We live in a constantly changing world. Updates happen all the time. It's counter-intuitive to say that we need to somehow avoid mutability. But we absolutely do in order to manage scaling and to be able to reason effectively about distributed information systems. Here are some motivational examples: Who saw what A system giving diagnostic tests to students maintains a database of students and…
Plato thought that there were things that we could learn about the world. He thought that if we had enough time and patience and the right collaborators, everything would eventually become clear. His faith was less ontological and more social than the caricature that we call "Platonism" today. He used myths and metaphors as a backdrop to the main event of his philosophy, which is dialectic, an…
"I didn't have time to write any unit tests." "I didn't have time to workout." "I didn't have time to visit my parents." "I didn't have time to read any books." When I find myself starting to say things like these, or when I hear them from others, I have started substituting "take the time" for "have the time." So, for example, "No, you mean, 'I didn't take the time to workout.'" That one change…
Earlier this year, I needed to find the best way to divide a set of $n$ things into $k$ subsets so that when an optimization is run in batches with the universe divided that way, the best overall result is achieved. Mathematically, the problem is to optimize an objective function defined over partitions of a set. A common instance of this problem is cluster analysis, where the objective function…
At the beginning of the pandemic, I wrote the post, " Put on your own mask first. " That was good advice then and it is good advice now. But the foundational challenges that we are facing today require a little more than just maintaining a confident and positive attitude. Acknowledge uncertainty and factor it into your plans, but have a plan and stick to it People need to know that their leaders…
The following is the transcript of a commencement address that I gave at the Nora School in 2015. First, let me thank you for allowing me to share this wonderful day with you. Let me add to the thanks that are rightfully exchanged today. Thanks to the parents, whose great works are being celebrated today. Thanks to the teachers, whose combination of pride and sadness of the ladder being kicked…
Wearing three different hats over the years, I have received three different versions of the same question, to which I always respond, "You are asking the wrong question." What do I need to do to get an A in your class? What do I need to do to get promoted? What do I need to do to get commit? This post is about question number 3., but the basic concept in all three is the same: you need to change…
When I was first starting to read research papers in mathematics, I got some great advice from one of my professors. He said, "Always have paper and pencil with you when you read a paper. Read a little bit and then try to write the next part yourself. Look at what is written in the paper as a sequence of hints. That's all you are going to get. You need to fill in the details yourself and if you…
I love mathematics because it never says one thing and does something else. If it ever seems to do that, it is always because I am missing some idea. I never stay mad at mathematics. I love mathematics because it is always there, waiting for me. It will always be there even if I don't jump on it right now . It worn't run away or turn into some not fun thing. When I go back over mathematics that I…
The other day, someone asked me if I had ever experienced a major security breach. They were shocked when I responded that I had not. That is because I have been a CTO for the past 18 years, including stints at some bleeding edge SaaS companies that were constantly under attack. I have managed many security incidents, but none that resulted in a major breach. While of course it is possible and…
I recently listened to Sen. Ben Sasse read his own challenging book, Them . In a discussion of the origins of American democracy, he mentions the following quote from James Madison: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men…
Some simple risk management frameworks recommend stack ranking risks based on expected loss should they materialize. The simple formula $L(r) = P(r) E(C(r))$ is sometimes used, where $P(r)$ is the probability that a risk event of type $r$ materializes and $E(C(r))$ is an estimate of the cost associated with such an event. So for example, if the cost of a data breach at a company is estimated to be…
SaaS companies live or die by the quality of their product managers. Great ones really power the future of their companies. Not-so-great ones waste precious time and investment resources. It’s very hard to tell from a resume, however, who is going to be a great PM. Great product managers can work for not-so-great companies and vice versa. And what people with this job title actually do varies…
Difficult times are the ultimate test of leadership. These are the times when lifelong bonds can be established or connections can be lost. Deep human connections are all ultimately based on faith. Faith that through them strength, security and growth will come. Leaders need to ground that faith in confidence, consistency and an unfailing positive attitude. At this moment, many leaders have been…
We just cut another Hipparchus release, which should now be available on Maven Central. Hipparchus is a library of lightweight, self-contained mathematics and statistics components addressing the most common problems not available in the Java programming language. New features and enhancements include: Bilinear interpolation for 2D grids Field version of sinCos Support for complex ordinary…
Now and then one of my friends asks me for recommendations for books to use to re-engage with mathematics. I am always happy to help and I try to come up with recommendations that will be "goldilocks hard" but also interesting and fun for the person who is asking. I also selfishly think a little about what it will be like for me to talk about the book's content with my friend. I look for books…
Today we cut another release of our little Java mathematics library. Hipparchus is based on a fork of Apache Commons Math. The 1.3 release includes some nice new features - most notably a redesigned Kalman filter implementation capable of handling nonlinear processes, along with quite a few additional enhancements and bug fixes. Support was added for complex eigenvalue decomposition. A solver for…
This month's Significance magazine includes a jarring article about fake news . As one would expect in Significance , there is interesting empirical data in the article. What I found most interesting was the following quote attributed to Dorothy Byrne, a British broadcast journalism leader: "You can't just feed people a load of facts...we are social animals, we relate to other people, so we have…
I have been interviewing a lot of software engineers recently, as I am leading a new team and looking to expand it. That has led me to reflect a little on what I am actually looking for. The following five qualities have been shared by all of the really good, fun-to-work-with developers who I have had the pleasure to work with. 1. Technical mastery Really good developers fully understand what they…
Last week, I heard a segment on NPR about patriotic rituals such as saying the Pledge of Allegiance or standing for the National Anthem. One statement by a young person was hard for me. She said she could not recite the Pledge of Allegiance because saying that our republic has "liberty and justice for all" is false. I get that. And I certainly respect anyone's right to participate or not…
People who work for you have a great perspective on what you need to learn. Here are some great examples: Death by Meeting - in which I learned that my team meetings were, ...um, "suboptimal." Thanks, Bob! The Goal - in which I learned that there was a better way to think about process optimization. Thanks, Kevin! The Phoenix Project - in which I am learning that I did not fully understand the…
After seeing it recommended by Dan Pink , I started reading Studs Terkel's classic, Working . The following quote brought back old memories for me There’s not a house in this country that I haven’t built that I don’t look at every time I go by. (Laughs.) I can set here now and actually in my mind see so many that you wouldn’t believe. If there’s one stone in there crooked, I know where it’s at and…
OK, time for a little math walk. Imagine that Bolzano's grocery is running a special on Weirstrass' Premium Vegan Schnitzel. People start converging on the corner in front of Bolzano's from all around. Based on counts using awesome new really big data technology, the local news media makes the amazing announcement that there are infinitely many people in the city block around Bolzano's. The…
Bryan Pendleton's great post, " Anatomy of a bug fix " suggests some basic principles that apply to all kinds of problem resolution. The attributes that he calls out as separating "great developers" from the not-so-great apply in lots of other contexts, distinguishing the people who you really want to have on your team from those who you can't really count on. Bryan's conclusion: I often say that…
We get the word "integrity" from the same root that gives us "integer" or "whole number." To have integrity is first and foremost to be one thing. Kant built his entire theory of knowledge on the premise that experience has to make sense - the world has to be one thing in this sense. We have to be able to say "I think..." before every perception that we have about the world. The core of all…