The last three offices I’ve worked at (spanning two companies) have had dysfunctional bathrooms.
This has to be a sign of something… of what, I don’t know…
Another C3A weekend is coming soon. Just like the
last
one,
I’m just as worried about being yelled at while on the dance floor. On the other hand, at least this time I’m going. Wherefore the difference?
On the downside, I’m rusty, which, in the end, is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and means that I need to keep my commitment to C3A tonight.
Was discussing my goals for the year and my to do list with Dina last night.
She noted that I view my list as things that need to be done.
An alternate way of looking at it is that these are things that I have the opportunity to do.
For some reason, that was a huge revelation, both in what it means for how I think of things, and what it means for how Dina and I relate to each other.
I’m going to have to ponder this one for a while.
In the same vein as “A watched pot never boils.” I guess I should stop hitting Refresh in my email client every 10 seconds…
On the drive home the other day my ego got a great boost.
Every time I looked sideways, chicks in the other car seemed to be checking me out.
Even some guys were checking me out.
The new regimen of exfoliating, shaving, and moisturizing must have made me the paragon of male hotness.
The only thing that marred this great drive home was that the muffler fell and was making an awful racket.
Our last gaming night went pretty well. 21 people showed up. I played Shadows Over Camelot twice. The “Dinner Order” meta-game went better than it ever has. I lost one iteration of the “What Game Shall We Play?” meta-game, but thankfully Daniel saved my butt and suggested Puerto Rico.
When I give out email addresses to stores, I give out something like 2HFJH38JZEQPG.microcenter@somedomain.com. Recently I started receiving porno-spam at the address I gave out to Microcenter. I’m not getting any spam at addresses around that address, so it doesn’t look like it’s a dictionary attack.
I complained by calling the 1-800 number, and by talking to the store manager. Both times I was completely and rudely brushed off.
We haven’t had any security breaches.
That can’t happen.
Your address wasn’t stolen.
Some of the statements they made were downright stupid. It’s information. They can’t necessarily know if it’s not been copied or viewed. The cashier who keyed in my email address could have memorized it and written it down at home (though that’s doubtful given the random crap at the front of it).
I’ve mentioned before that eBay sucks. They still do. The complaint I submitted has been adjudicated in my favour. I guess I should be thankful for that. On the downside, I’m still peeved that I’m only getting back $25 on a $66 purchase, and need to wait 4 to 6 weeks for the refund to be processed.
Story: Boy1 is dating Girl1. Girl2 has a crush on Boy1. At some point, Girl1′s name is mentioned. Girl2 mutters “whore”.
I get that Girl2 is jealous. What I don’t get is Girl2 using a word that attacks Girl1 for pretty much the exact thing Girl2 wants to do with Boy1.
Dina noted that I used to call her (now ex) boyfriend “Stupid”. In fact, I still call him Stupid instead of Glenn when referring to him. Though partially motivated by jealousy, I call him Stupid because he wasn’t smart enough to treat such a wonderful woman properly.
Efficient service at a restaurant is all fine and dandy. Except at breakfast. When I’m having coffee. I take sugar in my coffee. When the server freshens up my coffee it destroys the sugar-balance I’ve carefully crafted. Since it’s morning, I’m half-asleep, and I rarely catch the server in time to stop them.
There can be an inherent communication barrier between people who ponder their ideas before verbalizing them (thoughtfuls) and people who toss out ideas as if they’re in constant brainstorming mode (spouters).
For the most part, I’m a spouter. It’s a useful trait for a software developer. I spout ideas that are all over the map. Some good, some bad. Some inspired, some obvious. Some I believe in fiercely, some that I only mention to play devil’s advocate, or to stimulate ideas from others. They aren’t all gems, but enough of them are that I don’t throttle the flow.
A thoughtful, as far as I can tell, only verbalize ideas once they are more fully formed and vetted. They take time to smooth out the rough edges first. The ideas that they do verbalize are also better quality than their average idea since the bad ones have been culled. They normally believe in their ideas. The ones they aren’t in agreement with have already been discarded.
Problems can occur when a thoughtful hears a spouter if the thougtful doesn’t understand that a spouter approaches ideas differently. They think that the spouter is treating each and every idea like another thoughtful would. The thoughtful may think the spouter is stupid in the case of bad ideas, flaky in the case of far-fetched ideas, or on a completely different course of action than they actually are when it comes to ideas they don’t believe in.
On a related note, a comment on an aptitude test that I took around 1st grade notes that:
Nick is reluctant to respond when not completely sure of an answer.
I guess that when I know an answer is needed, I’m (sometimes) reticent, but when none is expected, I’m perfectly willing to spout.
I was trying to explain to family why software companies are willing to pay a fair bit of money separating the wheat from the chaff. Not being software developers themselves, they didn’t quite grok the difference between good and bad software developers. I noted the 10 to 1 productivity gap between great and average, and the further 10 to 1 gap between average and poor. I don’t think it made as big an impact as it should have.
I think part of that problem is that productivity is perceived as faster. That’s part of the equation. Quality is also an issue. Joe Average will never be able to paint something as beautiful as Van Gogh’s Starry Night (or whatever you think of as great paintings). Inspiration also helps. Again, Joe Average will probably not ever come up with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Neither would a lot of modern day physicists.
Another, more economic way to do this is to look at it from an economics perspective. Ignoring salary, if I’m a good developer, I’ll write software for my employer that will generate $300,000 in revenue over the year. I’ll troubleshoot and fix some bugs that will generate $100,000 in revenue. How does fixing a bug generate revenue? Imagine the bug rejects 50% of valid credit cards, alienating the customer, and they go to another eCommerce web site instead, losing you sales. Finally, I’ll notice that some process can be made more efficient, allowing us to save $100,000 in costs by streamlining our site, so we don’t have to by a bevy of new webservers and database licenses. A-ha! $500,000.
The example of the good developer, though grounded in reality, was hypothetical. Let’s take a real-life example of a bad developer. At a previous job, the Database Administrator, let’s call him Hunnicut, was atrocious. Because of avoidable mistakes that were directly traceable to him, people estimate that he cost the company about $500,000 during the year he was with the company. He would do dumb things that would lead to production outages and slowdowns. In response, he was given tools that would have avoided the dumb things. He refused to use them. D’oh! – $500,000
People seem to wonder why programming computers is hard. I’ve always known that it was the corner cases, but haven’t been able to properly verbalize that… until now.
Last week, I noticed that we had a margin balance of $0.02 owed to us… yes… 2 cents. On the way home today, I was thinking that it would be great if our account had a feature that would automatically pay off or pay out our margin balance if it were close enough to zero (not that the 2 cents is of any consequence other than the fact that I don’t like loose ends or dangling details). So, to implement the feature would be quite simple. Any time the margin balance is within a set limit, pay it off. Of course, if there isn’t enough money in the account it’s to be paid from, don’t do it. Of course, if we’re in the middle of a bunch of margin transactions, we probably don’t want to do it until after they’re done. Of course… … … and of course, the of-courses go on and on.
What non-developers don’t seem to understand is that while the of-courses may seem obvious to people, at least once they’ve thought of them, the computer program has to be taught each one in excruciating detail.
Non-developers (e.g., sales-people, managers, friends, and family) will ask for a piece of software that does a seemingly easy task. Once that is implemented, they start playing with the software for a while and notice something that doesn’t work the way they expected. The developer fixes that corner case. The cycle continues. At some point, the developer asks the domain expert to specify exactly what they want the program to be able to do, but the expert can’t, because they take a lot of things for granted… of course x should happen in situation y. They generally aren’t used to computers, so don’t… or can’t… force themselves to think of every little detail and corner case.
Crawling through my web server logs from time to time yields interesting results. One thing I’ve noted is that I get a lot of hits on my résumé. The traffic to it increased after I made an effort to use semantic markup on the page, and again after I tweaked the keywords in the meta-tag.
All this translates to about an email or two a month wondering if I’m looking for a job, or asking if I know other people who have résumés similar to mine. Take home message… if you’re a geek with a web-site looking for a job, touch up your résumé…
Some company is working on insulation that is thin, flameproof, and protects from cryogenic-cold to 600°C. Yet, centuries from now, idiots on away missions are still freezing because ion storms are interfering with the transporter.
Generally, the lack of attention to how the little details of technology will affect life in science fiction bugs me.
Is it time for a new adventure? Who knows…
We’re having our first gaming night in a long while next Monday. If you want to come, email me.
