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Showing posts from February, 2019

Google Fi for the iPhone

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When Google Fi first rolled out, what was notable was its pricing scheme.  Paying only for bandwidth you use, the plan was well suited for light to moderate data consumers.  Unfortunately, Google Fi was exclusive to select Android phones, and as an iPhone user, I could only look on with envy... until recently.  Sometime around November or December 2018, Google Fi became available for iPhones, and I was ready to switch from my current carrier, VirginMobile. When I signed on with VirginMobile, it started out as a great deal: "unlimited data" for $1 per month for the first 6 months, and then $50 per month thereafter.  The average monthly price over the course of a year came out to $25.50, but the longer I used VirginMobile, the higher the average price would be, and what began as a great deal would eventually become a bad deal, especially for someone who doesn't use much data. Moving to Google Fi was mostly a matter of ordering the sim card, having an unlocked phone, a

The 2012 Acura TSX Wagon

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It's not unusual for computer people to also be car guys and gals.  Cars are another form of hardware to explore, test, optimize, and modify.  My TSX Wagon review below first appeared on Edmunds' enthusiast car website under "InsideLine: Readers' Rides."  Edmunds have long since changed their format and the article is no longer there.  I am republishing it here with a few updates. First Impressions My wife tells me the first thing women notice about men are their shoes. Shoe size not withstanding, she explains that the kind of shoes, and the condition they're in, say a lot about who a man is, and hint at what he hopes to be. The shoes on our base trim 2012 Acura TSX Sport Wagon are 17 inch Michelin Pilot HX MXM4. In the Michelin lineup, these tires slot between the MXV4, which lean toward comfort, and the Pilot Sport A/S, which are geared for performance. Does this wagon live up to its luxury sport aspirations? On the outside, the wagon's ov

Alternatives to the Whiteboard

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Quincy Larson, a teacher at freeCodeCamp, wrote an excellent post on Medium, Why is hiring broken? It starts at the whiteboard .  I nspired, I wrote my own essay about the whiteboard problem and shared it on  Medium  back in May 2016.  I've reproduced it here partly for posterity, and partly because hiring software developers is still a broken process and worthy of discussion.  See my December 2018 post  The Best Selling Tech Book on Amazon Is ...  for more thoughts about this. A long time ago, when I applied for my second software development job after college, I was thrust in front of whiteboard and asked to code a rudimentary strcpy() function. I felt uncomfortable, with one hand grasping a marker, and the other hand — fingers really — improvising as an eraser. I wasn’t doing very well, as one interviewer looked unimpressed. The other, however, apparently saw something more in me, and put me in front of his PC and fired up the editor. I took to it like a fish took