best way to spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel. When we see someone who doesn’t look like us, or sound like us, or act like us, or love like us, or live like us — the first thought that crosses almost everyone’s brain is rooted in either fear or judgment or both. That’s evolution. We survived as a species by being suspicious of things we aren’t familiar with.
In order to be kind, we have to shut down that animal instinct and force our brain to travel a different pathway. Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being. They require the mental capacity to step past our most primal urges. I’m here to tell you that when someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct. They never forged new mental pathways to overcome their own instinctual fears. And so, their thinking and problem-solving will lack the imagination and creativity that the kindest people have in spades.
Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true: the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.
With regard to popular culture, the word woke is the new gourmet. Semantic bleaching renders words meaningless.
"Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." — Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles, 1765
The current political climate in the United States is certainly stress testing this axiom.
Another amazing life observation by The Oatmeal. Please get this in front of everyone you know.
theoatmeal.com
When asked, most people think that software development is about coding; the physical act of programming apps and platforms for servers, computers, and mobile devices. This is not the case.
Software development is the process of solving problems through software. It's a creative process that is centered on discovery and adaptation which uses tactics like programming (coding) to accomplish its ends. Likewise, software development is not the act of reusing existing software for a new purpose. That's just copying bits.
So it is important for those involved in the software development process to understand and acknowledge the following key aspects.
Understanding the problem domain is the key to a successful software development process. And we know the least about a problem domain at the outset. So it doesn't make sense to plan everything out at the beginning. Software development is an exercise in learning. We learn more and more about the problem to be solved as we move through the process. And as the problem domain comes into focus we should be refining or redefining what we should be building as we learn.
Mistakes help us solve problems and are one way in which we learn. Embrace them. Plan for them.
Perfect plans are usually perfectly wrong. It is impossible to perfectly know the steps, mistakes, discoveries, interruptions, and goals for a project, nor the time impact of each, all in advance.
Great software doesn't just manifest in one go. It springs forth in a deficient state and evolves over time. This makes guessing about its future state with any accuracy a fools errand. It also means that creating precise specifications for those guesses can be a waste of time.
Accuracy and precision are not the same. Something can be very precise but horribly wrong. This has been shown by various studies, including those in the Microsoft Press book Rapid Development by Steve McConnell. According to the book it doesn't matter how diligent or thorough an estimate may be. The data shows that when compared to a more broad, high-level, or piecemeal approach based on past experience, the error bounds are largely the same.
We must understand the level of precision that makes sense. For example, it doesn't make sense to plan an entire project with the same precision as planning next week's work. Likewise, planning specific deliverables for dates far out into the future is also problematic. Small time horizons increase the accuracy of our guesses.
By deploying changes frequently, we allow the entire team to steer the direction of the project early and often. This agile approach will ensure that the final product performs as it should for its users.
Argentini’s law states that the number of people annoyed by a car’s size, appearance, and/or sound is inversely proportional to the number of hugs the driver received as a child.
A great user experience is the happy byproduct of technologies that delight with deference for user and business goals.
Ironically, though children have better hearing than adults, they don't understand nearly as much of what they hear.
My 7yo says inanimate objects inherit the gender of their owners. By extension, they can get married. Even children understand equal rights.
Remember that one cannot learn without making mistakes. Make sure your children are aware of this fact.
Be wary of taking a disagreement personally. A counter-argument that's salient and presented with respect is a welcome part of discourse.
Homosexuality isn’t a moral issue among consenting adults. Don’t confuse being incompatible with reproduction with being amoral or immoral.
Non Sequiturs is the personal blog of Michael Argentini.
I'm a software developer and Managing Partner for Fynydd and Blue Sequoyah Technologies, the project lead for Coursabi, and Āthepedia founder. I also have several nerdy open source projects on Github.
I'd describe myself as an Oxford comma advocate, autodidact, aspiring polymath, and boffin, with a mechanical keyboard addiction. You can also find me on Mastodon.
