xkcd's story for today is right on. I’m a software developer and I concur. We throw out our base technology every few years and start over, leaving the stuff that’s already deployed hard to evolve or fix, and the latest stuff full of bugs, and long before it’s mature and reliable we do it all over again. #

I commented in a thread on Twitter on the controversy re the recent hire by the NYT editorial board and sweeping comments she made previously about white men. I am responding to a piece by Ezra Klein in Vox. I waited a few days for the furor to die down, and to try to say thoughtfuly and carefully how I as a man feel about such statements. Klein had said, for the first time I can recall for a reporter, how he feels about these things. I'll let the comments speak for themselves now. #

How can so many elections come down to a fraction of a percent of the vote? Doesn't probability say that this outcome is extremely unlikely? Why does it happen so often?#

The other day I spilled a bottle of water on my keyboard, and have been limping along waiting for a new keyboard to arrive. I am now using it. This time I decided not to opt for the expensive Apple keyboard, instead I got a Macally keyboard which cost a fraction of what the Apple one did. So far it seems quite nice. My fingers need to set up in a different place, and the keyboard doesn't have lifters at the top to put it at an angle, but I'm already getting used to it. Unfortunately the modifier keys control panel isn't working, not sure why. Might have to reboot the system? I usually don't like doing that. And then as if by magic it started working! I like to map Control to Command and vice versa. My brain was trained by many years of using Windows, a long time ago. #