11–20 of 20 posts
Strange, I have always found IKEA instructions to be fairly straightforward and descriptive, in contrast to instructions from other furniture vendors.
"To Wash It All Away" was the last of his columns for the Usenix magazine. Here are all the others:
2014-03: To Wash It All Away: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1403_02-08_mickens.pdf
2014-01: This World Of Ours: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf
2013-11: The Night Watch: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf
2013-09: The Slow Winter: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1309_14-17_mickens.pdf
2013-07: Mobile Computing Research Is a Hornet’s Nest of Deception and Chicanery: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/01_mickens_02-04_1.pdf
2013-05: The Saddest Moment: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login-logout_1305_micken...
"The Night Watch" is a personal favorite as I identify as a systems programmer. The phrase "I HAVE NO TOOLS BECAUSE I'VE DESTROYED MY TOOLS WITH MY TOOLS" resonates with repeated personal experience.
James Mickens is a national treasure. "To Wash It All Away" was the last of his columns for the Usenix magazine. Here are all the others: 2014-03: To Wash It All Away : https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1403_02-08_mickens.pdf 2014-01: This World Of Ours : https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf 2013-11: The Night Watch : https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf 2013-09: The Slow…
Strange, I have always found IKEA instructions to be fairly straightforward and descriptive, in contrast to instructions from other furniture vendors.
Yeah, I've never understood the complaint about IKEA instructions. Their instructions and build steps are always miles better than other furniture companies.
James Mickens is a national treasure. "To Wash It All Away" was the last of his columns for the Usenix magazine. Here are all the others: 2014-03: To Wash It All Away : https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1403_02-08_mickens.pdf 2014-01: This World Of Ours : https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf 2013-11: The Night Watch : https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1311_05-08_mickens.pdf 2013-09: The Slow…
Don't miss his tenure announcement: https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/tenure-announcement
Occasionally my wife likes to hear me explain my work, beyond just the outcome that I'm trying to accomplish. Whenever this has involved web UI work, the conversation has broken down into her lecturing me not to be so negative. This is not because I'm feeling any negative emotion at the time, but because virtually nothing in the modern web stack can be described in terms of a positive intention coming to fruition. Ev…
Recently there have been some threads about filesystems, and how they don't provide exactly the guarantees that applications would find useful for providing their own guarantees on top. The reason is because filesystems had to deal with performance desires and many imperfect applications and hardware storage devices in the past. Trying for certain kinds/levels of "guarantees" just didn't make "market" sense, even in an open-source OS. And they do usually work remarkably well in practice ...
Occasionally my wife likes to hear me explain my work, beyond just the outcome that I'm trying to accomplish. Whenever this has involved web UI work, the conversation has broken down into her lecturing me not to be so negative. This is not because I'm feeling any negative emotion at the time, but because virtually nothing in the modern web stack can be described in terms of a positive intention coming to fruition. Ev…