LASER summer school on software for robotics: last call for registration






Much of the progress in robotics is due to software advances, and software issues remain at the heart of the formidable challenges that remain. The 2017 LASER summer school, held in September in Elba, brings together some of the most prestigious international experts in the area. The LASER school has established itself as one of … Read more




Feature interactions, continued






Microsoft Office tools offer  features for (1) spelling correction and (2) multi-language support. They are not very good at working together, another example of the perils of feature interaction. Spelling correction will by default when misspelled, but in the case of common misspellings known to the tools it will simply correct words without bothering the … Read more




The perils of feature interaction






One of the most delicate aspects of design is feature interaction. As users, we suffer daily from systems offering features that individually make sense but clash with each other. In my agile book [1] I explained in detail, building on the work of Pamela Zave, why this very problem makes one of the key ideas … Read more




Об опыте иностранца, говорящего по-русски






Когда-то очень давно великий советский ученый Андрей Петрович Ершов мне рассказал следующий анекдот. Действие происходит в московском метро. Стоит бабушка, а за ней высокий студент из Университета Имени Патрицы Лумумбы. Он стучит ей по плечу, она поворачивает голову, видит его, вскрикивает (она никогда в жизни не видела Африканца), и падает в обморок. Другие пассажиры успокаивают … Read more




The coming European renaissance






The unspeakable in flight of the uneatable. One of the sad scenes of today’s Europe does not even take place in continental Europe, and does not even look sad. It happens every Friday afternoon at London’s Saint Pancras railway station as young expats from the continent joyfully board the Eurostar train on their way home … Read more