A noun… verbs…
A noun… verbs…
Something cute will teach them all the true meaning of abstraction…
And one of their own will Pay the Price.
And what's the deal with these "all new episodes?" Do they usually run clip shows?
Posted by: Fritz Anderson
| @ February 28, 2007 5:19:27 PM CST ( ) |
Something I never have had the courage to shout in an airport:
If you can't move it without putting wheels under it, then it isn't "carry-on," now is it?
WWDC registration had never heard of me, got in anyway.
Posted by: Fritz Anderson
| @ August 6, 2006 9:03:44 PM CDT ( ) |
... who would think someone who refuses to spell "mortgage" properly is a good person to entrust with large sums of money?
Posted by: Fritz Anderson
| @ July 30, 2006 12:37:42 AM CDT ( ) |
All the cool kids are talking about "Best Practices." I have in my mailbox an offer from Adobe to show me the "Best Practices" for using DreamWeaver. On mailing lists, people no longer ask for the right way or even the best way to solve a problem. They ask, "What is the best practice to accomplish X?"
Two things here. First, "Best Practice" is pretentious. Before they heard the nifty new phrase, the same people would be talking about "the right way," and not feeling the lack of a better term. They say "best practice" because it makes them sound ever-so-professional.
Second, "Best Practice," if it has any distinct meaning, doesn't mean "the right way" or "the best way." It means something different from either. In the law of negligence, a defense against a malpractice or product-liability claim would be that one exercised sufficient care by following the methods of other competent professionals. If everybody else tells their clients to jump off bridges, it isn't negligent for you to do the same.
This is "Best Practices." It's not the right way. It isn't the best way. It is the opposite of the innovative way. It is the cover-your-ass way, the follow-the-herd way. "Best practice" is a weasel-word.
Posted by: Fritz Anderson
| @ July 11, 2006 4:13:44 PM CDT ( ) |
"Size matters" is no longer funny. It has been unfunny since the mid-1980s. People born when we first elbow-nudged each other, waggled our eyebrows, and said, "Size matters! Huh?! Huh?!? Get it?!" may now legally buy alcoholic beverages.
Saying or writing it will not add to your reputation as a wit. All it says now is you can't stop comparing things to penises.
Stop it.
Posted by: Fritz Anderson
| @ July 7, 2006 4:27:08 PM CDT ( ) |
I am convinced that the one influence best-calculated to secure the damnation of every soul in America is the retail-mall parking lot.
- You: The one backing into your parking space. Yes, you. You are not as good at that as you think you are. More often than not, you slop over into one of the adjacent spaces. Sometimes you make the hat trick. Why are you backing in? To get out faster? What, you don't want to lose seconds when Commissioner Gordon calls? The time you save from not having to back out of your space was more than wiped out by the time you took in the much harder task of backing in.
- Sometimes you manage to crowd or cross one of the side lines without backing in. Consider this: You are expressing more faith than is probably warranted in my ability to park without ripping your fender off.
- Here is a concept: Parking is not an end in itself. The reason you are parking your car in a mall parking lot is so you can get into the mall. If you spend three minutes waiting for a "good" parking space that saves you thirty seconds of walking, you have, in point of fact, lost.
- Listen carefully: Every second of your own time you waste in the parking lot wastes the time of the five other people behind you. You are supposed to care about this.
- Do not follow me as I walk to my parking space. I can evade you by dashing over to the next aisle, and I'll do it. If you honk while I sit in my car (doing business unknown to you, but needful none the less), I will take a nap.
- The arrows on the pavement are there for a reason. They mean that the spaces are canted for angled parking. If you wonder why all the spaces require you to turn through more than a right angle to get into, that is the reason. Also, the aisle between the parking spaces is almost certainly too narrow for two cars to pass. That is why you often find yourself head-on against other cars, with nowhere to go.
And of course, every time some dimwit does one of these things, I sink deeper and deeper into blasphemy.
Posted by: Fritz Anderson
| @ February 3, 2006 10:15:01 PM CST ( ) |
I read a lot of mailing-list messages. There are two sorts of messages that turn up as often as twice a week. Both are superficially technical, but have these common themes:
In my work for a prominent software company, I have an exceedingly subtle and difficult task to perform. I have not read any of the hundreds of pages relevant to my question, preloaded and indexed for me, in my computer. Please write my program.
or
I am a senior programmer in an extensive Macintosh project for a famous software company, but am barren of knowledge so elementary and foundational that even a thoughtful guess would adequately answer my question. Please read the manuals to me.
Both have the same coda:
Answer me immediately. I will repeat this message every two hours. I may stop if I get a response.
Often, the famous company is one that famously substituted their current programming staff for their previous one. So these requests often amount to, "I took your job. Please continue to do it for free, so your ex-bosses will think I am competent."
Now see here: The people responding to questions on mailing lists are volunteers, who are (or ought to be) highly-paid for their regular work as developers. They are not subject to your demand that they drop everything and turn their hands to work you should be doing yourself.
Stop it.
(I find I write more in dispraise than praise, which I think may be a character flaw. At least I can segregate the bile in its own category.)
Posted by: Fritz Anderson
| @ January 25, 2006 3:24:33 PM CST ( ) |
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