Jeff Nolan's take on innovation, entrepreneurship, tech and stuff that interests me
A few months ago I read the Civil War novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. A non-fiction work, this is a historical account of the battle of Gettysburg that is written in the style of a novel where characters develop and intimacy, flaws, and achievement are revealed as the novel progresses. After having read [...]
There are two seminal moments in m personal history that explain why I ended up in the technology industry. The first was when I first encountered a BASIC compiler in the 8th grade and discovered that I could write a program, store it on a cassette tape (that I later upgraded to an 8″ floppy [...]
Complex systems fail in complex ways not anticipated by engineers. You can over-engineer the systems, test every imaginable scenario, build redundant system coverage, test again. and you can still fail. Boeing’s nightmare is just beginning, their latest generation airplane, the 787 Dreamliner, has been grounded because of fire danger in the lithium ion batteries [...]
Like for many in the tech industry, and beyond, the case of Aaron Swartz touched a nerve with me. We live in an era where government has few boundaries and the threat of legal action carries as much consequence as successful prosecution. Tyranny is a strong word but it comes in many sanctioned forms, government [...]
Self-driving vehicles have the potential to reshape how we navigate our world.
I recently purchased an Asus Zenbook Touch laptop to replace my trusty Macbook Air. I was impressed by the hardware design being exhibited by the top tier ultrabook manufacturers, they embody sleek design elements and a fantastic build quality but more importantly Windows 8 has created a once in a generation opportunity to redefine what [...]