I spent the week or so building out a sandbox site for the day job. This is NOT normally something that takes this long, but since I didn't have an available backup server, or budget, or any tools to automate any part of this, it did.
So, I had to cobble the fucking thing together using a spare hosting account I had laying around, and glue all of the frameworks, databases, and plug-in modules by hand. While doing other "useful" stuff, obviously.
Today, I got it finished to the point where bugs we started seeing on the production site were also being replicated on the sandbox. Success! I was also able to find fixes for a few of these, and apply them to the company site.
I took a minute to grab the boss and explain what a neat thing we now had: here's a place where I can test out patches to things without fucking up the company website! This is a Good Thing because I don't pull my hair out trying to test things in production when our customers are, you know, using the site.
Naturally, 20 minutes after I showed him this, I nuked the thing into oblivion when an update patch went off the rails, and spent a half-hour restoring the damn thing.
But! That's what it's there for. If this thing blows up in the middle of the day, I don't have an office full of screaming lunatics and pissed off customers. We get to keep making money and everyone else can keep working.
I've been doing web stuff for over a decade, and this is only the second time I've worked with a development sandbox. If you ever wonder why most of the stuff on the internet sucks, this should be a big clue.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
I grabbed a fresh beer and stopped playing Red Faction to write this
So, since it seems to have died down a bunch by now, I feel OK about writing about gamergate.
No, I ain't capitalizing or "hash-tagging" any of that.
From the distance where I'm viewing it, the whole thing is the natural fallout of a bunch of internet shitbags getting clobbered for being the same horrible fuckjobs they always have been online.
I'm a gamer. I've been doing this since the NES came out, I hacked my way into E3 back when it was still cool, and I've written for more gaming publications than you. I still hold world record scores on a few games. I also absolutely hate gamers. I play everything offline, because the online community has ALWAYS sucked. Every goddamned minute being exposed to those fucking goblins drives me up a wall. By now, I have been called a faggot in game chats about four hundred thousand times, and again: I Very Rarely play anything online.
So. My initial response when hearing about this garbage was "Oh? Well, yeah. That's what they do. They're assholes." At this point, I imagine that I feel a lot like a Log Cabin Republican. I really like this one thing, and everyone else involved with it is an overstuffed dumpster of cocks that I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire.
There ain't shit going on here about "games journalism", it's just doxxing, slut-shaming, and the bog-standard violent stupidity of the entire fucking community. People online are monsters, gamers are not exempt, and we've been doing this for a long time. Except now, it's all about death and rape threats with directions to people's homes. Progress!
The cost of entry for the new media is zero, ya'll want a better "games journalism" platform? Fucking start one. But, because it's more fun to move the goalposts and harass women online, we get gamergate. Going back to my offline games now, where I don't have to be associated with any of those idiots.
No, I ain't capitalizing or "hash-tagging" any of that.
From the distance where I'm viewing it, the whole thing is the natural fallout of a bunch of internet shitbags getting clobbered for being the same horrible fuckjobs they always have been online.
I'm a gamer. I've been doing this since the NES came out, I hacked my way into E3 back when it was still cool, and I've written for more gaming publications than you. I still hold world record scores on a few games. I also absolutely hate gamers. I play everything offline, because the online community has ALWAYS sucked. Every goddamned minute being exposed to those fucking goblins drives me up a wall. By now, I have been called a faggot in game chats about four hundred thousand times, and again: I Very Rarely play anything online.
So. My initial response when hearing about this garbage was "Oh? Well, yeah. That's what they do. They're assholes." At this point, I imagine that I feel a lot like a Log Cabin Republican. I really like this one thing, and everyone else involved with it is an overstuffed dumpster of cocks that I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire.
There ain't shit going on here about "games journalism", it's just doxxing, slut-shaming, and the bog-standard violent stupidity of the entire fucking community. People online are monsters, gamers are not exempt, and we've been doing this for a long time. Except now, it's all about death and rape threats with directions to people's homes. Progress!
The cost of entry for the new media is zero, ya'll want a better "games journalism" platform? Fucking start one. But, because it's more fun to move the goalposts and harass women online, we get gamergate. Going back to my offline games now, where I don't have to be associated with any of those idiots.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Yet another reason I hate everyone in my profession
Because, truly, programmers are awful, awful people. Web developers are the worst, but I could be biased here, since I get exposed to more of them.
Anyhow. This article recently went up on Model View Culture. It's penned by a recent college grad whining that technical interviews are "bullshit." They are bullshit because they are confrontational, and they make women uncomfortable, and "There are so many questions that technical interviews can’t answer: Are they able to work on a diverse team? Are they passionate about the job they’re interviewing for? Can they read and debug pre-existing code? How quickly are they able to learn new technologies? Are they a jerk?"
Technical interviews, you see, require you to write code on a whiteboard, in front of people.
As a Crotchety Industry Veteran, if I was interviewing someone that struggled with the concept of writing code, they would be out the door so fucking fast their own personal universe would red-shift. I don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock if you're a really nice person or get along well with others, or have a super-cute kitten calender for your office if you can't write code: You Do Not Get to be a Programmer.
These interviews exist because so many people can't fucking code. I have worked with these people. I have fired these people. They keep fucking applying to jobs that they cannot do. So Now: we have to check. If I hurt someone's feelings by expecting them to demonstrate the core skill for their job, I get warm fuzzy feelings all day long. You're a shitty test taker? The test is called Employment, and you just got an(other) F.
All code is awful. I don't care if someone writes a really ugly function on the spot, or if they forgot a semi-colon, I just need to know that this person does, in fact, know how to write code at all.
I know that this will sound insane to anyone in a real profession, but this is actually a serious problem that our young graduate above appears unaware of. Go read that article, it is short, and it's about a very simple programming problem frequently used in "technical interviews." The interview-ee manages about 2 pages of crazy person scrawl before crashing and burning.
For reference, here's a solution in C#:
For all I know, that interview-ee was a super-duper guy, and always buys a round for the team at the bar. The next time your computer crashes or app freezes? Think of that guy. Technical interviews are a Good Thing.
Anyhow. This article recently went up on Model View Culture. It's penned by a recent college grad whining that technical interviews are "bullshit." They are bullshit because they are confrontational, and they make women uncomfortable, and "There are so many questions that technical interviews can’t answer: Are they able to work on a diverse team? Are they passionate about the job they’re interviewing for? Can they read and debug pre-existing code? How quickly are they able to learn new technologies? Are they a jerk?"
Technical interviews, you see, require you to write code on a whiteboard, in front of people.
As a Crotchety Industry Veteran, if I was interviewing someone that struggled with the concept of writing code, they would be out the door so fucking fast their own personal universe would red-shift. I don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock if you're a really nice person or get along well with others, or have a super-cute kitten calender for your office if you can't write code: You Do Not Get to be a Programmer.
These interviews exist because so many people can't fucking code. I have worked with these people. I have fired these people. They keep fucking applying to jobs that they cannot do. So Now: we have to check. If I hurt someone's feelings by expecting them to demonstrate the core skill for their job, I get warm fuzzy feelings all day long. You're a shitty test taker? The test is called Employment, and you just got an(other) F.
All code is awful. I don't care if someone writes a really ugly function on the spot, or if they forgot a semi-colon, I just need to know that this person does, in fact, know how to write code at all.
I know that this will sound insane to anyone in a real profession, but this is actually a serious problem that our young graduate above appears unaware of. Go read that article, it is short, and it's about a very simple programming problem frequently used in "technical interviews." The interview-ee manages about 2 pages of crazy person scrawl before crashing and burning.
For reference, here's a solution in C#:
for(int x = 1; x <= 100; x++) {
string output = "";
if(x%3 == 0) output += "Fizz";
if(x%5 == 0) output += "Buzz";
if(output == "") output = x.ToString?();
Console.WriteLine?(output);
}
For all I know, that interview-ee was a super-duper guy, and always buys a round for the team at the bar. The next time your computer crashes or app freezes? Think of that guy. Technical interviews are a Good Thing.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Internets browser stuff
A side effect of doing a lot of work on the Inter-Tubes is that I tend to have a lot of browsers installed and use them all frequently, just to make sure things are behaving. I do a lot of dev-type stuff, so the built-in tools and available extensions are also pretty important to me, although admittedly most people aren't going to care much.
Since I'm a few drinks into the evening, here's where I give my picks along with why. I do realize that with the uber-frequent release cycle on Chrome and FireFox, this is all going to be irrelevant in a month, forward your hatemail to Google and Mozilla if none of this makes sense by the time you read it.
The Duke of New York, A #1 is still Opera. I am not a patient man, when I click a browser icon, it's because I have Shit to Do. Opera starts up a hell of a lot faster than anything else, and hauls screaming ass when loading sites and pages that aren't written by morons. Right-clicking and hitting Inspect Element on anything on a web page gets you access to the fantastic Dragonfly tool, and if you've ever needed to debug some CSS, JavaScript or network issue, this thing is indispensable.
There are a good chunk of sites that don't work quite right, but the keyboard shortcuts and overwhelmingly awesome performance keep Opera as my favorite day to day thing I use.
The number 2 spot is a tie. Chrome and Internet Explorer 11, to be exact. If anyone wants to talk shit about I.E., go get a modern version first. I started using the thing back when Netscape Navigator was the new hotness, and fucking Lynx was the installed browser on the terminals at my college's C.S. lab. The latest version of I.E. is robust, and has an overhauled and surprisingly sexy set of onboard tools for the dev kids out there. The current team working on I.E. knows all the cool kids hate them, and they're kicking some serious ass to make all those people look pants-on-head retarded.
Chrome is a solid piece of work, and I don't really hate anything about it, but there's nothing that makes me love the thing. It performs well, shit generally "just works", and there's not a lot I have to complain about. On the other hand, I loathe most Google stuff, and the UI never, ever fucking puts stuff where I can find it quickly since Google Knows Better. I imagine Apple kids would be right at home with this one, it's just not a great fit for me.
#4 is FireFox. When I installed FireFox 1 point something-or-other, I thought it was the coolest fucking thing ever. 2 was good as well. When 3 came out, it started feeling sluggish and bloated, and by then tabbed browsing was no longer the shiny new reason to lose 3 hours on wikipedia. For the last couple years, FireFox has limped along by having a kick-ass set of extensions (Greasemonkey! Firebug!) to let me get shit done, but the UI changes in the last few versions have started to hobble even those benefits. Mozilla, if I wanted a shitty version of Chrome, I would use Chrome. If I wanted to be a hard-core open source hippy, I would use Konqueror or Ice Monkey or any of the dozen other shitty versions floating out in Linux-land. These days, I ain't got much time for FireFox.
Everything else? I don't care. Safari is hot garbage. Lynx is old and busted. wget is used by Stallman and like 5 other people. I kinda miss Off By One, but only after a lot of drinks and I can't configure Opera to do the same stuff even better.
Since I'm a few drinks into the evening, here's where I give my picks along with why. I do realize that with the uber-frequent release cycle on Chrome and FireFox, this is all going to be irrelevant in a month, forward your hatemail to Google and Mozilla if none of this makes sense by the time you read it.
The Duke of New York, A #1 is still Opera. I am not a patient man, when I click a browser icon, it's because I have Shit to Do. Opera starts up a hell of a lot faster than anything else, and hauls screaming ass when loading sites and pages that aren't written by morons. Right-clicking and hitting Inspect Element on anything on a web page gets you access to the fantastic Dragonfly tool, and if you've ever needed to debug some CSS, JavaScript or network issue, this thing is indispensable.
There are a good chunk of sites that don't work quite right, but the keyboard shortcuts and overwhelmingly awesome performance keep Opera as my favorite day to day thing I use.
The number 2 spot is a tie. Chrome and Internet Explorer 11, to be exact. If anyone wants to talk shit about I.E., go get a modern version first. I started using the thing back when Netscape Navigator was the new hotness, and fucking Lynx was the installed browser on the terminals at my college's C.S. lab. The latest version of I.E. is robust, and has an overhauled and surprisingly sexy set of onboard tools for the dev kids out there. The current team working on I.E. knows all the cool kids hate them, and they're kicking some serious ass to make all those people look pants-on-head retarded.
Chrome is a solid piece of work, and I don't really hate anything about it, but there's nothing that makes me love the thing. It performs well, shit generally "just works", and there's not a lot I have to complain about. On the other hand, I loathe most Google stuff, and the UI never, ever fucking puts stuff where I can find it quickly since Google Knows Better. I imagine Apple kids would be right at home with this one, it's just not a great fit for me.
#4 is FireFox. When I installed FireFox 1 point something-or-other, I thought it was the coolest fucking thing ever. 2 was good as well. When 3 came out, it started feeling sluggish and bloated, and by then tabbed browsing was no longer the shiny new reason to lose 3 hours on wikipedia. For the last couple years, FireFox has limped along by having a kick-ass set of extensions (Greasemonkey! Firebug!) to let me get shit done, but the UI changes in the last few versions have started to hobble even those benefits. Mozilla, if I wanted a shitty version of Chrome, I would use Chrome. If I wanted to be a hard-core open source hippy, I would use Konqueror or Ice Monkey or any of the dozen other shitty versions floating out in Linux-land. These days, I ain't got much time for FireFox.
Everything else? I don't care. Safari is hot garbage. Lynx is old and busted. wget is used by Stallman and like 5 other people. I kinda miss Off By One, but only after a lot of drinks and I can't configure Opera to do the same stuff even better.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
It has been below freezing all week. I am still glad that I do not live in the South.
I dunno if there's something in the water cooler over at rawstory, but jesus christ the feed today reminded me how much I hate the idea of living anywhere below the Mason-Dixon.
First up: A bunch of Missouri high school girls played a game in blackface! We are assured that "they didn't mean anything by it" and "they just weren't thinking".
By the time you make it to high school, if you still think that there's a time and place for blackface, this isn't an "oversight" issue anymore. It means that your parents and community did a shitty job, and that you are a piece of human garbage.
Next! Kentucky fire chief tells a deputy "We ain't takin no niggers here." Seeing how they'd just been in a car accident, and that the deputy and crew changed a tire for the other (white) person involved in the accident, and gave him an escort to the fire station, this gets bonus points for being racist and also a total dick move.
When questioned about being a racist dickhead, the chief then asked an asian reporter if she spoke English. Multiple times.
Stay classy, Kentucky! Also, die in a fire, you sorry cumbags.
Next! In Houston, a customer wrote "Don't want to listen to a faggot through my whole meal" on their receipt to complain about having a gay server. Wisely, the restaurant manager chose to apologize to the customer, and the server was fired/quit. He also came out to his parents, so they could at least hear it from him before seeing in on the 9 o'clock news.
I'm sure that went splendidly.
That something like this went down at a place as high-class as "Kelley's Country Cookin'" will be a shock to you all, I am sure. But it's comforting to know that Houston homophobes have a place where they can have a meal without being exposed to the queers. If I had a way to create salmonella outbreaks using the internet, I would have a busier weekend ahead of me.
Last for now: Virginia school officials tweet that interracial dating is every father's worst nightmare. This one I have some experience of, in a reverse kind of way. On multiple occasions, parents of various girls I have dated have accused me directly of being the anti-christ. I also have a bunch of racist shithead family members, that, while they hate the blacks, didn't have any problem with me dating asian, mexican, or indian women.
Attention Virginian stumble-fuck school officials, there are plenty of good reasons to hate people you god-damned troglodytes. Spend 10 minutes talking to someone, and you can probably come up with something. You're just being shiftless lazy stupid assholes by continuing with the skin color thing.
First up: A bunch of Missouri high school girls played a game in blackface! We are assured that "they didn't mean anything by it" and "they just weren't thinking".
By the time you make it to high school, if you still think that there's a time and place for blackface, this isn't an "oversight" issue anymore. It means that your parents and community did a shitty job, and that you are a piece of human garbage.
Next! Kentucky fire chief tells a deputy "We ain't takin no niggers here." Seeing how they'd just been in a car accident, and that the deputy and crew changed a tire for the other (white) person involved in the accident, and gave him an escort to the fire station, this gets bonus points for being racist and also a total dick move.
When questioned about being a racist dickhead, the chief then asked an asian reporter if she spoke English. Multiple times.
Stay classy, Kentucky! Also, die in a fire, you sorry cumbags.
Next! In Houston, a customer wrote "Don't want to listen to a faggot through my whole meal" on their receipt to complain about having a gay server. Wisely, the restaurant manager chose to apologize to the customer, and the server was fired/quit. He also came out to his parents, so they could at least hear it from him before seeing in on the 9 o'clock news.
I'm sure that went splendidly.
That something like this went down at a place as high-class as "Kelley's Country Cookin'" will be a shock to you all, I am sure. But it's comforting to know that Houston homophobes have a place where they can have a meal without being exposed to the queers. If I had a way to create salmonella outbreaks using the internet, I would have a busier weekend ahead of me.
Last for now: Virginia school officials tweet that interracial dating is every father's worst nightmare. This one I have some experience of, in a reverse kind of way. On multiple occasions, parents of various girls I have dated have accused me directly of being the anti-christ. I also have a bunch of racist shithead family members, that, while they hate the blacks, didn't have any problem with me dating asian, mexican, or indian women.
Attention Virginian stumble-fuck school officials, there are plenty of good reasons to hate people you god-damned troglodytes. Spend 10 minutes talking to someone, and you can probably come up with something. You're just being shiftless lazy stupid assholes by continuing with the skin color thing.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Bobbing for apples in a latrine
I've been busy having a very relaxing and pleasant weekend before moving to the new employment-place, so naturally, something had to come along and rectify that situation.
Recently reported by CNN and others there's a slew of rape allegations towards Bill Cosby for many, many incidents going back for the last 20 or so years. A couple of these have been 'settled', but that's a whole mess 'o rape to be accused of.
Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but given how under-reported rape is, things ain't looking great for the Coz.
Rape is generally considered a fucking horrible thing, so let's check in with the Republican mouthpiece of record to see their take on things. You know, what with their "tough on crime" plank as a party.
This goes about as well as you'd expect. If you don't have 3 minutes, skip to the 2:30 piece in that video. "It's not like he did it yesterday."
Yeah. That isn't some quote mining either, that means exactly what you think it does IN context.
At first, I thought "What the unlubricated fuck? Is Rush seriously declaring that there's a statue of limitations on sexual assault? Is he OK with sodomizing kids if you can keep it on the down low for a couple decades?"
And then I remembered that he is a Republican, so shit's all good if you're wealthy and/or famous.
Lest we forget, Rush got picked up for a (minimum) class 3 felony, and ended up doing a stint in rehab rather than spending the mandatory minimum 15 years in Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison.
2,000 fucking pills is only worth rehab? I have regular migraine headaches, and I'll say that 2,000 pills is more than I've taken in the last 20 years. If I get picked up tomorrow with 2,000 pills, I'm sure as shit not going to keep MY job since, you know, I'll be in fucking jail for the next couple election cycles.
Tough on crime my black ass. Y'all want to be tough on crime, then start sending criminals to fucking jail.
Recently reported by CNN and others there's a slew of rape allegations towards Bill Cosby for many, many incidents going back for the last 20 or so years. A couple of these have been 'settled', but that's a whole mess 'o rape to be accused of.
Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but given how under-reported rape is, things ain't looking great for the Coz.
Rape is generally considered a fucking horrible thing, so let's check in with the Republican mouthpiece of record to see their take on things. You know, what with their "tough on crime" plank as a party.
This goes about as well as you'd expect. If you don't have 3 minutes, skip to the 2:30 piece in that video. "It's not like he did it yesterday."
Yeah. That isn't some quote mining either, that means exactly what you think it does IN context.
At first, I thought "What the unlubricated fuck? Is Rush seriously declaring that there's a statue of limitations on sexual assault? Is he OK with sodomizing kids if you can keep it on the down low for a couple decades?"
And then I remembered that he is a Republican, so shit's all good if you're wealthy and/or famous.
Lest we forget, Rush got picked up for a (minimum) class 3 felony, and ended up doing a stint in rehab rather than spending the mandatory minimum 15 years in Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison.
2,000 fucking pills is only worth rehab? I have regular migraine headaches, and I'll say that 2,000 pills is more than I've taken in the last 20 years. If I get picked up tomorrow with 2,000 pills, I'm sure as shit not going to keep MY job since, you know, I'll be in fucking jail for the next couple election cycles.
Tough on crime my black ass. Y'all want to be tough on crime, then start sending criminals to fucking jail.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
The process and the procedure
This is the place where I dash off short pieces on whatever is currently on my mind that seems fun to talk about. I don't take what I do here too seriously, which means I agonize over word choice about 15% less than when I'm doing Professional Stuff.
Since I'm making an effort to come up with posts more often, I usually bug people around me for a topic. Any Topic. I absolutely suck at that part, but I'll be damned if I can't take a subject and ejaculate 500 words all over it.
That got . . . weird . . . faster than I'd intended. Tonight, no good ideas were available, so I was instructed to visit Reddit and scan their 'writing prompts', which is something I have specifically been avoiding. If anyone asked me why, I would have been forced to admit that I think random people have shitty ideas, and the internet in general is a cesspool, but no aversion more specific than that.
I went, I saw, I recoiled in horror. Now I have specific complaints. To wit: the posters there are just trying too fucking hard. The stuff I saw on Reddit is the polar opposite of what I like to see in writing, stories, and things in general - flash over substance and technique. One topic was "Imagine you survived a near-death experience, and later received a letter from God that this was an administrative mistake, so please commit suicide within the next few days."
Standing on it's own, this isn't a horrible idea. My gripe is that it's very, very specific. I understand that's what some people may need to get that kick in the ass and start hammering out words. Kudos to them. Their stuff is probably dreck. I don't really need or want someone else to nail down a whole story chunk, I just like hearing different things of interest, that's enough for me to get going. The prompt "Janitors" is enough to get the wheels churning. The rest I can come up with, and will hopefully sound like me (e.g. "Conversations between drunken Janitors cleaning up the cum stains after the DNC and Republic National Conventions", "Janitors as a new priestly order in a post-apocalyptic society after antibiotic resistant bacteria wipe out humanity")
The goofballs on Reddit are trying to come up with an amazing hook so other people can put their stamp on it. To me, writing like that is about as much fun as being in a cover band. As always, I'm a target market of one, so take this with a grain of salt or whatever.
My stuff (here and elsewhere) ain't winning any awards, but it's mine.
Since I'm making an effort to come up with posts more often, I usually bug people around me for a topic. Any Topic. I absolutely suck at that part, but I'll be damned if I can't take a subject and ejaculate 500 words all over it.
That got . . . weird . . . faster than I'd intended. Tonight, no good ideas were available, so I was instructed to visit Reddit and scan their 'writing prompts', which is something I have specifically been avoiding. If anyone asked me why, I would have been forced to admit that I think random people have shitty ideas, and the internet in general is a cesspool, but no aversion more specific than that.
I went, I saw, I recoiled in horror. Now I have specific complaints. To wit: the posters there are just trying too fucking hard. The stuff I saw on Reddit is the polar opposite of what I like to see in writing, stories, and things in general - flash over substance and technique. One topic was "Imagine you survived a near-death experience, and later received a letter from God that this was an administrative mistake, so please commit suicide within the next few days."
Standing on it's own, this isn't a horrible idea. My gripe is that it's very, very specific. I understand that's what some people may need to get that kick in the ass and start hammering out words. Kudos to them. Their stuff is probably dreck. I don't really need or want someone else to nail down a whole story chunk, I just like hearing different things of interest, that's enough for me to get going. The prompt "Janitors" is enough to get the wheels churning. The rest I can come up with, and will hopefully sound like me (e.g. "Conversations between drunken Janitors cleaning up the cum stains after the DNC and Republic National Conventions", "Janitors as a new priestly order in a post-apocalyptic society after antibiotic resistant bacteria wipe out humanity")
The goofballs on Reddit are trying to come up with an amazing hook so other people can put their stamp on it. To me, writing like that is about as much fun as being in a cover band. As always, I'm a target market of one, so take this with a grain of salt or whatever.
My stuff (here and elsewhere) ain't winning any awards, but it's mine.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Language porn
I am going to be moving to a more programming-heavy job soon, so I've been warming up those parts of my brain that have lain more-or-less dormant for the last few years. Getting back to full time programming is a drastic departure from what I've been doing, but after doing a mental inventory, I'm happy to report that the lights all still work, the plumbing isn't leaking all over the place, and the walls are still standing in those particular areas of my mind.
If this sounds dramatic, or like I'm shifting paradigms without a clutch, then this is the post for you.
As a brief aside, I take a large amount of professional pride in programming. I really do try to do the best I possibly can, even when writing shitty little web apps or simple features. I like it when people see something I've done and say: "Oh! Neat, that is going to make my life a lot easier!" and the code doesn't look like shit to the point where I fear touching it again in the future.
But. Because I was taught by scary hardasses, I have a working industry-specific vocabulary that compares to the MIT hackers of olden tymes. And to me, this is a Good Thing. Programmers have to work with computer languages to get stuff done, which means that begging, crying, and pleading don't do much. You have to hammer raw math into some type of functionality described by a user, and there is very little overlap between the two domains. xkcd has things to say about this. Being very, very specific is important to solving the problem.
One of the things I enjoy is that programmers have a very rich vocabulary to talk about and describe the problems that occur because of the disconnect between code and desired features. Seriously, programmers have more words for "failure" than Eskimos apocryphally had for "snow."
For example, the words "bad" and "wrong" have two very different connotations. "Wrong" means that you fucked up. Someone types in "cat" and your program outputs "dog". "Bad" means that a user types in "cat" and your program takes 3 hours to run, crashes a server somewhere, deletes a couple random files, and then prints out "cat". Either of those cases can occur when the programmer makes an honest mistake. There is an entirely different set of words to use when the programmer is just being a bastard.
Logic errors have their own phrases and classes. Software and Hardware do too. There are modifiers for severity.
What we end up with at the end of the day, is a very expressive set of jargon to describe exactly what is going on with enough detail to figure out the real problem and solve it. Of course, there are a lot of ways to say that the user is obviously the problem.
The link in that last sentence has always been one of my favorite replies to use, so feel free to swipe that for your own, lesser, industries.
I get to be a programmer again. Even though I know that the Web is a shitshow, I am looking forward to it. Because we can talk our way through this.
If this sounds dramatic, or like I'm shifting paradigms without a clutch, then this is the post for you.
As a brief aside, I take a large amount of professional pride in programming. I really do try to do the best I possibly can, even when writing shitty little web apps or simple features. I like it when people see something I've done and say: "Oh! Neat, that is going to make my life a lot easier!" and the code doesn't look like shit to the point where I fear touching it again in the future.
But. Because I was taught by scary hardasses, I have a working industry-specific vocabulary that compares to the MIT hackers of olden tymes. And to me, this is a Good Thing. Programmers have to work with computer languages to get stuff done, which means that begging, crying, and pleading don't do much. You have to hammer raw math into some type of functionality described by a user, and there is very little overlap between the two domains. xkcd has things to say about this. Being very, very specific is important to solving the problem.
One of the things I enjoy is that programmers have a very rich vocabulary to talk about and describe the problems that occur because of the disconnect between code and desired features. Seriously, programmers have more words for "failure" than Eskimos apocryphally had for "snow."
For example, the words "bad" and "wrong" have two very different connotations. "Wrong" means that you fucked up. Someone types in "cat" and your program outputs "dog". "Bad" means that a user types in "cat" and your program takes 3 hours to run, crashes a server somewhere, deletes a couple random files, and then prints out "cat". Either of those cases can occur when the programmer makes an honest mistake. There is an entirely different set of words to use when the programmer is just being a bastard.
Logic errors have their own phrases and classes. Software and Hardware do too. There are modifiers for severity.
What we end up with at the end of the day, is a very expressive set of jargon to describe exactly what is going on with enough detail to figure out the real problem and solve it. Of course, there are a lot of ways to say that the user is obviously the problem.
The link in that last sentence has always been one of my favorite replies to use, so feel free to swipe that for your own, lesser, industries.
I get to be a programmer again. Even though I know that the Web is a shitshow, I am looking forward to it. Because we can talk our way through this.
Monday, October 20, 2014
A conversation regarding the HBO show OZ
"So, you've been talking about OZ lately."
Yup.
"I wonder if the violence is realistic in that show."
Well. I worked at a juvenile detention center for a year and change, and I got shanked in the neck by a kid, so I'd say that yeah, it probably is.
"Oh. Uh. Wow."
And this is why most of my co-workers don't talk to me when I'm on a smoke break.
Yup.
"I wonder if the violence is realistic in that show."
Well. I worked at a juvenile detention center for a year and change, and I got shanked in the neck by a kid, so I'd say that yeah, it probably is.
"Oh. Uh. Wow."
And this is why most of my co-workers don't talk to me when I'm on a smoke break.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
I am going to be a nitpicky asshole about programming
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Monday, October 6, 2014
Old people, please stop being awful
This evening, I got a Clerks 2 style wakeup call after doing my regular readings on the Internets. I've known for a while that H.P. Lovecraft, like many old people, had a dim view of native Americans, women, and Minorities in General. And I was more or less able to disassociate that from his writing. I am a huge whore for HPL, I've got most or all of his printed Mythos stuff, and a ton of related movies, books, CDs, etc.
In Clerks 2, one of the characters finds out the etymology of the phrase "porch monkey", a favorite phrase of a much beloved relative. Today, I found out about this poem.
That, ladies, gentlemen, and readers, is a full-on poem by HPL using "nigger" not in the Mark Twain 'this is what uneducated dudes called black people' sense, but the more general 'black people are an inferior sub-species' sense.
At this point, I am going to exercise my White Male Privilege (because I can!), and say "Can people who wrote stuff I find interesting stop being Assholes?" Stranger in a Strange Land was pretty good. Heinlein was a dickhead. Ender's Game was a lot of fun, as far as space books written about child warriors go. Orson Scott Card is an enormous piece of shit. I still re-read One Hundred Years of Solitude every so often, but Gabriel Marquez has some serious fuckin-related issues that need to be addressed, cancer and death notwithstanding. Do Not get me started on Piers Anthony, his books aren't even good.
So, am I supposed to chuck out my Lovecraft stuff? I really like At the Mountains of Madness, and Dreams in the Witch House, and Rats in the Walls, and and and. I also live in a city where we have ongoing race related issues. Some People would assume that since we have Solved Racism, this is probably not a thing I need to think about. They . . . do not live here.
Yeah. Well. For a goofy looking fucker who wrote about indescribable cosmic horrors, HPL is now part of the problem, in my book. I want to respect the writing, I can no longer tolerate the man.
In Clerks 2, one of the characters finds out the etymology of the phrase "porch monkey", a favorite phrase of a much beloved relative. Today, I found out about this poem.
That, ladies, gentlemen, and readers, is a full-on poem by HPL using "nigger" not in the Mark Twain 'this is what uneducated dudes called black people' sense, but the more general 'black people are an inferior sub-species' sense.
At this point, I am going to exercise my White Male Privilege (because I can!), and say "Can people who wrote stuff I find interesting stop being Assholes?" Stranger in a Strange Land was pretty good. Heinlein was a dickhead. Ender's Game was a lot of fun, as far as space books written about child warriors go. Orson Scott Card is an enormous piece of shit. I still re-read One Hundred Years of Solitude every so often, but Gabriel Marquez has some serious fuckin-related issues that need to be addressed, cancer and death notwithstanding. Do Not get me started on Piers Anthony, his books aren't even good.
So, am I supposed to chuck out my Lovecraft stuff? I really like At the Mountains of Madness, and Dreams in the Witch House, and Rats in the Walls, and and and. I also live in a city where we have ongoing race related issues. Some People would assume that since we have Solved Racism, this is probably not a thing I need to think about. They . . . do not live here.
Yeah. Well. For a goofy looking fucker who wrote about indescribable cosmic horrors, HPL is now part of the problem, in my book. I want to respect the writing, I can no longer tolerate the man.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Quick thoughts on Apple Pay
This is a terrible fucking idea.
.
.
.
.
.
Oh, OK, I suppose I can give it more time than that. Apple Pay is Apple's new thing to use your iDevice to pay for stuff without the hassle of things like cash or credit cards. So, it's like PayPal or Google Wallet, or a prepaid VISA card, or, well, you get the point.
Except!
It's revolutionary, because Apple.
I realize that I have a long history of hating all over Apple's stuff, so I'm going to try to be as objective as possible with this.
Security is Hard. Let's repeat for the slow kids in the class: Security is Hard. For anyone who's been paying attention to this topic for a while, there's been a recent rash of well known brands getting knocked over. All those links in the last sentence? Different incidents. And that is by no means an exhaustive list.
Even companies that are good at security have a hard time with it. Apple on the other hand, has a terrible history with doing things in a secure fashion. Remember GoTo Fail? All those iPad accounts getting cracked? The Fappening? All that stuff is recent. And analysis of stuff like the GoTo Fail bug shows that this is the kind of error that will be caught by common, standard tools when you're writing code. Which implies that Apple is writing their stuff without any safety measures, code review, or standards.
So, do you think it is a good idea to trust your money with a company that has a history of doing security poorly, when the evidence indicates that there are many more exploits coming in the future?
If you still think Apple's stuff is secure, go review the results of the Pwn2Own contest in the link above. Apple's devices and software gets knocked over as an afterthought once someone provides a financial incentive.
Kids, don't put your money in Apple Pay right away.
.
.
.
.
.
Oh, OK, I suppose I can give it more time than that. Apple Pay is Apple's new thing to use your iDevice to pay for stuff without the hassle of things like cash or credit cards. So, it's like PayPal or Google Wallet, or a prepaid VISA card, or, well, you get the point.
Except!
It's revolutionary, because Apple.
I realize that I have a long history of hating all over Apple's stuff, so I'm going to try to be as objective as possible with this.
Security is Hard. Let's repeat for the slow kids in the class: Security is Hard. For anyone who's been paying attention to this topic for a while, there's been a recent rash of well known brands getting knocked over. All those links in the last sentence? Different incidents. And that is by no means an exhaustive list.
Even companies that are good at security have a hard time with it. Apple on the other hand, has a terrible history with doing things in a secure fashion. Remember GoTo Fail? All those iPad accounts getting cracked? The Fappening? All that stuff is recent. And analysis of stuff like the GoTo Fail bug shows that this is the kind of error that will be caught by common, standard tools when you're writing code. Which implies that Apple is writing their stuff without any safety measures, code review, or standards.
So, do you think it is a good idea to trust your money with a company that has a history of doing security poorly, when the evidence indicates that there are many more exploits coming in the future?
If you still think Apple's stuff is secure, go review the results of the Pwn2Own contest in the link above. Apple's devices and software gets knocked over as an afterthought once someone provides a financial incentive.
Kids, don't put your money in Apple Pay right away.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Peak Fox News!
I have held off from posting about the Ray Rice shenanigans. Partly, because I am busy enjoying a schadenfreude high from all the dumb shit said by news anchors and NFL personalities after the Elevator Cage Match video was released, and many people got to look retroactively abhorrent due to the dumb shit they said.
Fox "News" has forced me to break down and write some words. Obviously, I hope that I will never again have to type that sentence.
If you haven't been exposed, the short version is that a video was leaked showing NFL player Ray Rice dragging his unconscious girlfriend / fiancé out of an elevator. The NFL decided that he wasn't looking good, and suspended him briefly. Then, an extended version of that video was shown where his girlfriend spat on him and yelled at the man, so he punched her in the face and bounced her head off a railing in said elevator, knocking her unconscious.
Ah. Well. Now This Is A Problem. This is where the apologists started looking like assholes. But! Thanks to Fox "News", we get the best possible defense of the stupid! It was her fault, because Ray Rice is the Real Victim!
Money Quote: "... that video makes him look better than before."
This is out of context, but I am not a Republican, so I will explain. The video shows an argument between Ray Rice and Janay Palmer arguing in an elevator. She is yelling at him, and spits on him. He then punches her in the head hard enough to bounce her head off the wall, knocking her unconscious, and drags her from the elevator. Please listen to the whole thing if you think I am quote mining or misinterpreting.
To Fox "News", this makes him look "better than before." You know, when we just saw him dragging a woman from an elevator.
My brain is melting trying to process this, so I am going to bring up the point that even in the UFC, they have weight classes. Yes, the arena where dudes are paid to commit felony assault on each other makes sure you are having a fair fight. Ray Rice is an NFL running back, he weighs north of 250 lbs., and is punching an unarmed woman in the head. Fox "News" chooses to interpret this as a valid response or somesuch nonsense.
Seriously, A.J. Delgado paints Ray Rice as the real victim here. Because he is in trouble for beating up a girl. Apparently, domestic violence is a complete myth, and when a huge dude pounds on some broad for annoying him, she should have just shut her whore mouth and "Taken the Stairs".
Christ Fox "News". I can't even parody this shit.
Fox "News" has forced me to break down and write some words. Obviously, I hope that I will never again have to type that sentence.
If you haven't been exposed, the short version is that a video was leaked showing NFL player Ray Rice dragging his unconscious girlfriend / fiancé out of an elevator. The NFL decided that he wasn't looking good, and suspended him briefly. Then, an extended version of that video was shown where his girlfriend spat on him and yelled at the man, so he punched her in the face and bounced her head off a railing in said elevator, knocking her unconscious.
Ah. Well. Now This Is A Problem. This is where the apologists started looking like assholes. But! Thanks to Fox "News", we get the best possible defense of the stupid! It was her fault, because Ray Rice is the Real Victim!
Money Quote: "... that video makes him look better than before."
This is out of context, but I am not a Republican, so I will explain. The video shows an argument between Ray Rice and Janay Palmer arguing in an elevator. She is yelling at him, and spits on him. He then punches her in the head hard enough to bounce her head off the wall, knocking her unconscious, and drags her from the elevator. Please listen to the whole thing if you think I am quote mining or misinterpreting.
To Fox "News", this makes him look "better than before." You know, when we just saw him dragging a woman from an elevator.
My brain is melting trying to process this, so I am going to bring up the point that even in the UFC, they have weight classes. Yes, the arena where dudes are paid to commit felony assault on each other makes sure you are having a fair fight. Ray Rice is an NFL running back, he weighs north of 250 lbs., and is punching an unarmed woman in the head. Fox "News" chooses to interpret this as a valid response or somesuch nonsense.
Seriously, A.J. Delgado paints Ray Rice as the real victim here. Because he is in trouble for beating up a girl. Apparently, domestic violence is a complete myth, and when a huge dude pounds on some broad for annoying him, she should have just shut her whore mouth and "Taken the Stairs".
Christ Fox "News". I can't even parody this shit.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
For the hard working man
I now have the exact thing to buy next time I have the opportunity to fuck an entire town.
Monday, September 8, 2014
The Marvel cinematic universe continues to impress me
The Marvel movies are doing a really good job with featuring a lot of my favorite C-list heroes and villains, to the point where I almost feel like they're just fucking with me. When Marvel started doing movies seriously, I expected to see stuff like the X-men, Avengers, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and Captain America.
I did not expect to see dudes like Drax the Destroyer, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Vision, or Adam Warlock. To be fair, Luke and Danny are getting shows, but still.
Well, if Marvel wants to keep throwing in characters to make me happy, they can add Deathlok, Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers), Wonder Man, Firelord and Morbius at some point. I could throw out a bunch of X-men or Spider-Man characters, but that ain't going to happen any time soon, and I'd rather not see them getting ruined by the company that will not be named in their crappy franchise-grab flicks.
The only other longshot? Mother Fucking Namor the First, the Avenging Son, the Sub-Mariner. Apparently, Marvel hocked the movie rights to Namor back in the day to keep the doors open and lights on, so he's literally been saving the entire Marvel universe for decades. But, as a fan, I must add: Namor is the ruler of Atlantis, and takes zero shit for looking like Mr. Spock wearing a speedo. Marvel, get the rights back from Universal and get Zachary Quinto on this. Imperius Rex!
I did not expect to see dudes like Drax the Destroyer, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Vision, or Adam Warlock. To be fair, Luke and Danny are getting shows, but still.
Well, if Marvel wants to keep throwing in characters to make me happy, they can add Deathlok, Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers), Wonder Man, Firelord and Morbius at some point. I could throw out a bunch of X-men or Spider-Man characters, but that ain't going to happen any time soon, and I'd rather not see them getting ruined by the company that will not be named in their crappy franchise-grab flicks.
The only other longshot? Mother Fucking Namor the First, the Avenging Son, the Sub-Mariner. Apparently, Marvel hocked the movie rights to Namor back in the day to keep the doors open and lights on, so he's literally been saving the entire Marvel universe for decades. But, as a fan, I must add: Namor is the ruler of Atlantis, and takes zero shit for looking like Mr. Spock wearing a speedo. Marvel, get the rights back from Universal and get Zachary Quinto on this. Imperius Rex!
I have to bitch about this one
A recent xkcd is riffing on the subject of a study correlating sms messaging with higher scores in grammar and spelling tests.
To me, this smells bad. I agree that constant reading and writing should make using the written word an easier task, but I think a constant stream of such is not likely to confer any real talent or understanding. In the same way that a constant diet of cotton candy doesn't make you predisposed to being a chef, sucking from the twitter firehose isn't going to make you a black belt* in English class.
Ugh. Here's where I make new enemies. xkcd is conflating constant status updates and tweeting with Writing as a Skill. Which isn't really the same thing at all. You get better at stuff by actively practicing and having smarter people tell you where and why you suck. I can write a thousand blog posts and still be a shitty writer (I am not. I am also arrogant.) but if you don't also spend that time evaluating what you have done and work on making improvements, then you continue to suck.
In short, it's not a bunch of kids playing catch, it's a bunch of jackasses throwing bottles at a building. There's no real feedback, so there's no incentive or education beyond a single kid wanting to get better. No one really gives a shit about corrections in youtube comments or your twitter feed. Unless someone has the motivation, the best they're going to do is ape the conventions of the medium they're using. Those kids aren't learning to write, they're learning a shitty version of boilerplate.
*full disclosure. I never got my black belt, I dropped out of my martial arts schools, and stopped going to college. I have now taught most of the things I went there to learn.
To me, this smells bad. I agree that constant reading and writing should make using the written word an easier task, but I think a constant stream of such is not likely to confer any real talent or understanding. In the same way that a constant diet of cotton candy doesn't make you predisposed to being a chef, sucking from the twitter firehose isn't going to make you a black belt* in English class.
Ugh. Here's where I make new enemies. xkcd is conflating constant status updates and tweeting with Writing as a Skill. Which isn't really the same thing at all. You get better at stuff by actively practicing and having smarter people tell you where and why you suck. I can write a thousand blog posts and still be a shitty writer (I am not. I am also arrogant.) but if you don't also spend that time evaluating what you have done and work on making improvements, then you continue to suck.
In short, it's not a bunch of kids playing catch, it's a bunch of jackasses throwing bottles at a building. There's no real feedback, so there's no incentive or education beyond a single kid wanting to get better. No one really gives a shit about corrections in youtube comments or your twitter feed. Unless someone has the motivation, the best they're going to do is ape the conventions of the medium they're using. Those kids aren't learning to write, they're learning a shitty version of boilerplate.
*full disclosure. I never got my black belt, I dropped out of my martial arts schools, and stopped going to college. I have now taught most of the things I went there to learn.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Reflection and refraction
I want to preface this by saying I really didn't want to have to write this post.
For the last couple days, I've been reading "The Lexus and the olive tree" by Thomas Friedman. Yes, the guy who was wrong so frequently they named a unit of measurement after him.
For the lazy, the Friedman Unit is "six months from now. And then six months after that. And then six months after that, forever." In reference to when America would win our war against Terror. Any day now!
I need to take regular breaks from the book, because I've been trying to decide if Friedman is a a really shitty writer, or just plain ol' dumb.
The problem I'm running into is that some of his viewpoints are actually . . . pretty good. Stuff I agree with. Things that seem to make sense. And then he runs right off the rails and starts telling half-baked stories about imagined conversations with nation states or world leaders, and I hate everything to my eyeballs. At the very least, being presented the Easy Reader version of global finance does Not fill me with confidence about the depth of this man's thought on the subject matter.
Since the book is from 1999, a few chapters are morbidly hilarious in retrospect. Like when he spends much ink praising establishments such as Moody's as regards to issuing ratings, and lambasting governments that do not allow such hallowed institutions to deliver Judgement upon their financial products. Because Moody's will Obviously perform their function in a fair and accurate manner in all instances. Capitalism and globalization are the way to infinite prosperity! So to join the global community, you must get their stamp of approval.
Capitalism forever!
One other side effect of globalization is driving down wages for unskilled labor. Stuff that can be outsourced will be . . . well, outsourced. Friedman is OK with this, as he imagines a world where the now unemployed will take the time to train up and learn more advanced skills to get higher paying jobs.
No. This will not happen.
I understand that I'm about to shit right in the the American Dream, but I'm not being paid enough to lie to you people. Right now, I could take a job as a janitor. I have had this job before, and I rather liked it.
If some janitor magically saved enough cash to get a couple years of schooling, there is next to zero chance that they can become a programmer. Sorry, them's the breaks. That janitor, after several years of schooling, is most likely to be, at best, a shitty programmer. Those are the ones who get fired for "not meeting expectations." This isn't just a programming thing, they're likely not going to be a surgeon, engineer, physicist, or anything else. They'll just be chronically unemployed.
If this sounds dickish or arrogant, here's something to make that worse: I get at least a couple job offers a week. I'm not even looking. I am an Average programmer. There are so few people that can do this kind of stuff that I've never in my adult life had to seriously worry about employment. I am extremely grateful for this kind of freedom, but I've also worked enough shitty jobs that I know what it's like to be one paycheck from getting evicted for several years on end. If it Can be outsourced, it Will be.
Hell, call center and IT jobs are just sort of starting to come back to the U.S. and we had it easy. If I was a welder or worked in manufacturing I would be even more pissed about this trend. But I don't think it's going to change.
So, if the jobs are getting shuffled around, everyone's wages are going into the toilet, and re-training isn't a reasonable option for enough people, then what's next?
I'm not sure. Universal income sounds somewhat appealing, but I haven't done my homework there yet. Socialism is still a Very Naughty Word in America, so that's right out. Maybe some good old fashioned rioting in the streets? I could be up for that.
For the last couple days, I've been reading "The Lexus and the olive tree" by Thomas Friedman. Yes, the guy who was wrong so frequently they named a unit of measurement after him.
For the lazy, the Friedman Unit is "six months from now. And then six months after that. And then six months after that, forever." In reference to when America would win our war against Terror. Any day now!
I need to take regular breaks from the book, because I've been trying to decide if Friedman is a a really shitty writer, or just plain ol' dumb.
The problem I'm running into is that some of his viewpoints are actually . . . pretty good. Stuff I agree with. Things that seem to make sense. And then he runs right off the rails and starts telling half-baked stories about imagined conversations with nation states or world leaders, and I hate everything to my eyeballs. At the very least, being presented the Easy Reader version of global finance does Not fill me with confidence about the depth of this man's thought on the subject matter.
Since the book is from 1999, a few chapters are morbidly hilarious in retrospect. Like when he spends much ink praising establishments such as Moody's as regards to issuing ratings, and lambasting governments that do not allow such hallowed institutions to deliver Judgement upon their financial products. Because Moody's will Obviously perform their function in a fair and accurate manner in all instances. Capitalism and globalization are the way to infinite prosperity! So to join the global community, you must get their stamp of approval.
Capitalism forever!
One other side effect of globalization is driving down wages for unskilled labor. Stuff that can be outsourced will be . . . well, outsourced. Friedman is OK with this, as he imagines a world where the now unemployed will take the time to train up and learn more advanced skills to get higher paying jobs.
No. This will not happen.
I understand that I'm about to shit right in the the American Dream, but I'm not being paid enough to lie to you people. Right now, I could take a job as a janitor. I have had this job before, and I rather liked it.
If some janitor magically saved enough cash to get a couple years of schooling, there is next to zero chance that they can become a programmer. Sorry, them's the breaks. That janitor, after several years of schooling, is most likely to be, at best, a shitty programmer. Those are the ones who get fired for "not meeting expectations." This isn't just a programming thing, they're likely not going to be a surgeon, engineer, physicist, or anything else. They'll just be chronically unemployed.
If this sounds dickish or arrogant, here's something to make that worse: I get at least a couple job offers a week. I'm not even looking. I am an Average programmer. There are so few people that can do this kind of stuff that I've never in my adult life had to seriously worry about employment. I am extremely grateful for this kind of freedom, but I've also worked enough shitty jobs that I know what it's like to be one paycheck from getting evicted for several years on end. If it Can be outsourced, it Will be.
Hell, call center and IT jobs are just sort of starting to come back to the U.S. and we had it easy. If I was a welder or worked in manufacturing I would be even more pissed about this trend. But I don't think it's going to change.
So, if the jobs are getting shuffled around, everyone's wages are going into the toilet, and re-training isn't a reasonable option for enough people, then what's next?
I'm not sure. Universal income sounds somewhat appealing, but I haven't done my homework there yet. Socialism is still a Very Naughty Word in America, so that's right out. Maybe some good old fashioned rioting in the streets? I could be up for that.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
The three questions. With answers!
Almost every person I am introduced to on a casual basis eventually ends up asking me the following 3 questions. If you don't want to read the whole thing, the answers are "probably", "yes", and "why?"
I Know Stuff about computers. I have been known to work as a programmer, and on the occasions when I get to talk shop with other nerds, it seems like we're all getting variations of these questions from a lot of people.
So! As a public service, here are the questions a lot of you people have, and my|the answers.
Question 1) Can you fix my computer?
Probably? This is actually a really, really complicated question, and it's loaded like it's auditioning for the next Expendables movie. Part of the problem is that civilians have no idea whatso-fucking-ever how or why computers work. Seriously. The kids who have grown up all their lives with the things aren't really much better than grandma in the nursing home when it comes to understanding how their laptop does Stuff. This makes any repair work a shit-ton more difficult, because the patient can't give you much useful information (if any.)
Whatever's going wrong could be hardware, could be software, could be a virus, or could be a couple programs engaged in a pissing match that is breaking how things are expected to work (I am looking at you, Chrome and Kaspersky Antivirus.) Also, the user is a fucking liar, every time, whether they know it or not. "Have you been going to shady porn sites?" The answer to this one is always "No!" So I don't bother asking anymore.
"Have you done any software updates recently?" The answer to this is always "Uhh?" and here's where I get to spend 10 hours dicking around trying to figure out what has changed or what could be causing any problems. Basically, unless you dropped the thing, you can't tell me anything useful, so I get to play computer detective to piece together what went off the rails. And! If I can't figure it out, users assume that I don't actually Know About Computers. Hey slapnuts, if you had been able to tell me that the wi-fi LED on your keyboard wasn't working, I could have figured this out a couple days ago. I'm not even a hardware dude, half of that stuff is a mystery to me too. I just learned enough to have a general idea of what questions to ask and where to get the answers.
Question 2) Can you hack things?
Whenever someone asks this, they always have the same expression as someone telling a nigger joke in a neighborhood where a black person may be present. Shifty eyes, slightly guilt-ridden, like a kid with their hand in the cookie jar. They want to know if I have the ability to Take Over their Shit. Hacking is some top level skill that is only possessed by elite code grinding motherfuckers. If I can do this, I am a Badass.
In short: you have been lied to by Hollywood. Hacking a system or computer isn't some super-secret code ninja task, all you do is call Janine in H.R. and tell her you're in I.T. and doing some network testing so you need her password. Log on as her, and you're in. BAM! You are now a hacker.
Sorry, it's less sexy than all the movies made it seem.
There's more to it, obviously, but seriously people, stop asking me if I'm a criminal.
Question 3) Why aren't you rich?
After being around people for a while, they see the computer knowledge and assume that I should be focused on maximizing my dollars per hour, and that does not seem to line up with how I spend my money and time. If you are reading this, there is a very good chance that you've used some stuff I wrote, or it's part of a thing you use all the time. It follows that I should then own several islands and have girls in hula skirts bringing me drinks at all hours of the day.
Well. The second part is obviously true. If I had to boil down the answer to this, it's that there are a very limited number of positions that pay crazy-town money for code, and I don't want to work at most of those places. Right now, I make enough money to do whatever the hell I want, whenever I want to, so, what would I use more money for? Money is something you trade for stuff you want, and I've got what I want. I have enough extra left over to take care of just about anything that comes up, so I don't feel a need to stockpile the stuff. I get to spend more time with my friends and learning other cool things, rather than grinding away on some startup project for 80 hours a week or beating my head against the wall solving some machine learning problem that I don't find interesting in the least.
It's an ongoing thing. If my job becomes awful, I can get another one. If I'm interested in some side project, I'm happy to throw some time at it. The money isn't what it's about, if I need more, I can make more, but right now, I'm very happy with what I have and where I am. More cash ain't gonna change that.
I Know Stuff about computers. I have been known to work as a programmer, and on the occasions when I get to talk shop with other nerds, it seems like we're all getting variations of these questions from a lot of people.
So! As a public service, here are the questions a lot of you people have, and my|the answers.
Question 1) Can you fix my computer?
Probably? This is actually a really, really complicated question, and it's loaded like it's auditioning for the next Expendables movie. Part of the problem is that civilians have no idea whatso-fucking-ever how or why computers work. Seriously. The kids who have grown up all their lives with the things aren't really much better than grandma in the nursing home when it comes to understanding how their laptop does Stuff. This makes any repair work a shit-ton more difficult, because the patient can't give you much useful information (if any.)
Whatever's going wrong could be hardware, could be software, could be a virus, or could be a couple programs engaged in a pissing match that is breaking how things are expected to work (I am looking at you, Chrome and Kaspersky Antivirus.) Also, the user is a fucking liar, every time, whether they know it or not. "Have you been going to shady porn sites?" The answer to this one is always "No!" So I don't bother asking anymore.
"Have you done any software updates recently?" The answer to this is always "Uhh?" and here's where I get to spend 10 hours dicking around trying to figure out what has changed or what could be causing any problems. Basically, unless you dropped the thing, you can't tell me anything useful, so I get to play computer detective to piece together what went off the rails. And! If I can't figure it out, users assume that I don't actually Know About Computers. Hey slapnuts, if you had been able to tell me that the wi-fi LED on your keyboard wasn't working, I could have figured this out a couple days ago. I'm not even a hardware dude, half of that stuff is a mystery to me too. I just learned enough to have a general idea of what questions to ask and where to get the answers.
Question 2) Can you hack things?
Whenever someone asks this, they always have the same expression as someone telling a nigger joke in a neighborhood where a black person may be present. Shifty eyes, slightly guilt-ridden, like a kid with their hand in the cookie jar. They want to know if I have the ability to Take Over their Shit. Hacking is some top level skill that is only possessed by elite code grinding motherfuckers. If I can do this, I am a Badass.
In short: you have been lied to by Hollywood. Hacking a system or computer isn't some super-secret code ninja task, all you do is call Janine in H.R. and tell her you're in I.T. and doing some network testing so you need her password. Log on as her, and you're in. BAM! You are now a hacker.
Sorry, it's less sexy than all the movies made it seem.
There's more to it, obviously, but seriously people, stop asking me if I'm a criminal.
Question 3) Why aren't you rich?
After being around people for a while, they see the computer knowledge and assume that I should be focused on maximizing my dollars per hour, and that does not seem to line up with how I spend my money and time. If you are reading this, there is a very good chance that you've used some stuff I wrote, or it's part of a thing you use all the time. It follows that I should then own several islands and have girls in hula skirts bringing me drinks at all hours of the day.
Well. The second part is obviously true. If I had to boil down the answer to this, it's that there are a very limited number of positions that pay crazy-town money for code, and I don't want to work at most of those places. Right now, I make enough money to do whatever the hell I want, whenever I want to, so, what would I use more money for? Money is something you trade for stuff you want, and I've got what I want. I have enough extra left over to take care of just about anything that comes up, so I don't feel a need to stockpile the stuff. I get to spend more time with my friends and learning other cool things, rather than grinding away on some startup project for 80 hours a week or beating my head against the wall solving some machine learning problem that I don't find interesting in the least.
It's an ongoing thing. If my job becomes awful, I can get another one. If I'm interested in some side project, I'm happy to throw some time at it. The money isn't what it's about, if I need more, I can make more, but right now, I'm very happy with what I have and where I am. More cash ain't gonna change that.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
I sincerely hope you all paid for this
By request, the preface to my non-existent memoirs.
Hello monsters.
If you are reading this, I would like to take this opportunity to mention a few things up front.
1) All this stuff did happen. I am not James Frey. I do not need to tart up a lifetime of Poor Impulse Control and bad decisions with falsehoods to appear interesting. I am arrogant enough to know damn well I experienced things others will wish to read about without resorting to Bullshit.
2) Names and certain details have been modified to obscure the identities of persons living and dead. I don't want others to suffer retribution for being associated with me, and I most definitely do not want any of those assholes receiving accolades or free drinks. I'm the one doing the writing here.
3) If you are familiar with proofs and/or logic, and have noticed the contradiction in the above two items, and intend to complain about it; award yourself a Pedantic Dickweed badge, and then kill yourself.
In the event that I am still alive, I will endeavor to do better in the future. Probably.
In the event that I am now dead, you have missed your opportunity to be a Participant. You may atone for this in the manner of your choosing.
The events that follow are the result of a particular mixture of: a high pain tolerance, fondness towards alcohol, and a burning desire to answer the question "I wonder what that's like?" It necessarily follows that the events which I record here for posterity are occasionally illegal, immoral, unkind, or just plain ol' dumb. The only cautionary note I can leave are the words of Hunter S. Thompson: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
Chapter 1: Necrophilia becomes a felony offense in my home state, and I am very sad about this.
Hello monsters.
If you are reading this, I would like to take this opportunity to mention a few things up front.
1) All this stuff did happen. I am not James Frey. I do not need to tart up a lifetime of Poor Impulse Control and bad decisions with falsehoods to appear interesting. I am arrogant enough to know damn well I experienced things others will wish to read about without resorting to Bullshit.
2) Names and certain details have been modified to obscure the identities of persons living and dead. I don't want others to suffer retribution for being associated with me, and I most definitely do not want any of those assholes receiving accolades or free drinks. I'm the one doing the writing here.
3) If you are familiar with proofs and/or logic, and have noticed the contradiction in the above two items, and intend to complain about it; award yourself a Pedantic Dickweed badge, and then kill yourself.
In the event that I am still alive, I will endeavor to do better in the future. Probably.
In the event that I am now dead, you have missed your opportunity to be a Participant. You may atone for this in the manner of your choosing.
The events that follow are the result of a particular mixture of: a high pain tolerance, fondness towards alcohol, and a burning desire to answer the question "I wonder what that's like?" It necessarily follows that the events which I record here for posterity are occasionally illegal, immoral, unkind, or just plain ol' dumb. The only cautionary note I can leave are the words of Hunter S. Thompson: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
Chapter 1: Necrophilia becomes a felony offense in my home state, and I am very sad about this.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
History, ashheaps, resignation
A view I've talked about with increasing frequency as of late is, what I sincerely hope to be viewing at the moment: the demise and dissolution of the Republican party in America.
From where I'm standing, it appears that without some large-scale restructuring of the party, the Republicans are caught between a rock and a dumb place, and this will provide increasingly smaller returns for their investment until they are (finally) regulated to a position of being mute, irrelevant, and shuffled from the political state. Or something like that. The hysteric thrashing of the Tea Party jerkoffs provides a strong signal that some for of change is required within, but my money is solidly behind the theory that being louder and more crass is not a winning combination. Cannibalizing the party with ideological purity tests where the losers are thrown out for being insufficiently vile isn't going to bring more voters into the big tent. Rather than win a race against a Democrat to pick up a seat, a vocal chunk of the right wing is now getting people ostensibly on their side tossed out of office, and replaced with rabies-infested lunatics.
This strongly mirrors the "Red Queen" scenario oft-cited by people who do not understand evolutionary biology, and which we get to view whenever a longstanding institution is sufficiently threatened to the point where the goons in charge lose their fucking minds and do whatever it takes to "win" by destroying an opponent, rather than relying on their own merit. I've seen first-hand evidence of the tactics the right now must resort to: collecting donations for "progressive causes" that are then funneled to the NRA, misrepresenting their causes in attempts to steal credibility, and just outright fucking lying to everyone who can hear them. These are not methods employed by an organization that expects to win on the strength of its ideas.
This is a process that is dreary and familiar to science, to the point where a new theory is generally accepted once all of the old guard has had the common courtesy to finally just die off, and a new generation grows up unhampered by the follies of their elders' viewpoints.
Or, to put it more bluntly: stupid fuckers are going to keep being stupid fuckers, and will fight to the bitter end to defend their backwards ideas. They money shot from that article, by the way is the following: "Thurmond never explicitly renounced his earlier views on racial segregation. [...] 'When Strom Thurmond ran for president, [Mississippi] voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either.' Lott was ousted as Senate Majority Leader." Usually, you just have to wait for the old sons of bitches to die. They ain't gonna see reason.
Seeing more vocal screeds and overly dramatic action by an increasingly smaller population of 'conservatives' looks to me very much like the final collapse of a wounded beast thrashing at anything within reach.
From where I'm standing, it appears that without some large-scale restructuring of the party, the Republicans are caught between a rock and a dumb place, and this will provide increasingly smaller returns for their investment until they are (finally) regulated to a position of being mute, irrelevant, and shuffled from the political state. Or something like that. The hysteric thrashing of the Tea Party jerkoffs provides a strong signal that some for of change is required within, but my money is solidly behind the theory that being louder and more crass is not a winning combination. Cannibalizing the party with ideological purity tests where the losers are thrown out for being insufficiently vile isn't going to bring more voters into the big tent. Rather than win a race against a Democrat to pick up a seat, a vocal chunk of the right wing is now getting people ostensibly on their side tossed out of office, and replaced with rabies-infested lunatics.
This strongly mirrors the "Red Queen" scenario oft-cited by people who do not understand evolutionary biology, and which we get to view whenever a longstanding institution is sufficiently threatened to the point where the goons in charge lose their fucking minds and do whatever it takes to "win" by destroying an opponent, rather than relying on their own merit. I've seen first-hand evidence of the tactics the right now must resort to: collecting donations for "progressive causes" that are then funneled to the NRA, misrepresenting their causes in attempts to steal credibility, and just outright fucking lying to everyone who can hear them. These are not methods employed by an organization that expects to win on the strength of its ideas.
This is a process that is dreary and familiar to science, to the point where a new theory is generally accepted once all of the old guard has had the common courtesy to finally just die off, and a new generation grows up unhampered by the follies of their elders' viewpoints.
Or, to put it more bluntly: stupid fuckers are going to keep being stupid fuckers, and will fight to the bitter end to defend their backwards ideas. They money shot from that article, by the way is the following: "Thurmond never explicitly renounced his earlier views on racial segregation. [...] 'When Strom Thurmond ran for president, [Mississippi] voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either.' Lott was ousted as Senate Majority Leader." Usually, you just have to wait for the old sons of bitches to die. They ain't gonna see reason.
Seeing more vocal screeds and overly dramatic action by an increasingly smaller population of 'conservatives' looks to me very much like the final collapse of a wounded beast thrashing at anything within reach.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Girls can't compete in sports
Uh, unless you're Kacy Catanzaro. I'm a fan of Ninja Warrior for the same reason I like the Dark Souls games: I enjoy stuff that is difficult and will crush the spirit of the vast majority of people who attempt it.
Kacy completely fucking wrecks the Ninja Warrior course, which regularly destroys professional athletes, overzealous amateurs, and people at the height of physical fitness. And she's like 5'0". Watch this, it is awesome:
Kacy's performance is so good, it made me attempt to fix the stupid default widths that clip the edges of embedded YouTube videos which resulted in a new template thanks to Blogger being brain dead. The view works fine on my laptop, I'll get around to checking non-widescreen stuff . . . eventually.
Kacy completely fucking wrecks the Ninja Warrior course, which regularly destroys professional athletes, overzealous amateurs, and people at the height of physical fitness. And she's like 5'0". Watch this, it is awesome:
Kacy's performance is so good, it made me attempt to fix the stupid default widths that clip the edges of embedded YouTube videos which resulted in a new template thanks to Blogger being brain dead. The view works fine on my laptop, I'll get around to checking non-widescreen stuff . . . eventually.
Monday, July 21, 2014
By request, a diatribe on technological acumen as opposed to an MBA
This, I feel, is a natural reaction to the silly horseshit startup brogrammer culture, and, if I am lucky, a potential heads-up to young nerds lest they defile themselves unnecessarily with Nonsense.
During my regular media baths, I have come to conclude that one of the more lucrative and valuable job skill sets currently available is "MBA + technical programming ability." On paper, this sounds fantastic from an H.R. standpoint - you can hire someone to do business things, who can also add value to your software-product with sagelike recommendations and helping out by writing a fair bit of code at crunch time. A perfect natural fit for a Project Manager or Product Manager type position, allowing your company to dominate the market and devastate the balance sheets of any competing product/service.
To be sure, any tech oriented business would be delighted to hire such an individual, and a startup would be pleased indeed to have another 0.5 developer on board.
And therein lies the problem.
I am an adequate programmer. This is as close as you fuckers will get to modesty from me, but I will begrudgingly allow the point to stand. I know many devs that are far more talented than I am, and do not have the time/motivation/financial incentive to hone those skills further at the moment. That said, I have made a lot of companies and people a shocking amount of money over The Internet with the skills that I have.
On the other hand, being "adequate" by my standards, is apparently a much higher bar than it is for the rest of the semi-retarded jackasses programming for money these days. If you doubt the Truth of that statement, find a programmer, and ask about the quality of any code they've seen from any other developer. Alternately, wait until you see the next hacking or "website does not work" story on the news.
The skills it takes to write a properly functioning algorithm for a piece of software Do Not translate well to the field of Business. The Business wants a new product to sell. Out the door. Now. A Programmer, would like (ideally) to produce a perfect piece of software, one that functions without bugs, runs quickly, and satisfies all needs of the user.
Here, we see the problem writ large: Programmers will immediately see the clusterfuck implied by the above paragraph. Business people will Not.
There is no way to resolve this.
Some Clever Dicks in the audience may use Fog Creek as a counter example here, and to them I say "get fucked." They are a very rare software shop, and that is why they are notable. Look at every other program or app you have installed or use, and note the percentage that is Fog Creek stuff.
Fundamentally, we are looking at a different set of skills. MBA people have learned how to work in and maintain a business. Programmers know how to optimize algorithms and write FizzBuzz (hopefully.) As a Product Manager, I've released stuff that has bugs in it, with the reasoning that "no one should notice this" because we needed to Ship. As a programmer, I got very drunk that night, because I hated myself, my job, the entire industry, and anything that would put me in the position to add to the mountain of shit that constitutes all software.
So, we Released an update. And people used it. And some people complained. But the business made (more) money, so it was the Right Thing To Do.
We come to the synthesis of the piece: This is why being an MBA + technical skills is an incredibly valuable skill set. Very, very few people have both. There needs to be a person to release new stuff when it's perfect (to satisfy the Programmers. Which will never happen.) and can be released yesterday (to satisfy the MBAs. Which will never happen.) Perfect cannot happen yesterday, and neither goal is attainable. Being able to strike the balance between the unattainable, and have the extensive knowledge of both sides to be certain you're right? That's the billion dollar skill set. On the whole, I would rather advise people to concentrate their efforts into one field or the other, and do well in an arena that they enjoy.
During my regular media baths, I have come to conclude that one of the more lucrative and valuable job skill sets currently available is "MBA + technical programming ability." On paper, this sounds fantastic from an H.R. standpoint - you can hire someone to do business things, who can also add value to your software-product with sagelike recommendations and helping out by writing a fair bit of code at crunch time. A perfect natural fit for a Project Manager or Product Manager type position, allowing your company to dominate the market and devastate the balance sheets of any competing product/service.
To be sure, any tech oriented business would be delighted to hire such an individual, and a startup would be pleased indeed to have another 0.5 developer on board.
And therein lies the problem.
I am an adequate programmer. This is as close as you fuckers will get to modesty from me, but I will begrudgingly allow the point to stand. I know many devs that are far more talented than I am, and do not have the time/motivation/financial incentive to hone those skills further at the moment. That said, I have made a lot of companies and people a shocking amount of money over The Internet with the skills that I have.
On the other hand, being "adequate" by my standards, is apparently a much higher bar than it is for the rest of the semi-retarded jackasses programming for money these days. If you doubt the Truth of that statement, find a programmer, and ask about the quality of any code they've seen from any other developer. Alternately, wait until you see the next hacking or "website does not work" story on the news.
The skills it takes to write a properly functioning algorithm for a piece of software Do Not translate well to the field of Business. The Business wants a new product to sell. Out the door. Now. A Programmer, would like (ideally) to produce a perfect piece of software, one that functions without bugs, runs quickly, and satisfies all needs of the user.
Here, we see the problem writ large: Programmers will immediately see the clusterfuck implied by the above paragraph. Business people will Not.
There is no way to resolve this.
Some Clever Dicks in the audience may use Fog Creek as a counter example here, and to them I say "get fucked." They are a very rare software shop, and that is why they are notable. Look at every other program or app you have installed or use, and note the percentage that is Fog Creek stuff.
Fundamentally, we are looking at a different set of skills. MBA people have learned how to work in and maintain a business. Programmers know how to optimize algorithms and write FizzBuzz (hopefully.) As a Product Manager, I've released stuff that has bugs in it, with the reasoning that "no one should notice this" because we needed to Ship. As a programmer, I got very drunk that night, because I hated myself, my job, the entire industry, and anything that would put me in the position to add to the mountain of shit that constitutes all software.
So, we Released an update. And people used it. And some people complained. But the business made (more) money, so it was the Right Thing To Do.
We come to the synthesis of the piece: This is why being an MBA + technical skills is an incredibly valuable skill set. Very, very few people have both. There needs to be a person to release new stuff when it's perfect (to satisfy the Programmers. Which will never happen.) and can be released yesterday (to satisfy the MBAs. Which will never happen.) Perfect cannot happen yesterday, and neither goal is attainable. Being able to strike the balance between the unattainable, and have the extensive knowledge of both sides to be certain you're right? That's the billion dollar skill set. On the whole, I would rather advise people to concentrate their efforts into one field or the other, and do well in an arena that they enjoy.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
A collection of short things
1) Google, stop being a bitch about the browser I use. You have millions of dollars and many developers. I have a preference for a much better browser than Chrome. Live with it, and stop throwing up passive aggressive warnings. Everything works well enough in Opera. I am not a moron, and can deal with the things that do not do so out of the box.
2) I was going to write something up on Brendan Eich & Mozilla during that short lived shitstorm, but I am lazy and didn't get around to it. Suffice it to say that the dude supports some ignorant bullshit, and I am completely OK with people shitting on FireFox once he got the top spot at Mozilla.
Seriously. If the story had come out that Eich was against miscegenation, he would have been shown the door immediately. It's not OK to hate gay people. It is not OK to throw money at campaigns to deny them the same rights as other people. When you get caught doing stuff like this, then you really do deserve an awful response from the public.
3) Mozilla doubles down on stupid fucking ideas! Every time I see something pop up about Rust, I get a tiny hit of sweet, sweet schadenfreude. Write code is hard. Working on a large scale project is also hard.
Throwing away years of bug fixes is fantastically stupid. Not learning your god damned lessons the first time around is borderline retarded. There's a reason that Joel article is titled "Things you should never do". For a quick example, do this exercise: list all of the 1.0 versions of software that were awesome, bug free, and worked well out of the box.
I will helpfully provide the answer: that number is zero. More galling is the fact that those goofballs managed to lose the last browser war by doing this exact same thing. And now, they're going to use a new language to rewrite a chunk (or all) of their browser? Jesus christ.
4) Moar bitcoin suicides plz. People hanging themselves over fake internets money puts the biggest smile on my face.
2) I was going to write something up on Brendan Eich & Mozilla during that short lived shitstorm, but I am lazy and didn't get around to it. Suffice it to say that the dude supports some ignorant bullshit, and I am completely OK with people shitting on FireFox once he got the top spot at Mozilla.
Seriously. If the story had come out that Eich was against miscegenation, he would have been shown the door immediately. It's not OK to hate gay people. It is not OK to throw money at campaigns to deny them the same rights as other people. When you get caught doing stuff like this, then you really do deserve an awful response from the public.
3) Mozilla doubles down on stupid fucking ideas! Every time I see something pop up about Rust, I get a tiny hit of sweet, sweet schadenfreude. Write code is hard. Working on a large scale project is also hard.
Throwing away years of bug fixes is fantastically stupid. Not learning your god damned lessons the first time around is borderline retarded. There's a reason that Joel article is titled "Things you should never do". For a quick example, do this exercise: list all of the 1.0 versions of software that were awesome, bug free, and worked well out of the box.
I will helpfully provide the answer: that number is zero. More galling is the fact that those goofballs managed to lose the last browser war by doing this exact same thing. And now, they're going to use a new language to rewrite a chunk (or all) of their browser? Jesus christ.
4) Moar bitcoin suicides plz. People hanging themselves over fake internets money puts the biggest smile on my face.
Monday, April 28, 2014
I can't even get served at Taco Bell with this mask on!
I have been a Deadpool fan for a very, very long time. This is not news. I had original copies of the Circle Chase and the 4-part series with Siryn, Black Tom and Juggernaut. I literally danced when Chris Hastings got tapped to write for the series. Deadpool, for me, was one of the D-list characters I like so much in the Marvel universe, and seeing the surge of popularity around the character in the last decade was awesome.
When the movie died the last time, I was . . . not pleased.
Fox / Marvel, do not fuck with me about this one. I have been lied to before.
Are we getting a for reals Deadpool movie this time? If so:
When the movie died the last time, I was . . . not pleased.
Fox / Marvel, do not fuck with me about this one. I have been lied to before.
Are we getting a for reals Deadpool movie this time? If so:
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Adventures in product land
Part of my job is doing market research, and keeping up on developments in technology. A lot of that means reading dumb shit people have written about tech.
This delightful piece sets out to debunk a few common "myths" about technology, development, blah blah blah. Which is fine, as a concept.
Unfortunately, like goddamned near every article on software written by someone who don't know shit about development, it quickly goes off the rails.
"Myth" 1: The myth of the 10x software engineer. The article argues against "the claim of “10-fold differences in productivity and quality between different programmers with the same levels of experience."
This is a myth? Horseshit. There is absolutely this level of difference between someone who knows what the fuck they're doing and regular jackoffs. I have worked with people who did fantastically shitty work, to the point that everything they touched for weeks had to be thrown out rather than finished by someone competent. On occasion, I have been that jackoff, when fiddling around with a very poorly understood system.
Can code reviews and better methodology help with this? Absolutely.
Who is going to have to spend time mentoring the underperformers? The 10x developer who would otherwise being squashing bugs or gluing together a new feature. Now the codebase isn't getting shit all over it, but new stuff is happening at a much slower rate.
Being able to solve a problem, correctly, and implement that solution in a bug-free manner will save at least 10x the time as having a half-assed "solution" that doesn't work or takes another 3 weeks to debug.
"Myth" 2: "the “exponential defect cost curve,” that is: the claim that if it costs $1 to fix a bug during requirements, it will cost ten times as much to fix it in coding, a hundred times in testing, a thousand times if the software reaches production"
Jesus fuck. This entire concept is why we leave comments in the goddamned code. Shit you fix up front, when the code is fresh in your mind, is a thousand fucking times easier than trying to re-work what's going on in detail several weeks or months later. Every time you go back into the code to fix a sufficiently complicated widget, you run the risk of introducing new bugs. Also, you will piss off your customers if these bugs make it to production. That means they stop being your customers. That means you get to look for a new fucking job, you stupid bastard.
Unclear requirements lead to shitty decisions made that will influence future development. If things are fucked from the get-go, it is an order of magnitude more difficult to fix them later since you have to either
a) re-write everything
or
b) write the fix around the existing bullshit without breaking anything else
The hippies will lie and tell you that everyone is magical and special and equal at writing code. They are fucking liars. This is why Geocities sites looked like shit, and professional stuff does not.
Clearly defining what needs to be done before you get halfway through it saves an unbelievable amount of time. This is why you don't build half of a fucking house before you have blueprints for the other half.
This delightful piece sets out to debunk a few common "myths" about technology, development, blah blah blah. Which is fine, as a concept.
Unfortunately, like goddamned near every article on software written by someone who don't know shit about development, it quickly goes off the rails.
"Myth" 1: The myth of the 10x software engineer. The article argues against "the claim of “10-fold differences in productivity and quality between different programmers with the same levels of experience."
This is a myth? Horseshit. There is absolutely this level of difference between someone who knows what the fuck they're doing and regular jackoffs. I have worked with people who did fantastically shitty work, to the point that everything they touched for weeks had to be thrown out rather than finished by someone competent. On occasion, I have been that jackoff, when fiddling around with a very poorly understood system.
Can code reviews and better methodology help with this? Absolutely.
Who is going to have to spend time mentoring the underperformers? The 10x developer who would otherwise being squashing bugs or gluing together a new feature. Now the codebase isn't getting shit all over it, but new stuff is happening at a much slower rate.
Being able to solve a problem, correctly, and implement that solution in a bug-free manner will save at least 10x the time as having a half-assed "solution" that doesn't work or takes another 3 weeks to debug.
"Myth" 2: "the “exponential defect cost curve,” that is: the claim that if it costs $1 to fix a bug during requirements, it will cost ten times as much to fix it in coding, a hundred times in testing, a thousand times if the software reaches production"
Jesus fuck. This entire concept is why we leave comments in the goddamned code. Shit you fix up front, when the code is fresh in your mind, is a thousand fucking times easier than trying to re-work what's going on in detail several weeks or months later. Every time you go back into the code to fix a sufficiently complicated widget, you run the risk of introducing new bugs. Also, you will piss off your customers if these bugs make it to production. That means they stop being your customers. That means you get to look for a new fucking job, you stupid bastard.
Unclear requirements lead to shitty decisions made that will influence future development. If things are fucked from the get-go, it is an order of magnitude more difficult to fix them later since you have to either
a) re-write everything
or
b) write the fix around the existing bullshit without breaking anything else
The hippies will lie and tell you that everyone is magical and special and equal at writing code. They are fucking liars. This is why Geocities sites looked like shit, and professional stuff does not.
Clearly defining what needs to be done before you get halfway through it saves an unbelievable amount of time. This is why you don't build half of a fucking house before you have blueprints for the other half.
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