Why I write.

Grant-writing amnesia

I can’t believe this is happening to me again. I find myself working on a grant when I wasn’t really planning on doing that this month, frantically re-writing and analyzing preliminary data in order to make the best case possible, to convince the NIH to give me funds for a new series of experiments. Why is it always like this? Why, every time I write a grant proposal, does the writing project g...

There are tears of things (why I write).

How to write consistently boring scientific literature

Although scientists typically insist that their research is very exciting and adventurous when they talk to laymen and prospective students, the allure of this enthusiasm is too often lost in the predictable, stilted structure and language of their scientific publications. I present here, a top-10 list of recommendations for how to write consistently boring scientific publications. I then discu...

A New ELF Linker

gold is a new ELF linker recently added to the GNU binutils. I discuss why it made sense to write a new linker rather than extend the existing one. I describe the architecture of the linker, and new features. I present performance measurements. I discuss future plans for the linker. I discuss the use of C++ in writing system tools.

Healthcare and Compassion: Towards an Awareness of Intersubjective Vulnerability; Comment on “Why and How Is Compassion Necessary to Provide Good Quality Healthcare?”

How to instill compassion in a healthcare organization? In this article, I respond to Marianna Fotaki’s proposals in her piece, ‘Why and how is compassion necessary to provide good quality healthcare?’ by drawing on insights from organization studies. Following Fotaki, I argue that to instill targets and formal measures for assessing compassion would be problematic. I conclude by drawing on psy...