I bought my current home desktop computer, a Mac Mini, in 2012. I bought it on Father’s Day, and I sprung extra for the newly released version. It has reliably served my needs. I write, blog, pay my taxes, record podcasts and music, and play copious amounts of Crusader Kings 2 on this machine. It… Read More Escaping from Planned Obsolescence
All of Cal Newport’s books could be titled, “How to Be an Effective Person.” Or, maybe, “How to Be an Effective Person In This Technological Epoch.” Digital Minimalism is, like Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, about why you should quit or drastically limit the digital distractions that have proliferated in […]… Read More Digital Minimalism — Cal Newport — The Story’s Story
Been a while since I came across a Megan McArdle piece I thought worth passing on, but this one is it. This past week the axe fell in the newsroom, most notably at BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post, but also… newspaper chain Gannett swung the ax through several of its publications this week, including the Indianapolis Star,… Read More Journalism is Dying Because It’s Not Free
This being the anniversary of Fort Sumter, I thought it useful to blog a bit about a topic near to the heart of The Sword. The nature of battles – the typical maneuvers used and paths to victory – changed very little from the time of Alexander to the time of Napoleon. Some have gone so… Read More Why Civil War Battles Were Fought That Way
I am generally distrustful of bipartisan legislation, especially when the CEO of RIAA is this enthusiastic, but this doesn’t look too bad on its face: A key provision of the bill is for Congress to establish the equivalent of a SoundExchange for songwriters to track credits and distribute royalties when digital services use their work.… Read More Music Modernization Bill Sounds Good.
An excerpted chapter from Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise is worth reading in its entirety. It deals with how Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997: Deep Blue had won. Only, it had done so less with a bang than an anticlimactic whimper. Was Kasparov simply exhausted, exacerbating his problems by playing an opening… Read More Why Chess Computers do Not Signal Skynet
Today, as one of the perks of my job, I got an iPad. I’m still playing around with it, but one of the first apps downloaded was WordPress. So far it seems designed for your more utterly dashed-off tripe, so this may not be the best thing to ever happen to andrewjpatrick.com. However, I can… Read More Playing with My New Toy
Content Blues 