Pieces of Mind

A long, worthwhile read: http://tratt.net/laurie/tech_articles/articles/fast_enough_vms_in_fast_enough_time

Including this astonishing and too-often accurate comment about TDD: “tests are a poor substitute for documentation, typically combining a wealth of low-level detail with a lack of any obvious high-level intent.” This probably has more to do with the constraints under which the test was written than it does with TDD in general. Given the inherent difficulty in writing a test that, in addition to verifying program correctness, is also suitably clear to provide documental value, it is not surprising that most developers favor correctness since the benefit of documentation is not usually realized as quickly.

http://www.stresscure.com/relation/succeed.html

Article: Why do Languages Die via Ian Bicking

Article: Over-parenting

Link: http://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer via HN

I’ve been thinking of writing this up for a while. Nick did it first. Yay!

Bootstrapping a Python Virtual Environment

Excellent article via @ianbicking. Many of the comments are excellent as well. Unfortunately his neat anecdote about learning how easy it was to learn French with a new method was diminished by the fact that he had five years of previous schooling on the subject.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc111010.htm

An article connecting money, debt, and violence.

“For much of human history, systems of virtual money were designed and regulated to ensure that nothing like capitalism could ever emerge to begin with – at least not as it appears in its present form, with most of the world’s population placed in a condition that would in many other periods of history be considered tantamount to slavery.”

Read the full article. Long, but worth it.