Hello world. The last year was a real whirlwind. I’m overdue to write an annual work update (here’s 2017) and this isn’t it. I just wanted to capture the world I’m waking up into today. We started a neon studio last year and are scrambling to make it fully-functional and useful to artists in the…
Read moreI recently asked a couple of experienced software engineers (on different occasions) this question: Tell me about a bit of useful feedback that’s stuck with you. In each case, the answer was immediate and deeply personal. Each engineer described direct critical feedback they had received from a coworker years ago, about their communication style. When…
Read moreEvery once in a while a programmer runs into a bug worth sharing. Our team had one of those today. Students were unable to use Design Mode in App Lab, but the issue only happened on Chrome, and only if the user had installed a browser extension that injects an external stylesheet into the page….
Read moreI was listening to TED Radio Hour’s “Nudge” episode today. The second segment features Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford and author of Mindset (2006). One exchange jumped out at me. Carol: We condition [kids] to show that they have talents and abilities all the time, and we think this is the road to…
Read moreTwenty golfers wish to play in foursomes for 5 days. Is it possible for each golfer to play no more than once with any other golfer? Find out for yourself. This is known in mathematics as the Social Golfer Problem. Over Thanksgiving 2017, my dad posed a very similar problem: 28 students in discussion groups…
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