It’s morning here in Patna. I slept for about five hours last night, and I’m finally starting to feel adjusted. I’m also starving, always a good sign, and I’m craving something new and delicious. Now I’m shifting around my room, trying desperately to find a consistent WiFi connection so that I can publish my entries [...]
We arrived safely in Patna a little after 9pm, after enjoying a very tasty airplane meal on a flight that was just 90 minutes long. Every airline should serve Indian food. They also handed out these chewy, tangy tamarind candies. I’m not usually one for sweets, but I tried one at Cheryl’s insistence. They were [...]
I spent the afternoon working in IIE’s Delhi office, located in Jor Bagh, a charming residential district that contrasted sharply with the Delhi I had seen the night before. On the ride over, Sanjay explained India‘s political situation regarding health care, education, and other infrastructural challenges. (MWF) India is a study in contrasts. There [...]
I met with Cheryl Francisconi, the leader of the LDM project, first thing this morning to go over the game plan. Cheryl is wonderful, a smiling ball of positive energy, and it felt great to see her in person and to give her a hug after many months of remote communication. (MW9) Shortly afterwards, [...]
My plane arrived in Delhi last night at about 9pm, local time. Other than lucking into some additional leg room, the flight was uneventful. I had carefully planned my 20 hours of travel so that by the time I arrived, I would be somewhat acclimated to the timezone. That meant eating and sleeping at designated [...]
Blog silence here tends to mean that I’m busy, busy, busy. Long trips help me break that silence; there’s nothing better than a long plane ride to write blog posts. Well, I recently completed a very long plane ride to kick off the dooziest trip of my life. I’m sitting in a hotel in Delhi, [...]
Technology is insidious. It has a way of dominating a problem the way nothing else can. If you understand technology, it’s hard not to see everything in that light. If you don’t understand technology, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by what you don’t know. (MUK) I’ve known these things for a long time, [...]
Almost 20 years ago, in my old stomping grounds at Dr. Dobb’s Journal, Mitch Kapor published an article on software design. He wrote: (MU0) The lack of usability of software and poor design of programs is the secret shame of the industry. Given a choice, no one would want it to be this way. [...]
Speaking of tweets and Twitter, I finally succumbed and activated my Twitter account a few weeks ago. Come follow me! I had many reasons for doing so, but the kicker was probably learning that Twitter is in fact for old people. Seriously, my main reason was that I’ve been blog-free for many months, and I [...]
Howard Rheingold‘s tweet last week about his mother reminded me of a story Charlie Dunton told me last fall. There was a guy who used to go around elementary school classrooms to talk about art. After introducing himself, he would ask all of the artists in the room to raise their hands. What he found [...]
