Read "Why Software Patents are Evil" by Simon Phipps in InfoWorld. It's an excellent summary of the problems caused by patents applied to software. There's a great TED Talk by Johanna Blakley on "Lessons Learned from Fashion's Free Culture" which reinforces the essential point. Software patents don't help anyone. The …

when it comes to the exceptional cases, all bets are off. So keep your mind open to weird, young [ideas] that you meet …

Saw this on Twitter from @hunterwalk:

Startups piss people off because their existence is a statement that incumbents aren't doing their job well enough

Also true of IT internal innovation. Pitch a novel, innovative idea to management, and most organizations will find ways to avoid it. Suggesting a bold new …

As part of coming to grips with CouchDB (and a particularly odious graph-theory problem) I've been looking around for design guidelines, hints and tips.

This MongoDB Schema Design document is quite helpful. The Link vs. Embed section clarifies the essential tradeoff here. In SQL world, link is the only tool …

As the #3 ranked contributor on http://programmers.stackexchange.com, I've provided my share of advice. 554 Answers to be factual about it. The moderators, however, have decided that I'm no longer welcome. It was simply shocking to be firmly (but politely) shown the door.

The issue was Python. Specifically …

I've started to work with couchdb.

I've blogged before about the problems of SQL schema in Escaping the Relational Schema Trap.

A SQL schema -- for many applications -- is too confining. It creates cost with relatively little value. Once upon a time (when disks where expensive and computers were slow) it …

This weekend: the HRVA Civic Hackfest. http://guestlistapp.com/events/86160

Alt Daily coverage.

Some more references.

What's it all about? Code For America.

Exploit the information we have to make civic improvements. Ask any journalist who wrestles with government data. There's transparency (i.e., lip service) and there's transparency …

Check this out: http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting.

It's a side-by-side comparison of PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby. I'm not sure why, but it seems sort of cool.

Things like "offside rule" to describe indentation in Python are confusing at first. The "regions which define local scope" section on Python makes precious …

I got a long list of requirements from a firm that's looking to build a related family of web sites. They were down to a Django vs. Ruby-on-Rails decision.

As you can see, they've done their homework in thinking through their needs.

I grouped their "high-level requirements" into several categories …

Looks like fun: Mid-Atlantic Developer Expo. June 27-29 2012 in Hampton, VA. Got a nice reminder through the 757 Labs mailing list. Community is a good thing.