Enabling the Tip Calculator in Your Brain

I can’t imagine anyone reading this blog needs to read this, but I can’t help myself. When I was just a wee lad, probably the most valuable thing I...

Windows Phone 7: Beating Expectations

Years ago, when I was on my T-Mobile Dash, I would purchase a new phone every quarter or so, just to see if something better had come along. Always,...

If you want something from eBay, don’t bid on it!

I’m fond of quoting my father to my sons. I have a terrible memory for these kinds of things in general, but what he says sticks with me:...

Fluent-Style Programming in JavaScript

I’ve been playing around with JavaScript a great deal lately and trying to find my way. I last programmed JS seriously about 10 years ago and it’s...

Using LINQPad to Run My Life: Budgeting

I use LINQPad all the time for a bunch of stuff, but most recently and most relevant, I’ve been using it for a personal chore that isn’t...

Management vs. Motivation

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to gather wood, divide the work, and give them orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast...

LINQ Has Changed Me

In the old days, the post-colonial, pre-LINQ days of yore, I’d have written a one-way MD5 encryption like so: This implementation is fine and has...

A Function That Forces

At Microsoft, there’s this passive-aggressive cultural thing called a “forcing function,” which, to put it crudely, is an engineering way for us to...