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	<title>Vincent Gable's Blog</title>
	<link>http://vgable.com/blog</link>
	<description>my weblog.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:27:09 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<language>en</language>
	
	<item>
		<title>The Most Depressing Thing I Heard in 2008</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In a way ideas only count for a little in computing, because you kind of have to implement this stuff. This is the part of the story that really makes me clutch at my throat, because every time you implement something, 5 years go away.

&#8211;Alan Kay
]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2010/03/18/the-most-depressing-thing-i-heard-in-2008/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Usability Problems are Cultural</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Obstacles to getting real feedback are now mainly cultural, not technological; any business that isn&#8217;t learning from their users doesn&#8217;t want to learn from their users.
&#8211;Clay Shirky, on Meetup&#8217;s Dead Simple User Testing
]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2010/02/15/usability-problems-are-cultural/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>This Usually Makes Me Feel Better</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2010/02/09/this-usually-makes-me-feel-better/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>All Your Facebook Friend&#8217;s Phone Numbers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[http://www.facebook.com/friends/?filter=pfp
That&#8217;s the link to all your facebook-friend&#8217;s phone numbers.
Every time I see one of those &#8220;I need ya phone numbers&#8221; things on facebook I post that link. Please do the same. At least until the phone companies fix the real problem by automatically backing up contacts from the phone &#8220;in the cloud
]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2010/02/06/all-your-facebook-friends-phone-numbers/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Deus Ex Ignorantia</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Felten&#8217;s Third Law
Given an intractable and complex policy problem, people tend to look to areas they are not experts in to save the day.

For example,
 Given a difficult technology policy problem, lawyers will tend to seek technology solutions and technologists will tend to seek legal solutions. … It&#8217;s easy to reject non-solutions in your own [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2010/02/04/deus-ex-ignorantia/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>EULA Today Fail</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The EULA1 for the USA TODAY iPhone App starts off

General
These Terms of Service govern your use of the USATODAY.com website (the &#8220;Site&#8221;) only and do not govern your use of other USA TODAY services, such as services offered by the USA TODAY print newspaper.

Clearly this invalidates the agreement on the iPhone, since the iPhone App [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2010/01/15/eula-today-fail/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Splash Screens Are Evil</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Splash screens are evil. While branding is important, the proper place for it is in the iconography, optional &#8220;About&#8221; or &#8220;Info&#8221; screens, and App Store profiles. The most common interaction pattern with iPhone applications is to launch them frequently, close them quickly, and treat them as part of a set of tools that interact to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2010/01/13/splash-screens-are-evil/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>A C &amp;Puzzler[]</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s a C-puzzler for you!
given this function,
void foo(char* s){
	printf("s is at: %p\n s is: '%s'\n", s, s);
}
and that

char s[] = "Joy!";
foo(s);

prints out

s is at: 0xbffff46b
s is: &#8216;Joy!&#8217;

what will this next line print?
foo(&#038;s); //WHAT WILL THIS DO?

Pick all that apply:

Print &#8220;Joy!&#8221;
Print garbage
Print the same address for s
Print the a different address for s
Crash
Go into an Infinite [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2009/12/25/a-c-puzzler/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Guess Towards the Middle</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Survey researchers call this kind of behavior satisficing &#8211; it happens when people taking a survey use cognitive shortcuts to answer questions. In the case of questions about personal behaviors that we’re not used to quantifying (like the time we spend online), we tend to shape our responses based on what we perceive as “normal.” [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2009/12/18/guess-towards-the-middle/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Being a Lisp is a Handicap</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Being a Lisp Is a Handicap
There are a large number of people who find Lisp code hard to read. I’m one of them. I’m fully prepared to admit that this is a shortcoming in myself not Lisp, but I think the shortcoming is widely shared.
Perhaps if I’d learned Lisp before plunging into the procedural mainstream, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://vgable.com/blog/2009/12/10/being-a-lisp-is-a-handicap/</link>
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