by Mark O'Brien | Nov 24, 2015
Naïveté comes in all shapes and sizes. So does academic detachment. And so it is that we have a match-up of lightweights, who’ve now squared off three times in what’s come to be dubbed, The Rhetorical Rumble. For each bout, they enter the ring with...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 23, 2015
I’m noticing what seems to be a proliferation of a phenomenon called use cases. These seem to constitute vignettes or scenarios in which sellers of products or services illustrate various applications of said products or services — having already elucidated the...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 19, 2015
irony (noun): incongruity between what is expected to be and what actually is, or a situation or result showing such incongruity When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 17, 2015
This past weekend, I attended the ninth annual Natural Living Expo in nearby Marlborough, Massachusetts. I have no idea why. Being at the Expo recalled the first time I walked into a hardcore comic-book shop. I was in search of the first two editions of the legendary...
by Mark O'Brien | Nov 16, 2015
If you read my ramblings with any regularity, you know I don’t believe in accidents: Everything that’s supposed to happen does happen. Everything that’s supposed to happen happens in its own time. And everything that happens happens for a reason....