Elsa Johnson recently wrote a piece about the fact that nearly 40 per cent of Stanford undergrads claim they have a disability in order to game the system to get extra time on tests, excused absences, and the best housing on campus. The article went viral. But what was more interesting is that response was overwhelmingly POSITIVE from her fellow students for calling it out.
Just enter your address, and this website will help you find your Oregon state and local representatives and senator.
https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/FindYourLegislator/districts-initial.html
Where’s that distinctive backbeat come from in the song Jump Around by House of Pain? Samples of Motown of course…
PBS has a good little 2 part documentary on Edgar Allen Poe called “In Search of Edgar Allen Poe” that you can watch for free.
I’ve always been a Poe fan since I found his stories in my elementary school years. The documentary did a decent overview of his life – which was quite a story of struggles and loss in itself.
One of the things I learned was the breadth and accomplishment on his influence in many genres. He is cited as the inventor of not only the horror story, but of the detective story, and science fiction. He also wrote impressive essays on poetry, cryptography, cosmology and even the nature of the music of bells.
At the end of the documentary, there is a list of works that inspired other authors (either directly stated by the author or having obvious influence). I thought it was worth putting them here to record just how influential his work became.
While these changes were measurable, they were unlikely to stand out in blind listening.
In recent testing, audiophiles were unable to tell the difference between audio signals going through a copper cable, a green banana, or even wet mud.
Runescape was one of the first really big, popular online games. Soon, people wrote bot programs to do repetitive tasks for you. Then the game designers started fighting back from the bots.
What came next was the rise of the back and forth arms race with attack and counter-attack that created a lot of early MMORPG memes and cultural touchpoints. Today the arms race has advanced to ill-advised kernel based anti-cheat system and even AI based cheat detection.
Learning how and why these systems developed is an important part of any software engineers toolbag.
Each year on January 16, the town celebrates the traditional Luminarias festival. Purportedly held for five centuries, the origins of the festival trace back to a ritual purification to preserve the health of the horses in the village. Bonfires are lit in the central streets, and horses jump through the flames, with the smoke intended to protect the animals from disease.
The 70’s was famous for folk songs, but did you know this trend was also occurring overseas as well? Pentangle did a number of folk songs – but the songs they song weren’t from 20 or 30 years earlier like in the US. They were from 300 years earlier in 1775 like this song – Willy O Winsbury.
They also recorded this fantastic version of Hunting Song:
Open Sauce Technology and Creator Festival happens most years. Here’s a summary of cool keyboards found in at 2025. The next one will be July 17-19, 2026 in San Francisco.