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A random assortment of ramblings on all things tech from a former developer, technology manager and comedy writer.

by Phil Johnson

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Phil Johnson is a writer and editor for ITworld.com, after having survived 17 years in the corporate wild as a software/web developer, technical lead and project manager. Along the way he also used to write monologue jokes for David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon and Jay Leno.

In his spare time these days, when he's not chauffeuring his daughters to and from school, lessons and Justin Bieber movies (ugh), he enjoys drawing cartoons, tweeting about his life and taking pictures of cranes.

Making non-coders code

Posted Sep 20, 2012 - 11:53 am

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Let's leave things like programming, commercial airplane flying and reality show hosting to the professionals
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- Boston, coding
Pair programmers wanted; week-long audition required

Posted Sep 10, 2012 - 09:20 am

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Hashrocket pair programmers Paul Elliott and Matt Conway demonstrating their technique Hashrocket/Paul Elliott
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- Agile, coding
Who really wants a self-driving car?

Posted Feb 20, 2013 - 01:14 pm

There's lots of hype around self-driving cars; some of it sounds good, some of it sounds pie-in-the-sky and some of it sounds downright dumb
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- accidents, Aud
7 frustrating things about being a programmer

Posted Feb 13, 2013 - 12:30 pm

Like any other job, programming has its frustrating aspects. Here are seven things that drove me nuts
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- Agile, bug
Students hurt by the digital divide

Posted Feb 04, 2013 - 01:05 pm

Millions of students in the U.S. don’t have access to high speed Internet services at home and it’s hurting their chances for academic success, but fixing the problem is not going to be easy or cheap
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- broadband, cable
Data: the ultimate Internet music royalty

Posted Nov 19, 2012 - 11:21 am

In the battle over music streaming royalties, one musician wants something more valuable than money: information
Do drugs help programmers?

Posted Nov 07, 2012 - 12:34 pm

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Is this the key to better code - or just the munchies? REUTERS/Andres Stapff
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- acid, coders
Four commands to spook a sysadmin

Posted Oct 30, 2012 - 11:41 am

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For a sysadmin, rm -rf / may be far scarier than any zombie REUTERS/Fredy Builes
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Mark Zuckerberg is coding again

Posted Jan 03, 2013 - 12:07 pm

The Facebook CEO gets back in the programming game by helping to write Facebook’s new Poke app; but is that really a good idea?
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- Android, apps
More proof that our copyright laws are busted

Posted Apr 02, 2013 - 12:11 pm

Recent rulings in the ReDigi and Aereo cases highlight what we already know: it’s high time for Congress to overhaul the copyright laws
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- Aereo, basketball

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