I spent much of the day mowing grass. Across the lane from where I worked, in a field of clover, wild flowers, and tree saplings, my progress was watched. First, it was a deer, which stood between two rows of trees, and watched me go back and forth for at…
The bridge _gathers _the earth as landscape around the stream -- Heidegger The bridge on our road is gone. It was the last of a historic type of bridge built in this area--single lane, made of concrete with two great arcs. I read in the paper that it was constructed…
One of the first thing many students starting to work on Mozilla learn is that they don't know enough about the build tool-chain. For example: I'm working on fixing a Mozilla bug on OS X bug right now, and here's what happens when I make a change to the file…
Matt Jadud, a CS prof at Allegheny College, has a great post up about the hows and whys of getting students to blog. Luke is going to be doing the same thing with his students this fall. I preach a similar sermon quite often, and think it's great to see…
I've thought previously about how much the web needs a way for users to connect with developers in order to improve things. This past week while at POSSE, Greg was talking about how to create a patch culture, and it brought this to mind again. Since writing that post over…
One surreal moment from today was having Greg show us his prized walking desk. What's the saying about golf being a good way to ruin a walk? How about having your desk and laptop strapped to you while you do? Above is Christian, one of the profs at POSSE, showing…
I'm just about to head to the airport after spending an enjoyable week in Raleigh, North Carolina at the Red Hat headquarters. Before I leave the week behind, I wanted to reflect a bit on what happened here. Earlier this winter, Greg DeKoenigsberg got in touch with Chris to see…
One of the questions we've been asked a number of times in the past month is when we are going to stop home schooling for the summer. The question is a perfectly logical one in the context of a learning that necessarily happens outside the home and in a school.…
Today, despite leaving with so much extra time it was ridiculous, I still had trouble getting to my plane on time. I'm now in Raleigh, NC, and getting ready for the start of POSSE 2009, which Chris and I will be leading. The reason I was late was airport craziness.…
This week we have been walking the back field in search of a natural wonder: wild raspberries. The plants have almost totally overtaken huge sections of the old fence line. With the girls in long sleeves and pants, we have been able to forage and find some of the most…