A Blizzard Postmortem, Part 1: The Story
You may have noticed, if you read Control-Alt-Backspace regularly or if you pay close attention to the dates on my posts, that there was no scheduled...
Welcome to Control-Alt-Backspace, a place for collecting ideas on regaining control in an increasingly complex world. Check out the manifesto to learn more about the purpose of this site or the sitemap for an overview of series and topics, or jump right in with recent posts below.
Control-Alt-Backspace updates every Monday. Got questions about something you read or suggestions for new posts? I love hearing from people – shoot me an email!
Recent posts
Dreamdir and the Unix Philosophy, or Likable Software
This weekend I released version 2.0.0 of my open-source Dreamdir file format and associated application, termed dr. Dreamdir is one of my tools for keepi...
Managing Temporary Files
So you’ve followed the tips in the design section of this series, and you have a nicely laid out, organized filesystem. That’s great when you know where ...
Why and How to Follow Websites with RSS
How do you get most of the news and other material you read nowadays? If you’re like most people, a lot of it comes from social media of one type or anot...
Less-Quantifiable Benefits of Automation and Process Improvement
An engineer is someone who will spend three hours figuring out how to do a two-hour job in one hour. Anonymous
Scripting as Effective Communication
Take a moment right now to recognize how amazing a device a computer is. That little hunk of metal on your desk or in your pocket or in a vast se...
Spaced Repetition From The Ground Up
Last week we looked at three principles that combine to create an extraordinarily effective, scientific study method called spaced repetition. You ce...
Spaced Repetition
In today’s fast-paced, information-driven world, everyone must constantly learn new things. While learning itself can be challenging at times, rememb...
Why and How to Focus on Requirements
I got in an argument at work during a meeting last week. It was one of those annoying arguments where you’re sure you actually agree with your opponent, ...
The Art of Naming Files: Naming Conventions
In the previous post, we focused on the mechanics of naming, things like what characters we should be using and how we can make files sort appropriat...
The Art of Naming Files: Mechanical Considerations
There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. Anonymous
Filesystem Links: Practical Advice for Design
In the previous post in this series, we discussed what links are, why you would want to use them, and what kinds of links are available. This wee...
Filesystem Links: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know
In a recent post, we discussed why hierarchies are a problematic way of organizing files and how we can squash our files into a hierarchy when we hav...
Human Memory by Example: Weaknesses
This is part two of “Human Memory By Example.” Last week we focused on strengths of human memory; this week we’ll look at weaknesses with an eye towards how ...
Human Memory by Example: Strengths
In my introduction to this series, I suggested:
The 2018 Concentration Project: A Review
Over the course of 2018, I’ve been undertaking an extended project which I’ve titled the 2018 Concentration Project. The goal was to improve my ability to co...
Getting Your Filesystem Hierarchy Less Wrong
All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less. motto of the Mutt email client
Starting Off with a Backup
What would happen to your digital life if your house suddenly burned down tomorrow? Would you be all right, or would you have yet another nasty problem piled...
Why Keep a Local Filesystem?
I like to start out my series here on Control-Alt-Backspace by discussing why you should care about the topic. After all, if I can’t convincingly answer that...
Why You Still Need To Know Things
It’s hard to learn things, and it’s even harder to remember them after you learn them if you’re not using them constantly. Humanity has had this problem sinc...