Here’s the songlist for VisiCalc, The Musical!:
A Forlorn Apple ][, I Oh Rows, Oh Columns, Oh Cells, Oh My! How Shall I Calculate My Love For Thee? 123, 123, Oh Lord Jesus, Lotus 123! Requiem For a Monochromatic Grid of Numbers Somewhere, Up in Heaven, There’s An Angel Who Can Add Really Fast
I think it’s going to be huge. For [...]
From Harper’s Weekly, a reminder of what an incredible sea change our new president represents:
Upon taking office, Obama ordered all secret U.S. prisons closed immediately, and the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed within a year; he stopped the torture of American prisoners; granted access to all U.S. detainees to the International Red [...]
Ross Douthat, on inflexible atheists:
But it is one thing to disbelieve in God; it is quite another to never feel a twinge of doubt about one’s own disbelief. And just as the Christian who has never entertained doubts about his faith probably hasn’t thought hard enough about the matter, the atheist who perceives [...]
I’ve been reading Andrew Sullivan for a while, and have always found him alternately infuriating and inspiring — but always sincere, and always eloquent. This post may be the best thing he’s ever written:
I predict that as fear of administrative reprisal ebbs, more and more whistle-blowers will come forward with evidence of what [...]
Bob Frankston’s fascinating history of the development of VisiCalc describes the simple, brilliant technique they used to vet their design:
In addition to prototyping, Dan put together a reference card for users. If we couldn’t figure out how to explain a feature on the reference card we would change the program. The original method [...]
Via Gruber, this nugget of wisdom from Joe Nocera:
I can even understand why [Lord Jobs] doesn’t want to disclose details about his medical problems to the world — it’s very distasteful, and Mr. Jobs also believes strongly that it’s nobody’s business except his and his family’s. But he’s wrong. There [...]
The atrocities going on Palestine right have been, if nothing else, an opportunity for pretty much every American politician to trot out their support-Israel-no-matter what bona fides. From pro-Israel rallies to outrageously false analogies1 to congressional resolutions, it’s been a steady drumbeat of one-sided, morally bankrupt demagoguery since the slaughter began.
I saw the best distillation [...]
Keyan made some good points about my post on unlikeable characters from a couple of weeks ago, so I wanted to revisit the issue, and clarify some things.
First: I don’t buy Baush’s assertion that you’re a “bad reader” if you can’t stand unlikeable characters. I don’t buy the notion that there is such a thing [...]
Kater just posted a fantastic mini-treatise on how to go about being a writer and making a living at the same time. It’s a zero-bullshit warts-and-all treatment of the subject, but it communicates beautifully how important — and how rewarding — it is to find a way to do the things you love:
Sometimes [...]
The beagle, staring urgently at the giant, off-camera bone my mom got him for Christmas.
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